FORRT Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship Lesson Bank | FORRT - Framework for Open and Reproducible Research Training

COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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Objectives:

understand cultural humility as an approach to diversity
define and discuss dimensions of diversity
understand privilege and intersectionality and reflect on own privilege using the wheel of privilege

Lesson incorporates content from chapter 8 “Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change” available online under the CCBY4.0 license.

Before you start:
What do you understand by diversity in science?
What controversies are presently discussed that relate to diversity and the field of psychology?

Focus on diversity in psychology can be traced back to the 1930s and Vygotsky, the pioneer of Sociocultural Approach

Activity 1 Respect for Diversity - Introduction

Read the introduction to diversity below and see if you can answer the questions below it.

Respect for diversity has been established as a core value for Community Psychology, as indicated in Chapter 1 (Jason et al., 2019). Appreciating diversity in communities includes understanding dimensions of diversity and how to work within diverse community contexts, but also includes a consideration of how to work within systems of inequality. Community psychologists must be mindful of diverse perspectives and experiences when conducting research and designing interventions, as well as working to combat oppression and promote justice and equality. By working within a framework of cultural humility, this chapter attempts to provide a basic understanding of the dimensions of diversity that are most common in Community Psychology research and practice. Further, we explore how these dimensions contribute to complex identities and considerations for community practice.

a. What do you know about Cultural Competence and Cultural Humility?

b. What dimensions of diversity can you think of?

c. There are some more terms and concepts related to the topic of diversity within communities. Can you explain and discuss these with another student or write down your ideas in points? - privilege - white privilege - intersectionality

Activity 2 Respect for Diversity: Jigsaw reading or poster

Now choose the task you prefer to get a better understanding of the concepts presented above. Both tasks will ask you to refer to the source introduced in the previous chapter. Read the instructions, decide on the task and click the button underneath the instructions to see the text.

JIGSAW READING (group activity)

a) In groups, decide who is going to focus on the points below while skimming through the text in order to summarise it to the rest of the group. Once you decide how to divide the sections, spend 10-15 minutes reading through the relevant parts and preparing to summarise the concepts to your students.

CREATING A MIND MAP OR A POSTER

b) Skim through the chapter and create a mind map or a poster with dimensions of diversity and quick explanations. Then add information about cultural humility, privilege and intersectionality. Share the results of your work with another student.

Cultural Humility
Culture, Race and Gender
Age, social class and sexual orientation
Ability / Disability and Religion & Spirituality
Privilege and intersectionality

Activity4 The Academic Wheel of Privilege

Reflect on how you see or identify yourself in relation to these dimensions. Which groups do you identify with? Have you heard the phrase “check your privilege”? Have you thought of intersectionality and privilege in relation to yourself? FORRT has developed a tool which allows everyone in academia to reflect on their privilege. Look at the video below, in which Bethan Iley, one of the members of FORRT explains the concept.

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Would you like to try the wheel?

For #DisabilityPrideMonth here's our new preprint on #Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship! We look at #ND, intersectionality, #SocialJustice & #UniversalDesign. Sharing lived experiences & solutions for more equitable inclusion of ND people in academia!
👉https://t.co/FcQoppTbvD pic.twitter.com/vhF0vxy4xI
— FORRT @FORRT@mastodon.social (@FORRTproject) July 14, 2022

The Academic Wheel of Privilege, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

How to use the wheel: Look at the dimensions of privilege on the outside of the circle and choose the option from the inner circle that describes your situation best. For every answer in the smallest circle (the closest to the middle of the wheel), give yourself 1 point, then 2 points for the option in a slightly bigger circle and finally 3 points of the option closest to the outside of the circle. Share your result with a friend or keep it to yourself. Do you think this tool is useful? Is it important to check our privilege? How can this make you more mindful of other’s experiences?

Reading:

(to be done before or after the lesson)

Jason, Leonard A.; Glantsman, Olya; O’Brien, Jack F.; and Ramian, Kaitlyn N., “Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change” (2019). College of Science and Health Full Text Publications. 1. https://via.library.depaul.edu/cshtextbooks/1

Flavio Azevedo, Sara Middleton, Jenny Mai Phan, Steven Kapp, Amélie Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, Bethan Iley, Mahmoud Elsherif, & John J. Shaw. Navigating Academia as Neurodivergent Researchers: Promoting Neurodiversity Within Open Scholarship. APS Observer October 2022

Elsherif, M. M., Middleton, S. L., Phan, J. M., Azevedo, F., Iley, B. J., Grose-Hodge, M., … Dokovova, M. (2022, June 20). Bridging Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship: How Shared Values Can Guide Best Practices for Research Integrity, Social Justice, and Principled Education.

DIVERSITY IN RESEARCH AND OPEN SCIENCE

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Understand that research needs to acknowledge the implications of power dynamics
Reflect on the importance of participatory research and cultural humility in relation to diversity in science
Understand how Open Scholarship promotes diversity in research

Activity 1

You have discussed diversity in your previous class. Can you remember what the terms CULTURAL COMPETENCE and CULTURAL HUMILITY mean? Read the text below and explain the idea of PARTICIPATORY ACTION RESEARCH. How is it connected to cultural competence and humility?

Adopting cultural humility is necessary for considering diversity in research. In research, it is important to consider how questions are asked or which samples are included in a study. In addition, the importance of topics of research to diverse communities must be considered, which may require developing research topics and questions with the populations that are being impacted. Participatory action research is a valuable tool for developing topics in an inclusive way and is a method frequently used by community psychologists to find solutions in the social environment (Kidd & Kral, 2005).

Research must also consider the power dynamics between the researcher and the community as well as the dynamics within the community. The use of culturally-anchored methodologies is important for exploring research questions in the appropriate context. Marginalized groups are often compared to a majority group, but these comparisons may not always acknowledge the implications of power dynamics present in such comparisons. When developing the methodology, it is important for the researcher to acknowledge one’s own cultural assumptions, experiences, and positions of power. Recognition of these aspects of self will lead to a more careful framing of the research question within context. Finally, it is important to consider where to disseminate research findings to reach wide audiences.

Source: Jason, Leonard A.; Glantsman, Olya; O’Brien, Jack F.; and Ramian, Kaitlyn N., “Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change” (2019). https://via.library.depaul.edu/cshtextbooks/1

Activity 2

How much do you know about Open Science and its values? Watch a presentation on Open Science by Sam Parsons (FORRT). How is Open science connected to diversity?

Watch the presentation here

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Activity 3

Take this quiz to check what you have learnt on diversity and research.

Extra reading:

IMPLICIT BIAS AND NORMATIVE SCIENCE

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

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Deficit approaches to left-handedness and neurodivergence in scientific papers
Focus on critical reading skills

Objectives:

to recognise implicit bias in academic texts
to reflect on normative science and its impact
to discuss how OS values and participatory research could promote discussions on epistemological bias and influence existing narratives.

Click to see reading list

Before you start:

Are you or do you know anyone who is left-handed? What attitudes to left-handedness were there in the past?
Are you familiar with the neurodiversity paradigm?
What is a neurotype?

Did you know that the word "sinister" comes from Latin "left"? This is likely caused by the dominance of right-handedness in human population and bias against the left-handed minority in the past.

Activity 1 Critical reading - identifying implicit bias

Look below at fragments of this article published in The North American Review in 1903, which discusses left-handedness. What can you say about the beliefs the author held about the following groups of people:

men /women / white people / people of races other than white / children / left-handed individuals / individuals suffering from mental health problems / individuals with criminal record?

TIP: click on the question marks on both sides of the text to see hints or click on the button above to see the activity in full screen.

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Click on the button below to see statements about the text. Are they true or false? Click on each statement to reveal the answer.

Participatory research

Do you think anyone left-handed, non-white or female has been involved in the production of Lambroso’s paper or the design of the researcher’s studies?

Do you think this paper would be well-received today?

If you have a moment, research the history of a condition that was referred to by doctors and scientists as "female hysteria". Raulin, a French physician who studied "the condition" claimed that while it is not impossible for a man to contract hysteria, it is mainly women who suffer from it because of their "lazy and irritable nature".

What are the dangers of conducting research into communities, cultures, or groups of people that we do not identify with?

Can you think of claims that have been made about different groups of people based on conclusions from studies that did not involve members of the researched communities in the design of the studies? Can you think of reasons why science might pathologe minorities? Think about group psychology - ingroup/outgroup effect (Billig & Tajfel, 1973), and social identity theory (Tajfel 1979) or categorising the world into “them” and “us”.

Participatory research (PR) encompasses research designs, methods, and frameworks that use systematic inquiry in direct collaboration with those affected by an issue being studied for the purpose of action or change (Vaughn and Jacquez, 2020).

How can focusing on participatory research contribute to social justice within the Open Scholarship framework?

Activity2 Deficit approaches and pathologising minorities

In the 70s, Bakan and colleagues have published a number of highly influential articles that pathologised left handedness. Their claims, which were later revoked (e.g., Bishop, 1990), included that left handedness results from birth trauma and a minor brain damage. Below are some of their papers that discussed the ideas. Discuss how implicit bias may influence methods that are applied by scientists and how this could skew results.

Bakan P (1971) Handedness and Birth Order. Nature 229(195). https://doi.org/10.1038/229195a0
Bakan P (1975) Are left-handers brain damaged? New Scientist 67(1): 200–202.
Bakan P, Dibb G, Reed P (1973) Handedness and birth stress. Neuropsychologia 11(3): 363–366.

What effect, do you think, this had on the public perceptions of left handedness in the 70s and 80s? And what impact did it have on the population? And the progress of research in the area?

Can you think of other areas where implicit bias perpetuated in language (has) had a detrimental impact on public perceptions? What groups of people might have been affected?

Activity 3 Neurodiversity paradigm: definition and introduction

Click on the link below, which will open the following publication: Azevedo, F., Middleton, S., Mai Phan, J., Kapp, S. K., Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, A., Iley, B., Elsherif, M. M., & Shaw, J. J. (2022). Navigating academia as neurodivergent researchers: promoting neurodiversity within open scholarship. Observer. Find a definition of neurodiversity and neurodivergence, then look at the tweet below and the following questions.

Can you explain what neurodiversity is in your own words?

What is the difference between neurodiversity and neurodivergence?

What does it mean that an individual is neurodivergent?

Look at the wheel from the group’s Twitter thread and either discuss it in pairs or take time to familiarise yourself with it on your own. Are you included in the wheel?

Are non-neurotypical brains presented as deficient in the article and the tweet? In other words, does the framing pathologise neurodivergence?

Skim through the article and find a definition of neurodiversity

#Neurodiversity includes neurotypical & neurodivergent people. A person is neurodivergent when their neurology diverges from the neurological majority. Examples of neurodivergence: dyslexia, dyspraxia, OCD/C, personality disorders/conditions, autism, ADHD/C, Tourette's and tics. pic.twitter.com/swgenhJ4i1
— FORRT @FORRT@mastodon.social (@FORRTproject) July 14, 2022

Based on Figure 1 in Elsherif et al. (2022), Bridging Neurodiversity and Open Scholarship, CC BY 4.0.

Activity 4 Neurodiversity paradigm: spotting biased language

Now choose one of the two articles below and skim the abstract and intro. Discuss or reflect on the questions below.

Article 1:

Zwaigenbaum, L., & Penner, M. (2018). Autism spectrum disorder: advances in diagnosis and evaluation. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 361. [https://doi.org/10.20883/jofa.36)

Article 2:

Faras, H., Al Ateeqi, N., & Tidmarsh, L. (2010). Autism spectrum disorders. Annals of Saudi medicine, 30(4), 295–300. https://doi.org/10.4103/0256-4947.65261

How is neurodivergence viewed by the authors? How do the authors see individuals with neurotypes other than neurotypical?

Are neurotypical and neurodivergent populations perceived equally by the authors or is one of the groups given as a model and the other compared to it by looking at their deficits?

Can you see any examples of pathologising language? Underline fragments that suggest that neurodivergent brains are deficient rather than different.

Activity 5 Ableist Language in scientific publications

Look at some examples of language taken from these and other articles published in the last 20 years in influential journals and discuss the language use. Can you identify the implicit bias? What does it suggest about the perception of different neurotypes held by the authors?

Instructions: drag and drop the fields to match the language found in papers (orange pin) and the corresponding comment (blue pin). Once you find a pair, put the fields side by side. Once you complete the task, check by clicking the icon in the bottom right corner. For full screen view, click on the square in the top right corner.

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What is the assumed norm that autistic individuals are often measured against? Is this explicitly stated?
Norms are developed based on observations gathered through research. Where is most research conducted? Which populations is it mainly conducted on? Which groups may be underrepresented or purposefully excluded from studies? How does this affect norms?
Normative science is pervasive in many fields. Pay attention to assumed standards and implicit bias in articles you read. How can we become more aware of our own biases?
Is it possible for early researchers avoid unquestioned acceptance of paradigms, terminology and methods?

Post your reflection below.

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Reading:

(to be done before or after the lesson)

Bottema-Beutel, K., Kapp, S. K., Lester, J. N., Sasson, N. J., & Hand, B. N. (2021). Avoiding Ableist Language: Suggestions for Autism Researchers. Autism in adulthood : challenges and management, 3(1), 18–29. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2020.0014

OPPRESSION AND POWER

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Objectives:

to reflect on critical gender and neurodiversity theories
to read academic texts critically and synthesise information
to discuss issues related to gender and neuroptype discrimination

Introduction and background reading

We strongly recommend reading chapter 9 on Oppression from the source below before engaging with this lesson.

Jason, Leonard A.; Glantsman, Olya; O’Brien, Jack F.; and Ramian, Kaitlyn N., “Introduction to Community Psychology: Becoming an Agent of Change” (2019). College of Science and Health Full Text Publications. 1. https://via.library.depaul.edu/cshtextbooks/1

Read “Oppression and Power” on Rebus Press

Activity 1

Read and discuss the following citations:

1. Psychology of oppression reveals that oppression is not always perceptible and repellant. It can be disguised and beguiling. People do not always know they are oppressed. Sometimes they have to be educated about their oppression. The reason is that oppression stunts people’s critical, rational, analytical, and probing capabilities. Normative oppression also becomes taken for granted and mundane and therefore imperceptible (Ratner, 2014).

2. People cannot reject the system of domination without rejecting [part of] themselves, their own repressive instinctual needs and values (Marcuse, 1969, p. 17).

Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency Lorde 2 become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of difference strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters (Lorde, 1984).

Activity 2

Now read the short essay written by Audre Lorde in 1984. What does she mean when she says that the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house?

Lorde, Audre. “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” 1984. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Ed. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. 110-114. 2007. Print.

You can listen to the essay here:

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How do you understand these words? What do you think about them?

Activity 3

Now read Nick Walker’s essay titled “Throw away the master’s tools: Liberating ourselves from the pathology paradigm.” What is he advocating for? What alternative to the pathology paradigm does he propose? Can you explain the difference and summarise his arguments?

https://neuroqueer.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools/

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What do these texts have in common? What do Critical gender Theory, Critical Race Theory and Critical Neurodiversity Theory have in common?

Ratner, C. (2014). Psychology of Oppression. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_571

The Generalizability Crisis

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Duration: 60 minutes

Learning Objectives:

Understand the concept of generalizability in research
Recognize the factors that contribute to the generalizability crisis
Discuss the implications of the generalizability crisis in various fields

Introduction

What is the generalizability crisis?
What factors contribute to it?

Activity 1

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Activity 2 - Case studies

Discuss problems relating to design that you can identify in the following case studies.

A study examining the efficacy of a new heart medication conducted in a sample of primarily young, healthy individuals, with little representation from older adults and those with pre-existing heart conditions.

A study investigating the prevalence of depression in college students, conducted at a single university with a predominantly white student population, and with little representation from students of other races and ethnicities.

A study examining the effectiveness of a new cancer treatment conducted in a single hospital in a major metropolitan area, with little representation from patients living in rural or suburban areas.

A study examining the effects of a new teaching method on student achievement conducted in a single school with a homogeneous student population, and with little consideration given to cultural or linguistic differences.

A study investigating the effectiveness of a new therapy for anxiety conducted using only self-reported measures of anxiety, with no consideration given to other potential outcomes or measures.

A study examining the prevalence of a particular health condition conducted in a single survey administered to participants over the course of a single day, with no follow-up or longitudinal data collected.

A study examining the efficacy of a new mental health intervention that showed significant improvements in a single clinical trial, but was not replicated in subsequent trials or in real-world clinical settings.

Activity 3 - Implications

Reflecting on the case studies and research that you are familiar with - what could be some implications of these design flaws?

Now look at some specific examples. Can you add anything else?

Here are some specific examples of problems caused by the generalizability crisis. Match them to the titles:

Some groups might be disadvantaged regarding depression treatment
Lack of representation of diverse populations in clinical trials
Some groups overlooked in genetic research
Inaccurate treatment recommendations for women
Black skin conditions not as easy to treat

Some studies on dermatological conditions have found that certain treatments may not be as effective for black patients due to differences in skin biology. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology found that black patients with acne may have more resistant and inflammatory acne than white patients, which may require different treatment approaches.
Many clinical trials have historically excluded certain populations, such as women, racial and ethnic minorities, and older adults. This can limit our understanding of how certain treatments or interventions work in these populations. For example, a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that cancer clinical trials often underrepresent racial and ethnic minorities, which can limit our understanding of the effectiveness of cancer treatments in these populations.
Many studies on cardiovascular disease have historically focused on men, which can lead to inaccurate treatment recommendations for women. For example, a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that women are less likely than men to receive evidence-based treatments for heart attacks, which can result in worse outcomes.
Some genetic research has been criticized for being too focused on populations of European ancestry, which can limit our understanding of genetic diversity and disease risk in other populations. For example, a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics found that many genetic studies have underrepresented or excluded African populations, which can limit our understanding of genetic diversity and disease risk in these populations.
Some mental health studies have focused on populations from Western cultures, which can limit our understanding of mental health in other cultures. For example, a study published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology found that many measures of depression and anxiety may not be appropriate for use in non-Western cultures, which can limit our understanding of mental health in these populations.

Activity 4 - Strategies to address the problem

Look back at the case studies and discuss / reflect on how these flaws could be addressed. Brainstorm how the problem can be mitigated in your field.