The Social Science of Institutional Transformation: Intersectional Change in the Academy

Abstract

This article examines intersectional praxis as an approach to institutional transformation, arguing that intersectionality is both a catalyst for and outcome of gender equity efforts in the social sciences and other academic STEM fields. As such, approaching gender equity intersectionally can be understood as a way that theory and practice are co-constitutive in social science and hence an important aspect of transforming academic institutions. Through a case study of the US National Science Foundation (NSF) ADVANCE program for gender equity in STEM, I look at the development of ADVANCE from an effort to support women in scientific fields to becoming a program for institutional transformation grounded in an intersectional understanding of women's inequity in the academic labor force. I ask two related questions in the efforts to address gender inequities in STEM. First, what is the relationship between academic institutions (which are simultaneously sites for the discovery of knowledge and gender inequality) and the National Science foundation, as the premier American academic institutional funding agency? Second, how has this relationship, through those working on ADVANCE, fundamentally shifted the understanding of the social scientific tools and strategies necessary to advance equity for women in academia? In looking at these questions, I argue that, beyond women's representation in social sciences and academia broadly, intersectionality is an important scholarly advance in social science that offers a dialectical tool for change.