STS Postures: responsible innovation and research in undergraduate STEM education

ABSTRACT

We argue combining STS Postures, positioning one’s body to be humble, open, critical, and action-oriented, with the responsible innovation and research framework (RRI) could help educators effectively translate Science and Technology Studies (STS) for undergraduate STEM students. While important efforts to intervene in undergraduate STEM education exist, integrating socio-technical systems thinking remains a challenge. STS Postures enables a more skill-driven, action-oriented approach to STS, which helps students make the abstract concepts of RRI and STS theory more concrete. This approach is activated by STS Thinker Skills: skills, as well as mindsets and behaviors that inspire students to be reflexive systems thinkers and equip them to be change agents within their chosen fields. We provide an example of what curriculum like this might look like from our work within a Science, Technology and Society program for undergraduate STEM majors.

KEYWORDS:

• STS Postures
• STS pedagogy
• material participation
• systems thinking
• STS skills

We can live in a different way. (John Schumacher 1989, 15)

STS Postures in STEM contexts

We are experimenting with STS Postures to prepare undergraduates STEM majors for post-normal science. If post-normal science means that complex problems – COVID-19 pandemic, racial inequities, the crisis in democracy, and climate change – require an STS-informed, systems thinking approach involving broader public participation, transparency, and accountability (Ravetz 2020), then STEM majors have to be trained to practice it (i.e. take STS Postures). The responsible research and innovation (RRI) framework, which embraces anticipatory thinking, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness, is a useful rubric for practicing post-normal science (Genus and Stirling 2018). Translating this abstract rubric for undergraduate STEM majors, however, is a challenge. We argue that changing postures can orient undergraduate STEM-major bodies and minds in ways that prepare them to understand STS theory and the RRI framework. In this article, we articulate our method, STS Thinker Skills, for activating STS Postures. STS Thinker Skills represent a translation of STS theory and RRI in ways that encourage postures of active, critical engagement with the taken-for-granted objects, publics, and institutions of science and technology.

STS Thinker Skills involves holding a reflexive posture that orients the body toward humility, openness, criticality, and action. A posture is something you do with your body. Do this now: raise your hands overhead in celebration. Now, put your hands on your hips as if you’re deeply concerned. Those are two distinct postures we might take towards technoscience, with the former (celebratory) a lot more common in STEM settings than the latter (concern) (Riley 2008). John Schumacher (1989) used human postures as a body-based understanding of knowledge production, calling into question our traditional mind-based approach of knowing and reflecting on science and technology. As illustrated through the example above, people’s body positions determine their critical orientation toward knowledge production. Throwing our hands up in the air makes us think about technology differently than holding our hands on our hips.

Postures also signify a relationship between power and knowledge. How one holds oneself emanates their position in the world. For example, a teacher delivering content from the ‘front’ of the classroom communicates a different posture towards power than a teacher who asks their students to identify the front and back of the classroom and ruminate on what that means about knowledge production. Likewise, STEM majors come to inhabit a passive role when it comes to shaping technoscientific futures, and are subtly taught that technical considerations are more important than social considerations (Cech 2013). This embodied attitude can lead to STEM professionals physically separating themselves from society rather than mingling with the masses, which manifests itself in the classic expert/lay divide (Irwin 1995; Wynne 1996). STS Thinker Skills attempt to counter such positioning, enacting postures such as putting our hands on our hips (criticality), pausing before we act (humility), moving our bodies toward others (openness), and standing up when we know something is wrong (action).

These postures are embodied in STS Thinker Skills, tools we use to explore new orientations toward science and technology (Mogul and Tomblin 2019). It’s been a way of cultivating skills, mindsets and behaviors that inspire participation as citizens in everyday material practice (Marres 2012). Engaging STEM culture, objects, and ideas as actively political (e.g. structure of classrooms, lab equipment, prototypes, campus infrastructure, departmental culture, etc.) opens up and destabilizes toxic cultural norms in STEM, such as technical narrowness and societal disengagement. When we put our bodies in positions that orient us toward humility, openness, criticality, and action, we create opportunities for students to identify not only power asymmetries and injustices of existing systems but also points of intervention (Dumit 2014). In these opportunities, students are freed to imagine new technologies and solutions that transcend instrumental thinking and addresses problems of human well-being (Nussbaum 2007).

Why become an STS Thinker?

In the United States, most STEM majors can leave their university unaware of any tools, such as systems thinking or technology assessment, for unpacking the broader social implications of science and technology. If they have had any chance to consider macro-ethical issues (or a systems level view of science and technology’s relationship with society, Herkert 2005), this has probably happened in isolation – either in elective courses or, at best, in stand-apart modules within technical courses (Catalano 2006; Nieusma 2013). Mounting scholarship suggests that not attending to macro-ethical concerns in STEM curricula unintentionally encourages a ‘culture of disengagement’ among many STEM students (Cech 2014) and discourages students motivated by humanitarian concerns who tend to be historically underrepresented groups in STEM (e.g. women, students of color, LGBTQIA, indigenous people, and low-income) (Bielefeldt 2017; Rulifson and Bielefeldt 2017). At the root of this issue is STEM curricula and culture that reinforces technical-social dualism (Serron and Silbey 2009). The socio-technical divide privileges technical knowledge over potential social concerns about science and technology and reinforces instrumental thinking, which narrowly construes social relationships with technology in terms of efficiency and productivity outcomes (Nieusma 2015).

This issue has led to a growing area of scholarship that attends to the challenges of integrating socio-technical systems thinking into STEM curricula (Newberry 2004; Bielby et al. 2011; Wiek, Withycombe, and Redman 2011; Bielefeldt et al. 2016; Neeley, Wylie, and Seabrook 2019). Within STEM educational culture, technical narrowness, the myth of objectivity, uncritical respect for authority, meritocracy, and the predominance of military and corporate influence in STEM culture are primary obstacles to integrating socio-technical systems thinking into technical courses (Riley 2008; Cech 2013). Technical narrowness drives the focus on the technical at the expense of exploring its connection to societal needs and concerns. A narrow definition of objectivity that privileges Western ways of thinking obscures the socio-political content of science and the value-laden nature of design (Harding 1998). Depoliticization renders STEM a politically neutral activity that discourages thinking about social responsibility on a macro-ethical level (Cech 2013). Uncritical respect for authority leads to STEM professionals not questioning the motivations and goals of their employers. The centrality of military and corporate organizations in STEM education monopolizes STEM student’s creativity and opportunities to explore alternative career paths that might attend to social justice issues or other pressing problems (Leydens and Lucena 2018). Additionally, as Cech (2013) argues, depoliticization of engineering and the emphasis on meritocratic advancement are ideologies of engineering that create barriers to student engagement with social issues: depoliticization renders engineering a politically neutral activity that discourages thinking about social responsibility on a macro-ethical level; and meritocracy gives advantages to already privileged students who have likely had superior educational experiences than less privileged students.

Beyond the structural and cultural barriers to integrating socio-technical systems thinking into U.S. STEM education are practical concerns. Like professional ice-skating, translating STS theory into forms consumable by undergraduate STEM majors is much harder than it looks – at least for us (e.g. Collins and Pinch 1993; Kleinmann 2005; Jasanoff 2016). We have tried multiple approaches, such as dumbing it down (assigning videos, articles or pictures instead of STS authors) as well as hiding the vegetables in the dessert (layering critique with examples of exciting emerging technology). While these strategies may have some value, they accomplish little to develop an STS-identity among STEM majors, and may even undermine that goal. What we have found promising, however, are efforts that focus on active experiential learning (York 2018), theater-based techniques (Downey 2008; DiBasio, Quinn, and Boudreau 2017; Halfon et al. 2020), and developing practitioner skills/tools (Grant and Lambert 2016). Towards this end, a growing number of experimental programs in the USA are putting into action practical applications of STS theory (Nieusma 2015; Downey and Zuiderent-Jerak 2017; Cohen, Lawrence, and Armstrong 2018; York and Conley 2019) and social justice (Riley 2013; Bielefeldt et al. 2017; Leydens and Lucena 2018). Activating STS postures through STS Thinker Skills is our contribution to these efforts.

RRI and STS Postures

What many of these programs have in common is encouraging students to shift their posture toward science and technology from one of hubris to one of humility – they ask students to go beyond the technical, question authority, re-examine taken-for-granted knowledge and traditions, observe social inequities in STEM education, and embrace uncertainty. The RRI framework ties these efforts together. As defined by Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten (2013, 1569): ‘Responsible innovation means taking care of the future through collective stewardship of science and innovation in the present’. Its focus on anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness captures the spirit of these ongoing efforts. Infusing democratic principles into undergraduate education is an opportunity to reshape how STEM is taught and the posture of STEM majors toward science and technology. This requires that we challenge the pedagogy that make STEM education inherently anti-democratic and produces inequities, including rigid, rigorous 4-year plans, majors that deemphasize the humanities and social sciences, the culture of depoliticization of science and technology in STEM departments, few job options other than the military industrial complex to name a few (Riley 2013; Cech 2014).

In the course of teaching STS Thinker Skills, we model and ask students to practice four postures that align with RRI: humility, openness, criticality, and action (Table 1). Anticipation makes a focus on technical narrowness untenable and acknowledges inherent uncertainty in the development of science and technology. We know complex social, cultural, political and environmental issues will emerge, but don’t know in what form or to what extent. A humble posture that explores contingency and alternative pathways helps students let go of the notion that they have complete control over technoscientific creation, fostering a greater sense of accountability and responsibility toward emerging science and technology (Genus and Stirling 2018). Inclusion reminds us that science and technology entangle a diverse set of stakeholders and publics with a variety of hopes and concerns, many of which conflict. These complex relationships have historically been minimized to privilege an accelerated pace of innovation at the cost of ignoring potential negative consequences to marginalized voices. An open posture that includes diverse voices in STEM activities creates spaces for historically marginalized people (women, minorities, LBGTQ+, lower-income) to express concerns that have long been ignored (e.g. gender/racially sensitive design) (Williams and Woodson 2019). Reflexivity draws critical attention to personal and institutional commitments, values, and assumptions (Schuurbiers 2011). A critical posture questions authority and the status quo. Responsiveness brings our attention to the norms and social structures of institutions that are difficult to challenge, taking the step to examine how we can change these norms (Genus and Iskandarov 2018). It asks students to shift from a passive posture to an action-oriented posture within institutionally recalcitrant contexts.

Table 1. Aligning RRI and STS Postures for STEM students. Postures are in parentheses.

Anticipation (Humility) – What STS tools can be used to go beyond technical narrowness of STEM education and embrace reflexive, critical systems thinking? What are the alternative ways of knowing and pathways for society?

Inclusion (Openness) – How can STS cultivate social justice mindsets among STEM students who are yearning for this and may leave STEM in search of it?

Reflexivity (Criticality) – How do we encourage students to become reflexive, empathetic data collectors who ask relevant STS questions of their work?

Responsiveness (Action) – How do we create agents of change that explore alternative pathways for science and technology?

STS Thinker Skills activate STS Postures for STEM majors. Most STEM majors are passive producers of knowledge and technology that don’t see (or challenge) how the social structure of STEM departments (and society) renders them passive agents of the status quo (depoliticization, meritocracy, production of technology for profit, for military industrial university complex, etc.). STS Postures re-orient students to see this social structure and provide ways they can become activist-oriented STEM students – those that can imagine new technologies and solutions that transcend instrumental thinking and focus on human well-being (Nussbaum 2007; Nieusma 2015). It can also help make distant, abstract problems (climate change, racial inequity, globalization, democracy) more local, concrete, and integrated into systems thinking. They might start posing the questions, ‘Why am I [a STEM major]? For whose benefit do I work? What is the full measure of my moral and social responsibility?’ (Karwat 2020, 1329).

STS Thinker Skills

We use ethnographic data collection techniques and analysis to activate STS Postures, which facilitates the translation of STS theory and the RRI framework into practical skills and mindsets; specifically, document analysis, interviews, natural observation, participant observation, focus groups, visual image analysis, narrative analysis, and metaphor analysis. These skills help students develop systems thinking competencies (Neeley 2011; Wiek, Withycombe, and Redman 2011) by (1) looking for ethics in artifacts; (2) listening contextually; (3) making meaning; (4) seeking stories about science and technology’s past, present, and future; (5) locating power in systems; (6) asking STS questions; and (7) hosting STS parties. These skills have multiple links to STS theory (Figure 1). For example, making meaning encourages students to frame analyses of data through the lens of interpretive flexibility (Bijker 2001). Socio-technical imaginaries is one tool students might employ while seeking stories about science and technology (Jasanoff and Kim 2015). STS parties refer to performative events/spaces that center marginalized voices and local knowledge, build trust, and de-center technocratic thinking, expertise, and positivism (Jasanoff 2003).

Figure 1. Conceptual connection of STS Thinker Skills to STS theory and data collection techniques.

Other connections to STS theory can be articulated through ways that STS Thinker Skills reinforce the four dimensions of RRI (Table 2). For instance, looking for ethics in artifacts emphasizes the importance of anticipation. Students are asked to look for the politics of artifacts and how different stakeholders interpret the same artifact (Marres 2012; Dumit 2014), which encourages them to envision multiple potential pathways of an existing artifact or one in the making. Listening contextually embodies inclusion – the democratization of science and technology (Scolve 1995) – as students practice learning from diverse publics and stakeholders when attempting to define a problem or understand an existing socio-political issue. Students locating power in systems anticipate the situated nature of knowledge that leads to differential power among stakeholders to act in science and technology decision-making (Haraway 1991). Asking STS questions embodies a reflexive standpoint where students use all the other STS Thinker Skills to identify relationships among stakeholders, artifacts, and social activities (interactions that organize stakeholders and artifacts into meaningful relationships, e.g. organizational processes, social movements, everyday experiences) related to the development, implementation, and use of science and technology within a system (Neeley 2011). Understanding these relationships leads to identifying important social issues within systems worth deeper investigation. Ultimately invoking all four RRI dimensions, students become comfortable hosting STS parties, a culmination of applying STS Thinker Skills to organize a public deliberation about an STS issue (Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013).

Table 2. Becoming an STS Thinker: a set of seven ‘systems thinking’ skills used to understand the practice and application of science and technology from multiple perspectives and links to the dimensions of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). While links to all four dimensions of RRI can be found for each systems thinking skill, we only emphasize the most salient for each skill.

Systems Thinking Skill	Definition	Link to Dimension of RRI
Looking for Ethics in Artifacts	Requires an ability to see how the same thing (a product, material, artifact, etc.) can have different impacts on different people, or be interpreted differently by different people. This skill is enhanced when we learn to pay acute attention to all our senses	Anticipation – interpretive flexibility of artifacts encourages exploration of multiple pathways for S&T
Listening Contextually	Requires one to be fully present and empathetic with whatever is being listened to, whether that be a person, a product, system or something else. When someone is listening contextually they realize a deeper level of connection to who and what is being listened to	Inclusion – participation of diverse voices in problem definition and problem solving
Making Meaning	Requires the meta-cognitive work of paying attention not only to what someone is saying, but also to what it means to that person, and also your own interpretation of it. This allows one to call into question their own assumptions and interpretations, and then use curiosity to test the validity of their own assumptions and try out new ways of framing data for new understandings	Reflexivity – creates space for opening up dilemmas about S&T, accepting the inevitability of ignorance and fallibility in human pursuits of S&T
Seeking Stories About Science and Technology’s Past Present and Future	Requires us to ask: how did we get here? What socio-political conditions helped or hindered its development? What are the different socio-technical imaginaries and how do they motivate people to pursue lines of inquiry and create things that cause change? How do stories influence decision-making?	Reflexivity – encourages an institutional level examination of decision-making and how narratives create path dependency
Locating Power in Systems	Requires understanding the situated nature of knowledge and putting science, technology and engineering into institutional perspectives. This means tracing facts and artifacts as they journey around university systems, corporate research and development, local, state and federal legislatures, international treaties, and global economies	Anticipation – helps identify social structures that inhibit just development of S&T
Asking STS Questions	Requires embodying systems thinking skills in everyday life. It is a posture of humility toward science and technology where one constantly questions prior personal and institutional commitments to ensure the socially just development of S&T	Responsiveness – assuming this posture in technical courses, internships and careers to critically identify issues and become responsible change agents
Hosting STS Parties	These are designed immersive situations – deliberations, theater, and skits – in which people look at science and technology from fresh perspectives. It requires one who is capable of making people comfortable expressing their views and asking new questions, especially peers, coworkers, and institutional leaders	Inclusion and Responsiveness – an active commitment to bring others into critical conversations about S&T

One way we bring all of these skills and data collection techniques together is through socio-technical systems mapping exercises that synthesize a variety of STS analytical concepts (Dumit 2014). Students create maps centered on a broad topic (e.g. light pollution, developing vaccines, medical supply distribution, COVID-19 safety protocols) that identify relationships among artifacts, stakeholders, and social activities as a way of generating STS questions (Neeley 2011). To build these maps, students collect ethnographic data in a variety of ways (Figure 1). For example, in one course, students map specific aspects of campus infrastructure, a taken-for-granted feature of their daily experiences that they don’t realize they have agency to act on. The goal is to change this passive posture to one that is critical and action-oriented, but open to understanding the system from other perspectives. By discovering issues and learning who to engage to get something done, their own agency comes into focus. For example, one student chose to explore how campus building space is allocated. This student was energized to learn how others feel about space usage in buildings and whether campus building arrangement facilitates student life. They collected data using what we call a ‘pop-up’ interview – setting up in a high-foot traffic area to ask people one question. In this case, the question was ‘what does building space mean to you?’ The student was able to identify what people care about and assess different ways people viewed the use of space around campus, i.e. finding ethics in artifacts and making meaning. In some cases, the student learned about ethical grievances that users had toward space allocation in buildings around campus (e.g. the low number of study spaces). This data collection technique, along with others, helped this student construct a dense map of stakeholders, artifacts, and activities that generated a number of questions. This student was later motivated to explore decision-making around space allocation on campus, and for the final project, hosted a deliberation in which guest students crafted their own campus map by setting their own priorities for space allocation.

Changing postures

Our hope beyond hope is that we launch students into STEM classrooms, internships and careers who will embody STS Postures and carry STS Thinker Skills with them; That we will have given them tools of disruption for responsibly interrogating their interactions with science and technology. Yet the challenge of integrating socio-technical systems thinking into STEM education is humbling. STS Thinker Skills are an offering – one possibility for translating STS theory and RRI into action for STEM students. This possibility doesn’t address the structural barrier of offering socio-technical systems thinking to all students. This will take a much larger effort. Those of us working to intervene and innovate STEM education need to collaborate with each other as well as enroll and support others in this effort – take inspiration from the interventionist-oriented branch of STS (Woodhouse et al. 2002; Martin 2016; Downey and Zuiderent-Jerak 2017). We need regular dedicated opportunities for STS educators and allies to center this effort and work together on the problem of STEM education. Emily York and Shannon Conley at James Madison University are planning an ‘STS as Critical Pedagogy Workshop’ for summer 2021. The ‘Making and Doing’ sessions and STS Innovations exhibit at the annual Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) meetings have featured pedagogical innovations. On top of building a network, a curated clearing house for shared resources is essential. The development of an STS textbook that focuses on translating STS theory into skills, mindsets, and behaviors could lead to more STS curricula in STEM spaces. While critical reflection is an important aspect of STS theory, a textbook should help educators imagine how they will create opportunities for shifting postures toward material participation (Marres 2012).

In the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement, STEM departments are reexamining their social responsibility to society and people of color. COVID-19 has emerged as a nature/culture object that has made explicit for everyone, not just the marginalized, the trauma of racial inequity, globalization, climate change, economic turmoil, and the erosion of democracy. Its emergence makes imperative the social responsibility of STS to help STEM majors reflect on their posture toward science, technology and society – to graduate STEM majors with the skills, mindsets, and behaviors that embody humility, openness, criticality, and action.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the members of the Engineering Education Research Group and the Academy of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (AIE) for the inspirational, emotional, and intellectual support to make this work happen. In particular, we would like to thank Menu Singh, Mira Azarm, and Erica Estrada-Liou from AIE for helping us craft the STS Thinker Skills.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

David Tomblin is the director of the College Park Scholars Science, Technology and Society program and a senior lecturer with an appointment in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. He has served in this capacity since 2013 and has taught at the University of Maryland since 2009. He is a distinguished fearless faculty fellow with the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a member of the Engineering Education Research Group at the University of Maryland.

Nicole Mogul is the assistant director of the College Park Scholars Science, Technology and Society program and a senior lecturer with appointment in the A. James Clark School of Engineering. She has been teaching the STS capstone and the ‘Future of Science Communication’ for STS and a course on engineering ethics for the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering since 2013. She is a distinguished fearless faculty fellow with the Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a member of the Engineering Education Research Group at the University of Maryland.