Privileged Logics: Interrogating Foundations and Practices in Research Ethics

A National Science Foundation-sponsored conference (Award Number 2316197) held in 2024 interrogated the disjuncture between the equity promises of higher education and the experienced payoffs with focused attention on research training in the STEM fields. There was a keynote address and three plenary workshop sessions on use of metrics to assess quality, on learning communities, and on research ethics training. This article summarizes the perspective developed among participants, which suggested that scientific quality is tacitly associated with important scientific values and practice whereas equity goals are not. The concept of privilege combined with the decentering practices discussed in the conference can denaturalize those assumptions and open spaces for change. In the absence of such work, privilege creates barriers for underrepresented groups and prevents them from fully participating in and contributing to STEM research. Keywords: Equity, Privilege, Research Training and Practice