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Friday, March 18, 2022

'Whiteness’ In Introductory To Physics Classes

 


In light of a possible world war in which the US needs to have the best science to insure our stockpile it is in good shape
it is very reassuring to know what kind of top research in being published by the American Physical Society.

https://theparadise.ng/seattle-based-researchers-publish-study-on-whiteness-in-introductory-to-physics-classes/

Observing whiteness in introductory physics: A case study

Amy D. Robertson and W. Tali Hairston
Phys. Rev. Phys. Educ. Res. 18, 010119 – Published 11 March 2022

Within whiteness, the organization of social life is in terms of a center and margins that are based on dominance, control, and a transcendent figure that is consistently and structurally ascribed value over and above other figures. In this paper, we synthesize literature from Critical Whiteness Studies and Critical Race Theory to articulate analytic markers for whiteness, and use the markers to identify and analyze whiteness as it shows up in an introductory physics classroom interaction. We name mechanisms that facilitate the reproduction of whiteness in this local context, including a particular representation of energy, physics values, whiteboards, gendered social norms, and the structure of schooling. In naming whiteness and offering a set of analytic markers, our aim is to provide instructors and researchers with a tool for identifying whiteness in their own contexts. Alongside our discussion, which imagines new possibilities for physics teaching and learning, we hope our work contributes to Critical Whiteness Studies’ goal of dismantling whiteness.

https://journals.aps.org/prper/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010119

I read this "paper". Some say it is one those hoax articles but it is too crazy to be hoax article. It is the most bizarre paper I have ever seen. Even stuff like the Sokol hoax articles cannot compare to this. How did the editors let this slip through? It is open access so I suggest you look at the paper yourself. By the way as a nice touch it is very anti capitalism.

I will leave you with caption for Fig.5 which has to be weirdest figure caption of all time.

FIG. 5. Paris and Gail increasingly turn their attention to the whiteboard as they sense make. Arrows indicate participants’ gaze. Image description: A series of images that analyze Drake’s, Paris’, and Gail’s gaze. In the first image, Drake is facing Paris and Gail and they are looking toward him and the board. In the second image, Drake looks at the board and Paris and Gail look at one another. In the next four images, Paris and Gail alternate between looking at one another and looking at the board, and Drake looks exclusively at the board. In the final three images, Paris and Gail’s attention is more stably on the board.

Fig1 has pretty good caption as well.

FIG. 1.
Image description: A flowchart illustrating how multiple forms of oppression are related, and how these lead to multiple forms of harm. At the top is colonialism, which leads to capitalism and supremacism, which are themselves connected. These flow into white supremacy, patriarchy, and human supremacy, which fuel things like slavery, ecocide, and genocide, which all connect to trauma and then inflammation. Multiple forms of harm are connected back up to capitalism.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...


Many of these CRT talks, papers, and seminars go on and on about capatilsim. They seem to be gravely naive of history, and how there are countless examples of tribes, groups or countries invading, enslaving, and committing genocide which where not capitalistic or motived by any capitalistic principles. In fact some scholars, I think Pinker is an example have actually looked at real statistics and found that capitalistic systems are the most free and the most tolerant. You would think these endless number of professors or scholars in these fields would have some understanding of history, statistics, the scientific method, or even basic logic. If you happen to meet one of these types in person they come across even dumber than the papers they write and will avoid any kind of intellectual debate. I have even talked to one such Prof in very polite way and simply asking, "how much confidence, or what is the probability that this assertion of yours is is true, also by multiply 5 of these assertions to get to your conclusion, you should realize that your error bars are going be huge". She actually started crying, saying how much work is put in, why this is helping people and that is what I should focus on. Of course I did not push the issue more and changed the subject. She said meany well but I need get out of this mode of simply attacking studies with math and focus on changing things or focus on impact on people. Very scientific.

I think one of the issues is that we are simply giving out way too many Ph.Ds to people that really should not have them.

Anonymous said...

I think one of the issues is that we are simply giving out way too many Ph.Ds to people that really should not have them.

3/18/2022 10:35 AM

Who is "we"? You have nothing to do with it.

Anonymous said...


Who is "we"? You have nothing to do with it.

3/19/2022 5:20 PM

LOL, that is not exactly true. I will leave it that.

Anonymous said...

Who is "we"? You have nothing to do with it.

3/19/2022 5:20 PM

The poster is probably referring to graduate students in the social sciences, eduction, humanities and so on. Even within those
fields professors, students and many others complain that they are giving out way to many graduate degrees but no one does anything because there is too much money involved, universities want more students and too many young people are either naive or simply do not know what to do next in their lives.

STEM fields are bit more complex, sure many graduate students will not be doing jobs they are trained at but most find some technical work and contribute to society. Still even within STEM fields many people who could have easily done these same jobs with just a masters degree rather spend years getting a Ph.d which they really did not need. Even within STEM certain fields like biology are producing too many people for the jobs available.

LLNL, Sandia and LANL all have some staff that have joint appointments at universities and there is sizable number of graduate students who have their advisors based at the labs and do their doctoral work at the labs. I am bit surprised that you did not know this? Anyone at the labs who has advised more than a few graduate students through their degrees can tell you that some probably should have been better off with just getting a masters. Again the systems has funding, one is rewarded for graduating students, it is cheap labor, and in many cases it is simply the easiest path.

Anonymous said...


LLNL does not have Ph.D students, we are not a University, we have some high school students and and summer interns but they do not even do research. Too many wanna be professors at LLNL think they know it all. I have never had a student and my group has only had interns that play with graphics programs for summer and go to some talks and play volleyball. The idea is for the students to become familiar with the labs so that after they get their degree they know that the labs exist. How does this blog get some confused people?

Anonymous said...

LLNL now has no grad students? Interesting. Did Teller Tech (UC Davis) fold up and vanish with Edward? Where will the next generation of Cold Warriors get trained?

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