One of the upsides of working with “research dissemination” through blogging and tweeting while conducting a research project is that you get in touch with a lot of interesting people doing related research. In this post, Andreas Ottemo reflects on the idea of role modelling based on having watched the Youtube videos featuring one of the people who recurs in our Twitter interactions, Virginia Grande. The videos are from their half-time seminar at Uppsala University, recorded late last autumn.
Doing research that touches on questions of recruitment and inclusion of more diverse groups of students in STEM education, the question of role modelling often comes up. Policymakers, people practically engaged in STEM education and female STEM students often highlight as important for recruiting female students that they have a chance to meet good role models, both within higher education and earlier in their educational trajectory.
I’ve personally always been somewhat suspicious of these claims. On a general level, I have no opposition to the idea that “representation matters” and that it is important for minoritised groups to see themselves represented in different areas of society. But the idea of role modelling has struck me as somewhat “simplistic”, as if finding a way into an area is about mimicking someone else, or having an “idol” in a field.
After having engaged with the presentations and discussions of Virginia Grande’s half time seminar for their PhD work at UpCERG (Uppsala Computing Education Research Group), I have nevertheless realised that the question of role modelling is more complex than I had previously thought. First, as Virginia makes clear in the introduction to the day, a role model is “a concept loosely defined”. This allows it to be used in many different ways and represent very different things. In fact, it may even represent its own opposite!
As Virginia points out, there are not only positive but also negative role models, i.e. role models that represent something that one wants to avoid. In a paper connected to the presentation (Grande 2018), they explain how this is a question of language difficulty, because in a language like Swedish, this negative definition sounds “incompatible, [because] role model translates to ‘model to follow’, so there is little room to interpret the possibility of avoidance”. So, at least among Swedish colleagues, I might not be alone in not having thought about this aspect of role modelling.
A framework to reflect on role modelling
In the presentation of Virginia’s own work in this area, they nuance the notion of role modelling through asking the fundamental question: What can be modelled? They divide the answer into two major categories: Achivements and Aspects. Achievements captures something externally given to the role model, such as rewards, (academic) degrees or money. Aspects captures things that are “internal” to a role model, such as personality traits like being fair. Eventually, the “what” question is supplemented with two more: the “who” and “how” questions of role modelling. These three aspects are then combined into a rather elaborate framework that I won’t try to flesh out in more detail here. This framework demonstrates that there are many aspects to role modelling. By the end of Virginia’s presentation, I get a sense that anything and everything that we do in STEM education or even just in social interaction involves aspects of role modelling.
So, after having engaged in these discussions, my concerns around the idea of role modelling has shifted. Rather than being a “simplistic” notion, I think what now puzzles me is that it is perhaps too complex and amorphuous a concept. Or perhaps rather that it seems to me to be a concept that tries to capture so much that it is very hard to delimit what counts as role modelling and what does not. (Virginia touches upon this in outlining the framework when they discuss the difference between a role model and overlapping concepts such as a mentor or a leader.) This is of course not unique to role modelling. Just think about the complexities that come with a concept such as “inclusion”. Or “equity”. Or “context”, which Virginia also discusses. Nonetheless, my take home lesson from having listened to these presentations is that for a discussion of role modelling to be fruitful, we really need to make it clear what it is that we are talking about. In this regard, developing a language or framework for talking about role modelling seems highly valuable and it will be very interesting to see where Virginia goes with this work.
Who needs a role model?
Conceptual clarification and developing a fine-grained conceptual apparatus is of course valuable, but there are also some broader questions that are particularly interesting in relation to our research project. One, brought up by my project colleague Heather is how we can think of fictional characters as role models. For instance, it became clear when actor Chadwick Boseman died that he could be considered a role model for parts of the black community, particularity black kids. One could however argue, they knew him more as Marvel’s T’Challa / Black Panther than as an actor. This is of course related to questions of representation, and will be something that we will continue discussing in our research teamg.
Further, as my other project colleague Eva points out, it is also important to be attentive to how role model talk in itself risks reproducing gendered and racialised patterns, because it is only some groups that are considered “in need” of role models. Maybe this is also an explanation for my initial resistance towards the concept, as I have never thought about my own way into STEM as dependent on a role model. This does not mean, of course, that role models have not been important to me. Perhaps it just reflects that as a white cis-male on a “natural” path into STEM, no one ever suggested to me that I should look for role models (or eventually consider myself to be a role model).
To conclude, it will be very interesting to follow Virginia’s continued work in this area, both to see what further aspects of role modelling they come to identify, and in relation to the broader questions more directly related to our project. Meanwhile, enjoy the presentations at the UpCERG channel!
