skip to main content


Title: Introducing the Microbes and Social Equity Working Group: Considering the Microbial Components of Social, Environmental, and Health Justice
ABSTRACT Humans are inextricably linked to each other and our natural world, and microorganisms lie at the nexus of those interactions. Microorganisms form genetically flexible, taxonomically diverse, and biochemically rich communities, i.e., microbiomes that are integral to the health and development of macroorganisms, societies, and ecosystems. Yet engagement with beneficial microbiomes is dictated by access to public resources, such as nutritious food, clean water and air, safe shelter, social interactions, and effective medicine. In this way, microbiomes have sociopolitical contexts that must be considered. The Microbes and Social Equity (MSE) Working Group connects microbiology with social equity research, education, policy, and practice to understand the interplay of microorganisms, individuals, societies, and ecosystems. Here, we outline opportunities for integrating microbiology and social equity work through broadening education and training; diversifying research topics, methods, and perspectives; and advocating for evidence-based public policy that supports sustainable, equitable, and microbial wealth for all.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1749206
NSF-PAR ID:
10293160
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; more » ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; « less
Editor(s):
Gilbert, Jack A.
Date Published:
Journal Name:
mSystems
Volume:
6
Issue:
4
ISSN:
2379-5077
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. null (Ed.)
    From pre-K to university, education can confer a host of personal and societal benefits to individuals and the nation. Because of the vital importance of education to civic and economic participation, democratic societies must ensure all citizens have equal and equitable access to education. However, despite broad support for the democratic ideals of equality and equity in education, minoritized populations, particularly in Florida, continue to face inequities due to multiple types of oppression, including racism, sexism, classism, and others, and their intersections in schools. We asked educators and researchers in Florida: 1. What are the most pressing social justice issues in Florida schools today, and how is education in Florida continuing to reproduce and reconstitute systems of oppressive power, no matter how unintentionally? 2. How do we address and redress social inequities? 3. What innovative programs, curricula, and community partnerships are being conducted in and with Florida schools that lead to increased social justice and emancipation? We are inspired by our colleagues who are champions of social justice, whose activist scholarship highlights and undermines systematic forces of marginalization in Florida’s schools, colleges, and universities. We highlight their impactful work in this introduction, and we encourage you to share and apply the insights and recommendations contained in their policy critiques, program descriptions, literature reviews, research studies, and commentaries in this special issue. 
    more » « less
  2. One potentially underestimated aspect of resource inequity in U.S. public schools is access to social capital in external organizational environments. This research examines partnerships among 211 New York City high schools and 918 partner organizations from 2001 to 2005 as sources of external school social capital providing resources that can strengthen organizational capacity to improve educational opportunities and outcomes. The findings, based on an innovative analysis combining content analysis, social network analysis, and multilevel modeling, demonstrate that four partnership characteristics are important in this context: (1) how long partnerships last versus how many there are, (2) partners concentrating resources in a particular area versus across diverse complementary areas, (3) partners being densely connected to other schools and partners rather than being central in the overall school–partner network, and (4) partners conveying instructional resources versus other kinds of resources. Hence, educational research and policy should more broadly conceptualize how schools’ external organizational environments matter for educational equity and the role particular kinds of partnerships can play.

     
    more » « less
  3. null (Ed.)
    We examine the uneven social and spatial distributions of COVID-19 and their relationships with indicators of social vulnerability in the U.S. epicenter, New York City (NYC). As of July 17th, 2020, NYC, despite having only 2.5% of the U.S. population, has [Formula: see text]6% of all confirmed cases, and [Formula: see text]16% of all deaths, making it a key learning ground for the social dynamics of the disease. Our analysis focuses on the multiple potential social, economic, and demographic drivers of disproportionate impacts in COVID-19 cases and deaths, as well as population rates of testing. Findings show that immediate impacts of COVID-19 largely fall along lines of race and class. Indicators of poverty, race, disability, language isolation, rent burden, unemployment, lack of health insurance, and housing crowding all significantly drive spatial patterns in prevalence of COVID-19 testing, confirmed cases, death rates, and severity. Income in particular has a consistent negative relationship with rates of death and disease severity. The largest differences in social vulnerability indicators are also driven by populations of people of color, poverty, housing crowding, and rates of disability. Results highlight the need for targeted responses to address injustice of COVID-19 cases and deaths, importance of recovery strategies that account for differential vulnerability, and provide an analytical approach for advancing research to examine potential similar injustice of COVID-19 in other U.S. cities. Significance Statement Communities around the world have variable success in mitigating the social impacts of COVID-19, with many urban areas being hit particularly hard. Analysis of social vulnerability to COVID-19 in the NYC, the U.S. national epicenter, shows strongly disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on low income populations and communities of color. Results highlight the class and racial inequities of the coronavirus pandemic in NYC, and the need to unpack the drivers of social vulnerability. To that aim, we provide a replicable framework for examining patterns of uneven social vulnerability to COVID-19- using publicly available data which can be readily applied in other study regions, especially within the U.S.A. This study is important to inform public and policy debate over strategies for short- and long-term responses that address the injustice of disproportionate impacts of COVID-19. Although similar studies examining social vulnerability and equity dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak in cities across the U.S. have been conducted (Cordes and Castro 2020, Kim and Bostwick 2002, Gaynor and Wilson 2020; Wang et al. 2020; Choi and Unwin 2020), this study provides a more comprehensive analysis in NYC that extends previous contributions to use the highest resolution spatial units for data aggregation (ZCTAs). We also include mortality and severity rates as key indicators and provide a replicable framework that draws from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability indicators for communities in NYC. 
    more » « less
  4. While inquiry in operations research (OR) modeling of urban planning processes is long-standing, on the whole, the OR discipline has not influenced urban planning practice, teaching and scholarship at a level of other domains such as public policy and information technology. Urban planning presents contemporary challenges that are complex, multi-stakeholder, data-intensive, and ill structured. Could an OR approach which focuses on the complex, emergent nature of cities, the institutional environment in which urban planning strategies are designed and implemented and which puts citizen engagement and a critical approach at the center enable urban planning to better meet these challenges? Based on a review of research and practice in OR and urban planning, we argue that a prospective and prescriptive approach to planning that is inductive in nature and embraces “methodological pluralism” and mixed methods can enable researchers and practitioners develop effective interventions that are equitable and which reflect the concerns of community members and community serving organizations. We discuss recent work in transportation, housing, and community development that illustrates the benefits of embracing an enhanced OR modeling approach both in the framing of the model and in its implementation, while bringing to the fore three cautionary themes. First, a mechanistic application of decision modeling principles rooted in stylized representations of institutions and systems using mathematics and computational methods may not adequately capture the central role that human actors play in developing neighborhoods and communities. Second, as innovations such as the mass adoption of automobiles decades ago led to auto-centric city design show, technological innovations can have unanticipated negative social impacts. Third, the current COVID pandemic shows that approaches based on science and technology alone are inadequate to improving community lives. Therefore, we emphasize the important role of critical approaches, community engagement and diversity, equity, and inclusion in planning approaches that incorporate decision modeling. 
    more » « less
  5. These narratives explore what it might entail to begin school–university partnerships towards the goal of transformative social changes through the voices of two women scholars of color. Using two school–university partnerships as focal cases, we unpack the complexity, tensions, and possibilities that arise through collaborations driven by the objective to promote new and more just forms of science learning within public schools. In this article, we use three key dimensions of participatory design research (namely, critical historicity, power, and relationality) as analytical lenses through which to reflect upon school–university partnerships that we are in the beginning stages of forming. Through this methodology, we shed light on: (a) the historical genealogies of equity-oriented work and (b) the tensions that we encountered as we strived for beginning partnerships with K-12 schools. These narratives unveil the dynamic and contentious nature of forming school–university partnerships that always occurs within a sociopolitical landscape impacted by intersecting and powered identity markers, including those around race, gender, language, culture, and status. We provide specific recommendations for supporting education researchers who aspire to transform the learning of sciences at schools through a collaborative and sustainable partnership. These recommendations include ideas around how to collectively generate goals with schools centered on transformative science learning; attention to the role of language and race in shaping partnership role-remediation; and creating infrastructure for developing school–university partnerships toward transformative social changes, including financial, human and relational resources, as well as new forms of recognition systems. 
    more » « less