6 - Analysing creative multimodal data for a scientific audience

Summary

Introduction

This chapter will discuss analysis of multimodal creative and qualitative research that has been undertaken by the International Women in Supramolecular Chemistry Network (WISC, 2020). WISC's overarching aim is to create a community to support the retention and progression of women and other marginalised genders within the field of supramolecular chemistry. WISC use an ethos that ‘calls in’ the community and embeds equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) expertise (Caltagirone et al, 2021a, 2021b). We intentionally use reflective methods as part of an Embodied Inquiry (Leigh and Brown, 2021) to capture and share their ‘invisible, embodied, emotional experiences’ (Leigh et al, 2023, p 1) as a way to raise awareness and effect change (Leigh et al, 2022a).

Context

Science is not known for its diversity and inclusion, whether that is regarding gender (Rosser, 2012), race (Prasad, 2021; RSC, 2022), sexuality (Smith, 2019), or disability (CRAC, 2020). Women are subject to resistance in academia generally (Shelton et al, 2018; Murray and Mifsud, 2019), and this is intensified within the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines (Rosser, 2012). Despite investment in programmes designed to address the gender imbalance, women remain a minority, particularly in more senior roles (Rosser, 2017). This imbalance is more pronounced in some STEM disciplines than others. Women are one of several marginalised groups in the chemical sciences (RSC, 2018, 2022), with the period post- PhD being when they are most likely to leave (RSC, 2019a). Although there is not one easy explanation for this, the combination of the so- called chilly gender climate and challenges in planning families and pregnancy in a lab are certainly contributing factors (Stockard et al, 2018; Leigh et al, 2022b; Slater et al, 2022). In 2019, the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) stated that the rate of attrition is such an issue that the current rate of change would never result in gender parity despite half of undergraduate chemistry students identifying as women (RSC, 2019a). The RSC recognised that women are subject to multiple small barriers (or microaggressions) (Ahmed, 2017), resulting in them publishing less, in lower impact journals, and in their publications receiving fewer citations (RSC, 2019b).