What sort of curricular changes could lead to a transformation of political science research and the diversity of researchers conducting it? How can we interrupt and regenerate the culture of research in STEM to expand its possibilities in the face of anti-science discourse and racist, anti-woman, and anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ cultural politics? This paper will discuss the design and impact of graduate research training in ways to produce more responsible and accountable political science. Research in STEM education suggests that integrating socio-cultural context and communal values into STEM education can increase recruitment and retention of women, under-represented minorities (URMs), and first generation students in STEM, while also enhancing all student’s commitment to the social good. Feminist approaches to STS are well-positioned to shift the culture of research in STEM to produce better and broader results, as well as to increase equity and retention of diverse talent. 4S is a curriculum that brings together insights from feminist theory with social studies of science to address deep bias in scientific research to suggest methods and frameworks that produce more accountable, accurate and responsible scientific research and provides a unique forum for discussing the integration of feminist approaches in social science. Feminist approaches are shown to improve objectivity by recognizing all observation as from a partial perspective, and strengthen objectivity by bringing together multiple (partial) standpoints of observation into the scientific method (Harding 2004, Barad 2007). While biases in science are frequently noted and attempts to remove them are initiated, feminist scientists argue that instead of fruitlessly trying to remove all biases, we should instead see knowledge as always “situated” in culture, always historically contextual (Haraway 1988). This paper brings insights from the development and results of an experimental STEM graduate training program to a discussion of political science methods training, considering whether it provides a model for applying the lessons of feminist STS in ways that move students and scholars toward greater engagement with social justice, as well as to deeper collaborations with other social science and humanities disciplines.
