Osnat Katz
Astronomy for All - All for Astronomy?
A Pilot Study of Amateur Astronomy Community Attitudes and Experiences
There is a growing body of work on equality, diversity and inclusivity within professional Astronomy. But literature for amateur Astronomy is still sparse.
The demographics of Astronomy societies and online astronomical communities, including adjacent communities such as citizen scientists, appears skewed towards being mostly older, white and male. It is now established that this is not due to a lack of interest in Astronomy in different audiences. Is Astronomy unwelcoming to under-represented groups?
We present interim results (n=367) of a pilot study investigating demographics, attitudes and experiences, and barriers to wider involvement of members of UK amateur Astronomy. Data have been gathered via a survey distributed through traditional institutions, online forums and groups, and social media. The survey is still open.
We report that of respondents, 90% were male, 79% white, 10% disabled and 6.5% identified as LGBTQIA+. The dominant age group was 55-75 (49%) with 36% in the 35-54 group, and 8% aged 18-34. People generally felt accepted and comfortable in their groups whether online or physical, with physical societies scoring slightly higher. Significantly, 1 in 8 had experienced or witnessed bullying, discrimination or harassment. The main barriers to involvement were time availability, the cost of equipment, and feeling inexperienced. Asked to rate how welcoming Astronomy was, we observed a mismatch in how different demographics feltl. Men tend to rate Astronomy as more welcoming for women, and white people tend to do the same for Black, Asian and minority ethnic people.
We report the next steps as encouraging more survey responses and a more granular analysis. We hope these results will stimulate wider discussion within the amateur Astronomy community and the consideration of action to overcome the barriers highlighted.
We contacted all UK amateur and student Astronomy/space societies we could find an email address for. We distributed via forums and social media. We gratefully acknowledge the support of RAS, FAS, SPA, BAA, UKSEDS, BIS in distributing the survey.
We report the preliminary results based on 367 overall responses, and aim to publish a paper with all our findings in 2021. The survey comprises 31 questions and is in accordance with GDPR. We want to run a follow-up survey with a subset of participants who have consented to be contacted again.
We are interested in understanding if there are any stereotypes about Astronomy. We found that the 10 most quoted words were: white, members, people, men, older, male, Astronomy, society, old, males.
We ask some questions to understand how people in amateur Astronomy identify.
For gender identity, the results are: Male 78.7%; Female 18.8%; Agender 0.3%; Nonbinary 0.3%; Unclear answer 1.4%; Neutrois 0.3%.
For ethnicity, the results are: White or White British 90.4%; Asian or Asian British 3%; Self-described 2.7%; Multiple ethnic backgrounds 1.6%; Black, African, Caribbean or Black British 1.1%; Arab or Middle Eastern 0.3%; Prefer not to say 0.8%.
For disability status, the results are: No 89.1%; Yes 9.5%; Prefer not to say 1.4%.
For LGBTQIA+ identity, the results are: Yes 6.5%; No 91.3%; Prefer not to say 2.2%.
For age, the results are: 3 in the 0-17 bracket; 31 in the 18-34 bracket; 132 in the 35-44 bracket; 180 in the 55-74 bracket; 19 in the 75+ bracket; 1 Prefer not to say.
We analysed whether people felt more or less accepted and felt more or less comfortable in expressing opinions in an online group or in a physical group, and the results are comparable. We want to analyse data in more detail breaking it down by demographics to see if this affects comfort and acceptance levels.
We asked participants how welcoming they thought Astronomy was for various groups on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 - least welcoming, 5 - most welcoming), here we report only on the preliminary results we obtained regarding women and Black, Asian and minority ethnic people. We split our data into dominant (most abundant) and non-dominant demographics to see if there is a difference. In the first case, the dominant demographic is people identifying as men, and in the second case, the dominant demographic is people identifying as white.
We observe a mismatch in how the dominant demographic group feels compared with the non-dominant one. In particular, members of the dominant demographic feel that Astronomy is more welcoming for women than do the non-dominant demographic. We observed the same phenomenon with regard to how welcoming people felt Astronomy was for Black, Asian and minority ethnic people. We think this result is particularly interesting and we will perform a deeper analysis.
We also asked participants whether they had encountered any barriers to their involvement in amateur Astronomy. The most quoted barriers to involvement were: Time availability 45.5%, Inability to afford equipment 20.7%, Feeling inexperienced 18.4%. We want to further analyse these results and understand whether people from different demographics encounter different barriers.
We asked participants whether they had ever witnessed or been the target of discrimination, bullying or harassment. The results are: No 82.0%; Prefer not to say 1.8%; I am not sure 4.3%; I was a target 3.1%; I witnessed it 6.3%; Both 3.1%. This means that around 1 in 8 respondents has witnessed or been the target of discrimination, bullying or harassment. This result, despite being preliminary, points towards the fact that there are issues of Astronomy not being a welcoming environment, with potentially serious instances of misconduct.
So far, we have received a very enthusiastic response from the community, with several local and national societies interested to hear about our findings. This suggests that there is a consciousness of diversity issues and a willingness to change. We hope that this study can help tackle the lack of a unified approach at a local and national level.
We aim to collaboratively draft better practices to address harassment, improve diversity, tackle discrimination in Astronomy, and make everyone feel welcome and safe. We are looking for co-authors from diverse backgrounds, especially disabled, trans/non-binary, Black people and ethnic minorities. If you would like to get involved, please feel free to get in touch at theinclusivetelescope@gmail.com.