Evaluation of Pedagogical Strategies used in the State of Rio de Janeiro for Teaching Chemistry, Physics and Biology in High School During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Impact Assessment of an Affirmative Action to Promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect in Brazilian Chemistry during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…initiative in order to effectively promote diversity among the members chosen for this affirmative action and thereby increase engagement, as well as the sense of belonging and community of female chemistry professionals of different races, ethnicities, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Staniscuaski et al 13 conducted a research in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic with 3,345 Brazilian academics (males and females) and identified that nonpharmacological control measures (lockdowns and social distancing) negatively impacted, mainly, female scientists, a fact corroborated by Soares et al, 2,5,10,12 who evaluated the working conditions of chemistry teachers in schools and universities in Rio de Janeiro in the same period. However, even among female academics, an inequality was observed in the face of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic; nonwhite female scientists (Black and Multiracial) are the most strongly impacted on their academic careers and intellectual productivity (regardless of being mothers or not), followed by white female scientists with children and, later, by white female academics without children.…”

“…17 This DEIR initiative is extremely important because although women in Brazilian chemistry are in practically equal conditions (49%) compared to men, 5,20,21 reflecting almost the same female proportion of the Brazilian population (51.8% of approximately 213 million people), 19 even so, profound gender inequalities are identified concerning the professional prestige obtained (scissors effect, glass ceiling, leaky pipeline) 5 and in the country's territorial distribution, 5,19,20 which became even more accentuated during the COVID-19 pandemic. 5,9,10,12,13 Female Population in Brazil…”

“…Gender and race/ethnicity inequality in science in general, and in chemistry in particular, is not a new topic, ,− but it arouses an increasing interest, especially when unfortunate situations such as the one previously described occur. , In Brazil, the second country with the highest number of fatalities ,, due to the COVID-19 pandemic (over 560,000 deaths by the first week of August 2021), − studies on gender and race/ethnicity issues included in theories of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Respect (DEIR) in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines acquired a new power and urgency due to the new reality imposed by successive partial lockdowns, which were adopted governmentally as a way of nonpharmacological containment of the successive waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. ,,,, …”

“…Since March 2020, ,, university professors who teach chemistry in Brazil have been working exclusively remotely in what has become a perverse reality for women teachers, who have found themselves, overnight, forced to compromise their professional leadership achievements (lectures, research groups, writing articles, etc. ), ,, due to the adoption of a double working day in which they are divided between didactic activities and the necessary care for the family and the raising of children. ,,,, Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic is so far the most emblematic disease of the Anthropocene ,, and has the potential to further intensify the high rate of dropout and abandonment of female students ,, and other underrepresented minorities in many STEM disciplines, , which in full pandemic when faced with a sexist, nondiversified and noninclusive academic environment, prefer to abandon it, as is observed in the STEM disciplines of the United States of America (USA). , …”

“…), 8,9,12 due to the adoption of a double working day in which they are divided between didactic activities and the necessary care for the family and the raising of children. 2,5,8,12,13 Besides, the COVID-19 pandemic is so far the most emblematic disease of the Anthropocene 1,2,14 and has the potential to further intensify the high rate of dropout and abandonment of female students 3,5,15 and other underrepresented minorities in many STEM disciplines, 9,10 which in full pandemic when faced with a sexist, nondiversified and noninclusive academic environment, prefer to abandon it, as is observed in the STEM disciplines of the United States of America (USA). 3,16 In June 2020, M. S. Sanford, then director of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), published an editorial in which she highlighted the need to take practical action to combat systemic inequalities and unjustified prejudices against women and the underrepresented minorities in the field of chemistry.…”