Our mission
Empowering underrepresented communities to log in to academia
Logic and formal philosophy are impacted by the underrepresentation statistics both for the mathematical sciences and for philosophy.
Racial and ethnic underrepresentation in mathematics and philosophy
According to the London Mathematical Society, less than one in 10 academics in all the mathematical sciences are POC. Among members of the American Philosophical association, more than 75% are Caucasian, and only 5% of Philosophy undergraduate students identify as Black. According to the Humanities indicators, philosophy confers a small proportion of its degrees on traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities when compared to other disciplines, and the dropout rate is striking at postgraduate level. Students from traditionally underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities are more likely to come from lower socio-economic backgrounds and endure financial troubles during university, which significantly limits access to an academic career in the pure sciences or in philosophy, where many years of postgraduate study are required. This mechanism creates a vicious circle because it fosters a lack of role models for POC in abstract sciences and philosophy.
Underrepresentation of women and gender minorities in mathematics and philosophy
According to Humanities indicators data, from 1987 to 2014, the proportion of women earning degrees in philosophy was substantially lower than that for the rest of the humanities field. The percentage of women earning Master's degrees is significantly lower than Bachelors. Partially as a result, women now make up only 25% of full professors in UK Philosophy departments. On the other hand, only 25% of mathematics undergraduates in the UK are women, and studies show a significant implicit cultural bias preventing women from pursuing a career in the STEM fields – the stereotype goes that women are less good at maths than men, which has been disproved in many occasions.
Our project: positive role models and an inclusive community
Underrepresentation in Philosophy appears to correspond with a lack of comfort in the discipline, according to this BPA report. The LogIn project aims to overcome this by creating an inclusive community of students and researchers united by an interest in logic and formal philosophy. We aim to expose students to positive role models that they would otherwise not be able to interact with, and to create cooperation between students. We understand that one of the main factors for underrepresentation in academia is the socioeconomic one, but we aim to address the lack of role models and exposure. Studies conducted in STEM have shown that intervention programs with the aim of exposing students to the subject in a welcoming environment yield lower probabilities of drop out and higher probabilities of persisting in the STEM field of study compared to non-participants.
Who we are
This is our organising team. We are part of a project funded by the Diversity and Inclusion fund at King's College London.
