Research Ideas and Outcomes :
Forum Paper
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Corresponding author: Matt von Konrat (mvonkonrat@fieldmuseum.org)
Academic editor: Editorial Secretary
Received: 19 Sep 2024 | Accepted: 10 Dec 2024 | Published: 27 Dec 2024
© 2024 Christine Christian, Gilbert Gwilliam III, Matt von Konrat, June Ahn, Colleen Bailey, Daniel Dodinval, Elizabeth R. Ellwood, Kate Golembiewski, Lila Higgins, Camille Jones, Vanessa Martinez, Miguel Ordeñana, Gregory Pauly
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Christian C, Gwilliam III GF, von Konrat M, Ahn J, Bailey C, Dodinval D, Ellwood ER, Golembiewski K, Higgins LM, Jones C, Martinez V, Ordeñana MA, Pauly GB (2024) Embracing inclusivity: the case against the term 'citizen science'. Research Ideas and Outcomes 10: e137412. https://doi.org/10.3897/rio.10.e137412
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Participatory science and "amateur" participation in scientific data collection and work has been common for hundreds of years, but has become a more formalised field of practice in recent decades. The inclusion and reliance on informally trained members of the public in scientific endeavours has especially helped connect natural history collections to the general public. In recent decades, the term used to describe these participants — citizen scientists — was intended to unite formal and informal scientists as global citizens working towards a common goal. However, the term 'citizen' today has negative connotations for many members of the public and can have a polarising effect on certain individuals. Given that the nature of participatory science is to be inclusive and inviting, it is time to change this terminology. The term 'community' science has been suggested as an alternative by some practitioners and programmes. This self-awareness within the scientific community is important, but lacks impact without input from the community members potentially participating in these programmes. We addressed this knowledge gap by posing the question of term preference to groups of volunteers who have attended participatory science activities from the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, Illinois, USA) and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Los Angeles, California, USA) from 2019 to 2023. A majority of respondents showed a clear preference for the term 'community' over 'citizen' science. This was especially true for younger individuals and those who belong to ethnic groups other than White. This information can impact which terms are used for specific programme populations and supports community involvement in selecting terminology and in project design. We advise stopping use of the term 'citizen' in all participatory science programmes and adopting terminology that is most appropriate depending on region, research, audience and activity. Moreover, participant populations should be solicited to hear their voices.
community science, citizen science, inclusion, participatory science, terminology
The term 'citizen science' has been in use since the mid-1990s to describe members of the public collecting data on behalf of scientists and/or engaging in scientific research with or without participation by professional scientists (
Most of this discussion has been in the form of essays and commentary (e.g.
The Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC) both have large established programmes involving participatory science and have discontinued use of the term 'citizen science' since 2018 (
To provide a preliminary assessment of people’s understanding of the terms 'citizen' and 'community' science, we conducted a survey of participants and professionals in environmental and biodiversity-orientated programmes at FMNH and NHMLAC, as well as practitioners involved with the global online event, WeDigBio (
Our aim is to determine if there is a preference for the term ‘citizen’ or ‘community’ science and to give a voice to participatory science members regarding the terms being used to describe them. The goal of this study is to quantify term preferences and to encourage other participatory science practitioners to perform similar research in order to use language that creates a sense of inclusion and belonging.
In June of 2019, a Google Forms survey (Suppl. material
The survey began with a short discussion of the terms 'citizen science' and 'community science', then asked respondents for their preference between the two terms and included additional questions related to the WeDigBio programme as well as some demographic questions. One hundred and sixty responses were received over a two-week period. Summary demographic information is available for this survey, but to maintain anonymity, the detailed demographic information for individual respondents is not reported. The Institutional Review Board (IRB), Field Museum, concluded the survey qualified as "exempt" under the Field Museum's IRB policy. No identifying information was collected, all respondents were adults and none of the questions put the respondents at risk for civil or criminal liability.
To expand the reach of the survey and to enable more detailed evaluation of demographic data, the same Google Forms survey (Suppl. material
A total of 572 responses were received by 2 September 2020: 134 from FMNH, 413 from NHMLAC, 16 from ACCA and nine from SMHEC. A follow-up email was sent out 1 December 2023 to the current Field Museum email list, resulting in an additional 66 responses to the survey, bringing the total to 638.
Overall, survey respondents included adults (18 and older) who had experiences with a variety of participatory events both in-person and virtually. While participant's educational and career backgrounds were not collected for this specific group of participants, the Field Museum has collected background data on other, similar groups of participatory science members and are aware, anecdotally, that their areas of expertise are reasonably similar. Backgrounds from other past participants spanned a wide variety of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) fields, along with non-STEM fields, such as business, labour, law and fine arts (von Konrat et al., unpublished data 2024). NHMLAC's survey pool included individuals with educational and career backgrounds in education, science, business and law/human relations.
Participants' preference to the terms 'citizen' vs. 'community' science was included in the 2019, 2020 and 2023 surveys. In addition, respondents were able to provide comments regarding their preference. For the 2020 and 2023 surveys, respondents also provided some basic demographic information (gender identity, race/ethnicity and age) and whether they had previously participated in a citizen/community science project. Ultimately, we chose not to focus on gender identity, due to the fact that our question and response options changed throughout the surveys, making this a weak data point.
Our data were compiled from the three pools of survey responses (2019, 2020 and 2023), unless noted otherwise and percentages were calculated using simple ratios. To code the open response questions, we first divided the responses according to the participants' preferred terminology and provided ChatGPT 4.0 with a simple prompt to scan the responses for broad, common themes. Our prompt was "based on this list, can you suggest some titles of how these can be divided into broad categories?" and then provided ChatGPT with all unedited survey responses. This provided us with a framework, which we then manually examined for any other trends and decided on several "buckets" into which the responses could be categorised, followed by manually sorting each response into one or several of these buckets. We used R (version 4.3.1; R Core Team 2023) for graphing. The graphs below were specifically designed with individuals with various degrees of colour perception in mind. Viridis Lite is a colour palette available in R that is designed to address these issues (
There was an overall preference for the term 'community science' amongst all respondents. When asked if they had a preference to the terms 'citizen science' or 'community science', 44% of respondents answered 'community science', 30% responded 'citizen science' and 26% had no preference (Fig.
When broken down by age groups (Fig.
The vast majority of people who answered the 2020 and 2023 surveys identified as White, followed by Latinx/o/a, Asian or Pacific Islander, Mixed-race and Black or African American (Fig.
When respondents were separated by race/ethnicity, a majority of Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC), respondents (54%) prefer the term 'community science' (Fig.
Recognising that the areas where a majority of respondents come from might impact their responses, we split the data into our two largest populations by institution, FMNH and NHMLAC. The age demographics of these two groups are extremely similar for participants above the age of 45 (Fig.
Keeping the two main pools of respondent's contact institution separated, we see that a larger percentage of individuals from NHMLAC prefer the term 'community' vs. 'citizen' (50% NHMLAC vs. 38%, FMNH, Fig.
Keeping the population separated by institution and looking at the ethnicity within those populations shows an interesting distinction (Fig.
When comparing all respondents who had previous experience with participatory science projects and those who had none, we found essentially no difference in term preference (45% and 46% preferred 'community', respectively, Fig.
Lastly, the survey included an open-response question for respondents to explain their preference. Their full responses, as well as all data associated with this question, can be found in Suppl. material
Classification of comments by respondents who preferred 'citizen science'. Name recognition: respondents who prefer 'citizen science' because the term is more widely recognised and already established in the scientific community; Civic responsibility: respondents who prefer 'citizen science' because it emphasises the responsibility of an individual to their community; Clarity: respondents who believe 'citizen science' is a more clear and specific term than 'community science'; Global citizen: respondents who find the political connotations of using the word 'citizen' to be a positive. n = 120. From 2020 and 2023 survey respondents.
Classification of comments by respondents who had no preference between the terms. Misunderstand/Unimportant: respondents who did not understand the distinction between the two terms or had no strong feelings towards either one; Equally Good: respondents who thought 'citizen science' and 'community science' were equally good; Equally Bad: respondents who thought 'citizen science' and 'community science' were equally bad. n = 50. From 2020 and 2023 survey respondents.
Classification of comments by respondents who preferred 'community science'. Inclusivity: respondents who prefer 'community science' as a shift away from the political connotations of the word 'citizen'; Welcoming/inviting: respondents who find 'community science' to be more approachable, positive and welcoming to all people; Collaborative/community: respondents who like the fact that 'community science' emphasises the role of the collective, joining scientific study with a sense of community. n = 226. From 2020 and 2023 survey respondents.
Fig.
Here are a few select quotes from these respondents:
“They both sound fine: ‘community’ has a more collaborative, group feel, while a ‘citizen’ feels more like a steward or contributor”.
“I can understand the desire to call community/citizen science SOMETHING to empower folks unfamiliar with science to participate. [...] Therefore, I am amenable to any use of terms, as long as an easily understood definition accompanies the term”.
The respondents who preferred the term 'citizen science' (Fig.
Here are a few select quotes from these respondents:
“I like the emphasis on the individual. I don't have to be part of a group or make a planned event to go out and collect data, I can just do it as part of my everyday life”.
“Citizen is more inclusive in my view and less political - enough with identity already”.
“The Citizen Scientist title has been established with NHM and other sites for years. Why change?”
“I like the term because it defines the role more broadly - not just the specific community, but as a citizen of the city/state/country/world”.
Amongst the respondents who explained their preference for the term 'community science' (Fig.
Here are a few select quotes from these respondents:
“Meaning-making and scientific discovery is a collaborative process--the term community science emphasizes that”.
“Community is so perfectly expansive. [...] The more community members involved - the larger the datasets - the bigger the science! Science belongs to everyone”.
“The term ‘citizen’ is based on settler-colonial practices that are at odds with the values of Earth and environmental conservation. The United States especially weaponizes this term and concept to exclude people of indigenous heritage from access to their ancestral land”.
“I teach at a large public university in Southern CA - a substantial fraction of our students are DACA/Dreamers, and I feel like the term ‘citizen’ and its connotations may exclude or alienate this population of students”.
“It’s more welcoming. It also has a community lead that makes it feel less intimidating”.
" ‘Community’ sounds encompassing and open; ‘citizen’ sounds exclusive, almost archaic”.
Three main themes can be seen from the participant responses: 1) there is a clear preference for the term 'community science' over 'citizen science'; 2) this preference is stronger amongst younger demographics and decreases with age and 3) BIPOC respondents have the highest preference for the term 'community science'.
Overall, the term 'community science' was preferred amongst the majority of respondents. For those respondents expressing a preference, 60% preferred 'community science' (Fig.
Younger people tend to prefer the term 'community science' over 'citizen science' (Fig.
We see the strongest connection between term preference and race/ethnicity. Overall, people who identified as non-white (Black/African American, Latino/a/x, Asian or Pacific Islander, Mixed-race, American Indian or Alaska Native, other) preferred 'community science' over 'citizen science' (Fig.
Participatory science has the potential to develop trust between the community members who participate and scientists or the scientific process (e.g.,
Initially, we noticed that the institution with which our populations were affiliated had an impact on term preference, but upon closer evaluation, it can be seen that the differences in preference are most likely due to the demographic differences between these groups of individuals (Figs
Other areas of interest are seen in participants' preference to which term is used in relationship to their prior experience with participatory science projects (Fig.
Figs
It must be noted that, even though the term 'community science' was preferred overall, it was not by all, as a large percentage of the respondents had no preference for either term. It is possible that some people who responded "no preference" have a term preference that does not include 'citizen' or 'community science', but we did not provide them with any other means to express their preference in this survey. We should be wary of any biases that could form from this lack of knowledge. Future surveys should be designed to include other participatory science terms, such as civic science, crowd-sourcing, participatory science, people-powered research or public science (
We are not advocating for a term preference in regards to the naming of these types of programmes, but we do strongly advocate that the term 'citizen' is a non-inclusive term, which is polarising to members of the participatory science community. This change is not merely semantic, but pivotal in fostering an environment where all participants feel valued and included. It is imperative that the scientific community immediately embraces this shift, ensuring that the language we use reflects our commitment to inclusivity, equity and the true spirit of participatory science. In adopting and considering a new name for participatory science projects and events,
Public participation in a wide range of events including databasing, curation, digitisation and generating iNaturalist observations was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (Award No.’s 1145898, 1115002 1458300, 1541506, 2001509, 2027654 and 0531730 to FMNH personnel and 1647276 to NHMLAC personnel). Many volunteers, staff and interns, as well as members of the Field Museum Collections Club – a group of volunteers that meet every quarter – are greatly acknowledged. We are grateful for the ongoing support from Prof. Jennifer Slate, Dr. Thomas Campbell and Northeastern Illinois University, as well as Ayesha Qazi-Lampert (Field Museum/Northside College Preparatory High School). Financial support for interns was provided by The Student Center for Science Engagement at Northeastern Illinois University, the Dean's Undergraduate Fellowship, College of Science and Health, DePaul University and the Field Museum Women's Board and the Prince Fellowship. A special thank you to the Association of Chicago Area Colleges (ACCA) and South Metropolitan Higher Education Consortium (SMHEC). We also thank Prof. Julian Kerbis and Prof. Michael Bryson at Roosevelt University for internship and course credit opportunity for students as well as their ongoing support of mutual programmes. We acknowledge NHMLAC's Community Science and Urban Nature Research Center staff and volunteers and the museum's group of community scientists and community partners--without whom this research would not be possible. We thank the staff and employees of the following organisations for assistance in distributing the survey: Nature for All, Community Nature Connection, Latino Outdoors, the National Park Service, Woodland Park Zoo, Lincoln Park Zoo, Los Angeles Zoo and the Audubon Center at Debs Park. We thank Lisa C. Niziolek, Chair, Institutional Review Board, Field Museum. We thank Alan Lichamer for helping with editing. Lastly, thank you to all respondents of the survey; we would not be able to produce this paper without your input.
Coded and free form responses to surveys on opinons about the terms Community Science and Citizen Science