Detecting signals of critical transition in inclusive teaching in biology education: A computational text analysis ofCourseSource

We examine every Inclusive Teaching section in articles published by the journal CourseSource - undergraduate biology teaching materials and related essays - from 2014 to 2022 to understand the evolution of inclusive teaching ideas as expressed through language. We find a rapid shift in attention to inclusive teaching occurs between 2018 and 2019, marked by an increase in section length, increased use of inclusive teaching keywords, and an increase in complexity of ideas in the semantic network. This critical transition occurs before many of the recent events in 2020 which have renewed conversation on equity in education. Some effect is associated with Writing Workshop Faculty Mentoring Networks, which provide participants with authoring resources and support. However, this alone is not enough to explain the observed shift, suggesting that many other structures, conversations, and investments were already providing the fertile ground for educational equity in biology education.