RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A systematic review of professional society-backed biology education DEI research: The groups, research methods, and levels of analyses comprising the field JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2024.09.19.613887 DO 10.1101/2024.09.19.613887 A1 Idlebird, Candice A1 Campbell-Montalvo, Rebecca A1 McDowell, Gary S. A1 Blosser, Emily A1 Harvey, Richard A1 Marcette, Jana YR 2024 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2024/09/20/2024.09.19.613887.abstract AB This integrative literature review analyzes the corpus of biology education research published in the main biology education journals of major professional societies. The goal of this analysis is to determine which approaches (including groups of focus, research methods, and settings/perspectives) from social science fields (i.e., psychology, sociology, and anthropology) are utilized in published peer-reviewed biology education research relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Scoping how social science approaches are used in this area is important to understanding whether biology education research could benefit from complementary approaches that might advance praxis. This analysis found that research informing the biology education community draws heavily from psychological perspectives that are overwhelmingly not disaggregated (78% of articles identifying a group used a lumped together one), are by far more quantitative (58% used survey, 26% grades, 20% school data) than qualitative (17% used interview, 10% observation), and did not (72%) adopt structural approaches. The addition of missing contributions from social science is critical to advancing interventions to broaden STEM participation given that merging paradigms can offer more robust, multi-level explanations for observed phenomena. This has important implications for education, biology education, biology education research, social science, and research in related STEM fields.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.