| Sumario: | This paper proposes a feminist-informed metascience theory to explain the interconnected processes of idea creation, translation, and diffusion. Drawing on feminist critiques of science centered on perspective, power, and praxis, we develop a creation–diffusion model that jointly examines how ideas are created and then how the content of ideas influences their spread across academic fields. Using a nationally funded gender equity program as a case of a practice-oriented knowledge-production community, we analyze how gender equity research concepts were translated and diffused through the program-funded publications. We operationalize substantive engagement with gender equity research using word embeddings and Concept Mover's Distance. Then, with additional contextual variables, we measure (1) the predictors of this engagement (ideas) and (2) the impact of engagement on citation counts and citation interdisciplinarity (the diffusion process) across social science and STEM fields. Our findings show that, in addition to context, the content of the idea matters for diffusion: Engagement with critical dimensions of gender equity research, such as feminism and structural concepts, diffused less often, whereas other dimensions, such as gender and methods, achieved broader uptake. Our empirical findings highlight the role of perspectives and epistemic power in shaping both knowledge production and diffusion. Our theoretical framework and methods demonstrate how metascience can incorporate feminist theory directly into diffusion studies, and why it should.
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