How Political Science Can Be More Diverse (original) (raw)

U.S. Women Faculty in the Social Sciences Also Face Gender Inequalities

Frontiers in Psychology

There is a national interest in United States women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); however, gender inequality in the social sciences has not received similar attention. Although women increasingly earn postgraduate degrees in the social sciences, women faculty still experience gender inequities. Consistent gender inequities include slower career advancement, blunted salaries, unequal workloads, work-life conflict, systemic gender biases, underrepresentation in positions of power, and hostile work environments. Cultural biases suggest that once women have achieved parity, gender bias no longer exists. This review challenges that notion by providing evidence from social science domains in which women are well-represented but continue to face systemic gender biases. We examine cultural influences on gender representation and career advancement in psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. We make interdisci...

Obstacles to Sustaining Diversity: Historical Context and Current Experiences of Underrepresented Minority Women and Men in Sociology and Economics

Sustainability, 2021

White men predominate in the top ranks of the professorate, but recent efforts have attempted to decrease inequality and increase diversity in the academy by hiring more faculty, especially women of color. Have equality and diversity efforts worked or has negative departmental climate limited efforts to make diversity sustainable? Despite the long history of and many contributions by women of color (URC) as public intellectuals, activists, and founders of organizations to promote Blacks and Latino/a people, we find that much of their work is still marginalized and is not viewed as legitimate science. This treatment may lessen the ability to increase equality and sustain diversity in academic institutions. The paper tests whether URC women scholars are still experiencing inequalities in comparison to their male peers of color in two disciplines, that of sociology and economics. We include these two disciplines because of similarities in origin and of topics. First, we hypothesize tha...

Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem that needs solutions

Neuron

Despite increased awareness of the lack of gender equity in academia and a growing number of initiatives to address issues of diversity, change is slow, and inequalities remain. A major source of inequity is gender bias, which has a substantial negative impact on the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of underrepresented groups in science. Here, we argue that gender bias is not a single problem but manifests as a collection of distinct issues that impact researchers' lives. We disentangle these facets and propose concrete solutions that can be adopted by individuals, academic institutions, and society.

Institutional Barriers, Strategies, and Benefits to Increasing the Representation of Women and Men of Color in the Professoriate

Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research

Women and men of color represent growing populations of the undergraduate and graduate student populations nationwide; however, in many cases, this growth has not translated to greater faculty representation. Despite student demands, stated commitments to diversity, and investments from national organizations and federal agencies, the demographic characteristics of the professoriate look remarkably similar to the faculty of 50 years ago. Many strategies to increase faculty diversity focus on increasing representation in graduate education, skill development, and preparation for entry into faculty careers. While these needs and strategies are important to acknowledge, this chapter primarily addresses how institutions promote and hinder advances in faculty diversity. Specifically, extant literature is organized into a conceptual framework (the Institutional Model for Faculty Diversity) detailing how institutional structures, policies, and interactions with faculty colleagues and students shape access, recruitment, and retention in the professoriate, focusing on the experiences of women and men of color. A failure to address these challenges has negative implications for teaching, learning, and knowledge generation; consequently, this review also presents research documenting how women and men of color uniquely contribute to the mission and goals of US higher education.

Gender and the Political Science Graduate Experience: When Leaning In Isn't Enough

2022

In the fall of 2019, The Monkey Cage released a 10-part series of essays in The Washington Post highlighting the serious and unyielding nature of gender inequality ubiquitous in political science research by evaluating gender disparities in publications, course evaluations, journal submissions, and more. 2 While a glaring condemnation of inequity is a rare find on a mainstream news source, the article gave a statistical foundation to what every woman 3 in the field of political science had experientially known for years: that being a woman in political science is an uphill battle. Overwhelming quantitative and qualitative research has proven that despite women contributing more to teaching, mentoring, and administering in the discipline, they are less likely to advance and be recognized for their achievements (Alter et al 2020). This runs deeper than inequity in publications and service distribution-which we address in this chapter-but rather, is seeded in the heart of departmental culture. For many female professors and graduate students alike, home departments can start to feel like a Boys Club, inspiring feelings of immense stress and isolation for women (Schneider 2011). Furthermore, departments tend to place men in leadership roles allowing them to control allocation of resources. Student bodies tend to be male-dominated, leading to an overall competitive and often aggressive department culture (Niederle and Vesterlund 2011). These men often have a vested interest in maintaining institutional standards that do not serve women.

Gender bias in academe: an annotated bibliography of important recent studies

2016

Academic research plays an important role in uncovering bias and helping to shape a more equal society. But academia also struggles to adequately confront persistent and entrenched gender bias in its own corridors. Here Danica Savonick and Cathy N. Davidson have aggregated and summarised over twenty research articles on gender bias in academe, a crucial resource for International Women’s Day.

The Thorny Path to a More Inclusive Discipline

Gender Innovation in Political Science, 2018

This chapter explores the extent of feminist institution-building within national and international political science associations and what it has achieved. We compare the initiation of gender and politics specialist groups and the strategies adopted for promoting recognition of feminist scholarship. We then use bibliometric data to show the limits to the integration of gender perspectives into core areas of the discipline. We examine factors such as the hierarchy of knowledge and its conflict with the approaches and methodological preferences of many gender scholars. We conclude that while gender and politics scholars have consolidated an epistemic community within political science and contributed to normative and policy change outside, the goal of transforming the discipline has proved difficult.