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Our study highlights specific ways in which race and gender create inequality in the workplace. Using in-depth interviews with 67 biology PhD students, we show how engagement with research and service varies by both gender and race. By considering the intersection between gender and race, we find not only that women biology graduate students do more service than men, but also that racial and ethnic minority men do more service than white men. White men benefit from a combination of racial and gender privilege, which places them in the most advantaged position with respect to protected research time and opportunities to build collaborations and networks beyond their labs. Racial/ethnic minority women emerge as uniquely disadvantaged in terms of their experiences relative to other groups. These findings illuminate how gendered organizations are also racialized, producing distinct experiences for women and men from different racial groups, and thus contribute to theorizing the intersectional nature of inequality in the workplace.
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Difficulty Orientations, Gender, and Race/Ethnicity: An Intersectional Analysis of Pathways to STEM Degrees
Is there a relationship between mathematics ability beliefs and STEM degrees? Fields such as physics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science (PEMC) are thought to require talent or brilliance. However, the potential effects of difficulty perceptions on students’ participation in STEM have yet to be examined using a gender and race/ethnicity intersectional lens. Using nationally representative U.S. longitudinal data, we measure gender and racial/ethnic variation in secondary students’ orientation towards mathematics difficulty. We observed nuanced relationships between mathematics difficulty orientation, gender, race/ethnicity, and PEMC major and degree outcomes. In secondary school, the gap between boys’ and girls’ mathematics difficulty orientations were wider than gaps between White and non-White students. Mathematics difficulty orientation was positively associated with both declaring majors and earning degrees in PEMC. This relationship varied more strongly based on gender than race/ethnicity. Notably, Black women show higher gains in predicted probability to declare a mathematics-intensive major as compared to all other women, given their mathematics difficulty orientations. This study’s findings show that both gender and racial/ethnic identities may influence the relationship between mathematics difficulty orientation and postsecondary STEM outcomes.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1232139
- PAR ID:
- 10101398
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Social Sciences
- Volume:
- 8
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2076-0760
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 43
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci8020043
