skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Lower SES PhD students experience interpersonal disconnection from others both inside and outside of academia
Abstract Students from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds can experience stigma in undergraduate educational settings but little research on this topic has been conducted at the PhD level. Lower‐SES PhD students may feel lower levels of social integration as they experience incidents of interpersonal disconnection from others inside and outside of academia. Interpersonal disconnection may be a mechanism by which lower‐SES leads to a lower sense of social integration. In this prospective study of first‐year PhD students at three North American universities (N = 608), we assessed students’ perceived social integration and their interpersonal perceptions inside and outside of academia 2–8 times throughout their first year of graduate school. Relative to higher‐SES students, lower‐SES students perceived lower levels of social integration. They had difficulty making academic friends, felt dissimilar to their academic peers, and perceived a lack of understanding about their work in graduate school from non‐academic families and friends. They also lost non‐academic social ties. These interpersonal disconnections prospectively mediated the association between lower SES and lower levels of perceived social integration. Lower‐SES PhD students are at risk of impaired interpersonal relationships. Institutional policies to promote social connections among PhD students may help lower‐SES students integrate into academia.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1661214
PAR ID:
10372556
Author(s) / Creator(s):
 ;  ;  ;  ;  ;  
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley-Blackwell
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Journal of Social Issues
Volume:
79
Issue:
1
ISSN:
0022-4537
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: p. 79-107
Size(s):
p. 79-107
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; (, PLOS ONE)
    Benetreau, Yann (Ed.)
    To advance understanding of doctoral student experiences and the high attrition rates among Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) doctoral students, we developed and examined the psychological profiles of different types of doctoral students. We used latent class analysis on self-reported psychological data relevant to psychological threat from 1,081 incoming doctoral students across three universities and found that the best-fitting model delineated four threat classes: Lowest Threat , Nonchalant , Engaged/Worried , and Highest Threat . These classes were associated with characteristics measured at the beginning of students’ first semester of graduate school that may influence attrition risk, including differences in academic preparation (e.g., amount of research experience), self-evaluations and perceived fit (e.g., sense of belonging), attitudes towards graduate school and academia (e.g., strength of motivation), and interpersonal relations (e.g., perceived social support). Lowest Threat students tended to report the most positive characteristics and Highest Threat students the most negative characteristics, whereas the results for Nonchalant and Engaged/Worried students were more mixed. Ultimately, we suggest that Engaged/Worried and Highest Threat students are at relatively high risk of attrition. Moreover, the demographic distributions of profiles differed, with members of groups more likely to face social identity threat (e.g., women) being overrepresented in a higher threat profile (i.e., Engaged/Worried students) and underrepresented in lower threat profiles (i.e., Lowest Threat and Nonchalant students). We conclude that doctoral students meaningfully vary in their psychological threat at the beginning of graduate study and suggest that these differences may portend divergent outcomes. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Nature)
    Abstract Low levels of social interaction across class lines have generated widespread concern 1–4 and are associated with worse outcomes, such as lower rates of upward income mobility 4–7 . Here we analyse the determinants of cross-class interaction using data from Facebook, building on the analysis in our companion paper 7 . We show that about half of the social disconnection across socioeconomic lines—measured as the difference in the share of high-socioeconomic status (SES) friends between people with low and high SES—is explained by differences in exposure to people with high SES in groups such as schools and religious organizations. The other half is explained by friending bias—the tendency for people with low SES to befriend people with high SES at lower rates even conditional on exposure. Friending bias is shaped by the structure of the groups in which people interact. For example, friending bias is higher in larger and more diverse groups and lower in religious organizations than in schools and workplaces. Distinguishing exposure from friending bias is helpful for identifying interventions to increase cross-SES friendships (economic connectedness). Using fluctuations in the share of students with high SES across high school cohorts, we show that increases in high-SES exposure lead low-SES people to form more friendships with high-SES people in schools that exhibit low levels of friending bias. Thus, socioeconomic integration can increase economic connectedness in communities in which friending bias is low. By contrast, when friending bias is high, increasing cross-SES interactions among existing members may be necessary to increase economic connectedness. To support such efforts, we release privacy-protected statistics on economic connectedness, exposure and friending bias for each ZIP (postal) code, high school and college in the United States at https://www.socialcapital.org . 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; (, Frontiers in Psychology)
    The landscape of graduate science education is changing as efforts to diversify the professoriate have increased because academic faculty jobs at universities have grown scarce and more competitive. With this context as a backdrop, the present research examines the perceptions and career goals of advisors and advisees through surveys of PhD students (Study 1, N  = 195) and faculty mentors (Study 2, N  = 272) in science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. Study 1 examined actual preferences and career goals of PhD students among three options: research careers, teaching careers, and non-academic careers in industry, and compared the actual preferences of students with what they perceived as being the normative preferences of faculty. Overall, students had mixed preferences but perceived that their advisors had a strong normative preference for research careers for them. Moreover, students who ranked research positions as most desirable felt the most belonging in their academic departments. Further analyses revealed no differences in career preferences as a function of underrepresented minority (URM) student status or first-generation (FG) status, but URM and FG students felt less belonging in their academic departments. Study 2 examined faculty preferences for different careers for their advisees, both in general and for current students in particular. While faculty advisors preferred students to go into research in general, when focusing on specific students, they saw their preferences as being closely aligned with the career preference of each PhD student. Faculty advisors did not perceive any difference in belonging between their students as a function of their URM status. Discrepancies between student and faculty perceptions may occur, in part, because faculty and students do not engage in sufficient discussions about the wider range of career options beyond academic research. Supporting this possibility, PhD students and faculty advisors reported feeling more comfortable discussing research careers with each other than either non-academic industry positions or teaching positions. Discussion centers on the implications of these findings for interpersonal and institutional efforts to foster diversity in the professoriate and to create open communication about career development. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; (, Journal of Engineering Education)
    Abstract BackgroundIn addition to the benefits of a diverse faculty, many institutions are under pressure from students and administrators to increase the number of faculty from historically excluded backgrounds. Despite increases in the numbers of engineering PhD earners from these groups, the percentages of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino tenure‐track faculty have not increased, and the percentage of women remains low. PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify how experiences in graduate school encourage or deter PhD earners from historically excluded groups in pursuing an engineering academic career. MethodWe conducted 20 semi‐structured interviews with engineering PhD students and recent graduates, with half of participants interested and half disinterested in pursuing an academic career after graduation. ResultsThree key factors emerged as strongly influential on participants' desire to pursue an academic career: their relationship with their advisor, their perception of their advisor's work–life balance, and their perception of the culture of academia. Participants extrapolated their experiences in graduate school to their imagined lives as faculty. The results illuminate the reasons why engineering PhD earners from historically underrepresented groups remain in or leave the academic career pathway after graduate school. ConclusionsThe findings of this study have important implications for how graduate students' and postdoc's relationships with their advisors as well as perceptions of their advisors' work–life balances and the culture of academia affect future faculty. We make recommendations on what students, faculty, and administrators can do to create a more inclusive environment to encourage students from historically excluded groups to consider academic careers. 
    more » « less
  5. (, 2021 ASEE Annual Conference)
    null (Ed.)
    There is a substantial shortage of students pursuing graduate degrees in computing fields in the United States [1], and when examining participation rates of minoritized populations the disparity is even greater [2]. In order to attract more domestic students to graduate schools in computing it is important to understand what factors encourage or discourage them from participating. Literature suggests that students’ family, friends, school, and society play an important role in their educational paths and self-perceptions. Using social impact theory as the guiding lens, we explored support from family and friends, as well as social and program-related experiences, in this study to assess their impact on undergraduate students' reported interest in pursuing a graduate degree. The research questions that guided this study are 1) Which social and programmatic experiences have the greatest impact on students’ interest in pursuing a graduate degree in computing?; and 2) How does a student’s gender/racial/ethnic background and their participation in social and programmatic experiences impact students’ interest in pursuing graduate degrees? We answered these research questions using data from a survey conducted at three large public universities in Florida which targeted students in computing fields (n=740). Data was analyzed using Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon rank sum tests, as well as logistic regression. The findings revealed that “presenting work to other students,” and “research experience” are two experiences which lead to an increase of students’ interest in pursuing a graduate degree in a computing field. This study also demonstrated the importance of having same gender friends and reported interest in pursuing a graduate degree in a computing field. These findings provide insight into which experiences may impact domestic students' interest in pursuing graduate programs in computing fields. The results of this study are beneficial for universities to consider what factors may encourage more students to pursue a future in academia or in the workforce after obtaining a graduate degree. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email