Search results
1 – 10 of 181In March 2020, the UK entered its first lockdown responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same month, the Domestic Abuse Bill had its first reading in Parliament. Charities and…
Abstract
Purpose
In March 2020, the UK entered its first lockdown responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. In the same month, the Domestic Abuse Bill had its first reading in Parliament. Charities and non-governmental organisations critiqued the Bill for failing to protect migrants from domestic abuse, and not complying with the Istanbul Convention. Drawing on interviews with staff from Southall Black Sisters, this paper aims to foreground the experiences of practitioners within the women’s sector to explore the unique experiences and challenges migrant and racially minoritised women encountered when seeking support from domestic abuse during the Covid-19 pandemic. It highlights how the pandemic-related lockdowns created barriers to accessing support services and housing, creating an epidemic within the pandemic, and how minoritised women and the organisations that supported them had to overcome structural barriers and racism.
Design/methodology/approach
In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff from a leading women’s organisation that supports migrant and racially minoritised women. Four participants were asked questions within four themes: domestic abuse before and during the pandemic; accessing support from and reporting domestic abuse; accessibility of resources; and post-pandemic challenges. A phenomenological approach was used to analyse the transcribed interviews.
Findings
Participants consistently highlighted the unique threats and barriers migrant and racially minoritised women faced when seeking support. Barriers included racism, language barriers, cultural constraints, the triple threat of destitution, detention, deportation, and political resistance to protect migrant women from destitution/homelessness.
Originality/value
This paper provides a unique insight into the experiences of staff members within a specialist by and for women’s support organisation in England and their perspectives on the barriers racially minoritised and migrant women experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. It offers rare insights into how service users’ needs changed during the lockdowns and how the pandemic affected their ability to operate.
Details
Keywords
Angélica S. Gutiérrez and Jean Lee Cole
Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization…
Abstract
Purpose
Given the lack of research on the lived experiences of racially minoritized women in academia, this paper provides primary accounts of their experience with impostorization. Impostorization refers to the policies, practices and seemingly innocuous interactions that make or intend to make individuals (i.e. women of color) question their intelligence, competence and sense of belonging.
Design/methodology/approach
To explore experiences with impostorization and identify effective coping strategies to counter the debilitating effects of impostorization, 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with women of color PhD students and faculty at universities throughout the USA and across disciplines.
Findings
While impostor syndrome, which refers to feelings of inadequacy that individuals experience and a fear that they will be discovered as fraud, has garnered much attention, the present accounts suggest that the more vexing issue in academia is impostorization, not impostor syndrome. Forms of impostorization include microaggressions, grateful guest syndrome, invisibility and inclusion taxation.
Originality/value
The interviews reveal the implicit and explicit ways in which academia impostorizes racially minoritized women scholars and the coping strategies that they use to navigate and survive within academia. The accounts demonstrate the pernicious effects of labeling feelings of inadequacy and unbelonging as impostor syndrome rather than recognizing that the problem is impostorization. This is a call to change the narrative and go from a fix-the-individual to a fix-the-institution approach.
Details
Keywords
Rosemary J. Perez, L. Wesley Harris, Jr, Claire K. Robbins and Cheryl Montgomery
The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to explore how graduate students demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences based on their socially constructed identities during graduate school and the effects of leveraging agency.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used critical constructivist qualitative methods (i.e. interviews and visual methods) to explore how 44 graduate students across an array of disciplines and fields at two public research institutions in the USA demonstrated agency after having oppressive or invalidating experiences targeting one or more of their socially constructed identities.
Findings
In response to oppressive or invalidating experiences related to their socially constructed identity, participants engaged in self-advocacy, sought/created support via community, conserved their psychological and emotional energy and constructed space for identity-conscious scholarship and practice. Although participants leveraged their agency, the strategies they used were often geared toward surviving environments that were not designed to affirm their identities or support their success.
Research limitations/implications
This study highlights the need for additional research to complicate educators’ understandings of how graduate students respond to oppressive or invalidating experiences and the nature of bi-directional socialization processes.
Practical implications
The findings of this study reinforce the need to foster equitable and inclusive graduate education experiences where students may use their agency to thrive rather than to survive.
Originality/value
Few studies examine graduate students’ agency during their socialization to their disciplines and fields. This study adds complexity to researchers’ understandings of bi-directional socialization processes in the context of graduate education.
Details
Keywords
The aim of my chapter is to draw on conceptualisations of sexism, racism, epistemology of white ignorance and critical race theorists’ critiques of white feminism to examine…
Abstract
The aim of my chapter is to draw on conceptualisations of sexism, racism, epistemology of white ignorance and critical race theorists’ critiques of white feminism to examine critical management studies (CMS) practices. The purpose of the chapter is to acknowledge the contribution of CMS feminists and look to how we can go beyond current practices to include antiracism in our feminisms. In particular, I show how sexism, racism and white ignorance are collectively produced in CMS and operate through mundane, and avoidable, organisational and pedagogical processes. I respond to the editors’ call for chapters by offering a practical politics through the idea of a killjoy manifesto, taking inspiration from the writings of Sara Ahmed. An important part of is that is for white feminism in CMS to attend to critiques from racially minoritised academics, activists and workers. Whilst challenging, I hope the chapter provides practical and theoretical resources and encouragement.
The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for future research on intersection feminist studies of foodwork.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the implications of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic for future research on intersection feminist studies of foodwork.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper offers a brief summary of feminist domestic foodwork research and COVID-19 food-related media commentary, focusing on race, gender and class.
Findings
This paper shows how domestic foodwork during pandemic lockdowns and the wider contexts reproduced racial, classed and gendered inequalities and hierarchies.
Research limitations/implications
The paper is limited by the recency of the pandemic and lack of empirical studies but still offers recommendations for a post-pandemic intersectional feminist agenda for studies and policy interventions relation to domestic foodwork.
Originality/value
The paper raises the importance of foodwork for feminist organisational studies, and how it consolidated and created racialised, gendered and classed inequalities during the pandemic, offering insights for future research and policy interventions around food and labour.
Jennifer M. Blaney, David F. Feldon and Kaylee Litson
Supporting community college transfer students represents a critical strategy for broadening participation in STEM. In addition to being a racially diverse group, students who…
Abstract
Purpose
Supporting community college transfer students represents a critical strategy for broadening participation in STEM. In addition to being a racially diverse group, students who pursue STEM degrees by way of community college report frequent interests in graduate study and academic careers. Thus, supporting and expanding transfer students’ PhD interests can help to diversify the STEM professoriate. This study aims to identify the experiences that predict PhD interests among students who transferred into the computer science major from a community college.
Design/methodology/approach
Relying on longitudinal survey data from over 150 community college transfer students throughout their first year at their receiving four-year university, we used regression analysis to identify the post-transfer college experiences that predict early interest in PhDs.
Findings
We found that receiving information about PhDs from a professor strongly predicted PhD interest among transfer students. Relationships with other variables indicate that the provision of information about graduate school was more likely to occur for students who participated in undergraduate research experiences than for those participating in internships. Descriptive data document inequities in who has access to these types of experiences.
Originality/value
This paper provides new insight into how STEM departments can develop targeted efforts to ensure that information about PhD training is equitably available to all transfer students. Working to ensure that faculty equitably communicate with students about PhD opportunities may go a long way in countering potential deterrents among transfer students who may be interested in such pathways.
Details
Keywords
This paper takes seriously the feminist adage that “the personal is political” by critically exploring my experiences as an early career scholar of gender and entrepreneurship…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper takes seriously the feminist adage that “the personal is political” by critically exploring my experiences as an early career scholar of gender and entrepreneurship studies to offer vital context for the contributions of my work and future research agenda, in light of the current historical moment of interconnected political, public health and environmental calamity.
Design/methodology/approach
The author presents reflections on her positionality, philosophical and political commitments, and theorises from her experiences of racist distraction and intersectional marginality in contemporary academia, considering their implications for incoming and aspiring gender and entrepreneurship scholars whose research agendas are still in development.
Findings
Racism functions as a persistent distraction from overall research agendas and activities, and delimits the lane of perceived contributions. However, collectively challenging it in work and study presents a vehicle by which intellectual and affective experiences of academic work may be enriched, and a spacious and expansive legacy of critical scholarship built that will be resonant for years to come.
Originality/value
The paper argues that although racism will doubtlessly continue to cause immense distraction, it presents an invitation to create positive social change, through collectivising with a community that aims to shape a liveable, equitable and imaginative academic future.
Details
Keywords
Research pertaining to African-American women in academe is scant. Narrowing the focus to a specific segment of this population, such as those in the professoriate, is even more…
Abstract
Research pertaining to African-American women in academe is scant. Narrowing the focus to a specific segment of this population, such as those in the professoriate, is even more limited. Much of the available scholarship responding to the realities of African-American women’s work and lives in higher education revolves around the emotional, cultural, professional, and epistemic violence endured at the intersections of multiple systems of oppression, and the ways in which these women cope and resist. Less is known beyond these various coping strategies. Literature that responds to the complexities of Christianity and privilege, particularly in regards to directives for institutional diversity remains inconsistently addressed. The ways in which multiple forms of the Judeo-Christian faith influence experiences within differing higher educational settings is limited. Investigating the materiality that occurs in the interstices of these differing, yet interrelated, conversations has significant import for multiple dimensions of Black higher education. The present chapter questions the potential influence Judeo-Christian African-American women faculty have on diverse student engagement at historically Black colleges and universities.
Details
Keywords
Yanbing Wang and Joyce B. Main
While postdoctoral research (postdoc) training is a common step toward academic careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the role of postdoc…
Abstract
Purpose
While postdoctoral research (postdoc) training is a common step toward academic careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, the role of postdoc training in social sciences is less clear. An increasing number of social science PhDs are pursuing postdocs. This paper aims to identify factors associated with participation in postdoc training and examines the relationship between postdoc training and subsequent career outcomes, including attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and early career salaries.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data from the National Science Foundation Survey of Earned Doctorates and Survey of Doctorate Recipients, this study applies propensity score matching, regression and decomposition analyses to identify the role of postdoc training on the employment outcomes of PhDs in the social science and STEM fields.
Findings
Results from the regression analyses indicate that participation in postdoc training is associated with greater PhD research experience, higher departmental research ranking and departmental job placement norms. When the postdocs and non-postdocs groups are balanced on observable characteristics, postdoc training is associated with a higher likelihood of attaining tenure-track faculty positions 7 to 9 years after PhD completion. The salaries of social science tenure-track faculty with postdoc experience eventually surpass the salaries of non-postdoc PhDs, primarily via placement at institutions that offer relatively higher salaries. This pattern, however, does not apply to STEM PhDs.
Originality/value
This study leverages comprehensive, nationally representative data to investigate the role of postdoc training in the career outcomes of social sciences PhDs, in comparison to STEM PhDs. Research findings suggest that for social sciences PhDs interested in academic careers, postdoc training can contribute to the attainment of tenure-track faculty positions and toward earning relatively higher salaries over time. Research findings provide prospective and current PhDs with information helpful in career planning and decision-making. Academic institutions, administrators, faculty and stakeholders can apply these research findings toward developing programs and interventions to provide doctoral students with career guidance and greater career transparency.
Details
Keywords
Sarah N. Mitchell, Antoinette M. Landor and Katharine H. Zeiders
Research has shown that for young adults, marital attitudes (e.g., desire, importance, and expectation) are associated with relationship quality. However, how this association…
Abstract
Research has shown that for young adults, marital attitudes (e.g., desire, importance, and expectation) are associated with relationship quality. However, how this association plays out for young adults of color is less known. Additionally, the influence of skin tone perception on the relationship between marital attitudes and relationship quality remains understudied. To explore these associations, the authors examined African American and Latinx young adults (N = 57, Mage = 20.71 years, SD = 1.28; 75.4% female) attending a Midwestern university. Exploratory results indicated that marital expectations were positively associated with relationship quality in that young adults who expected to marry one day, reported greater relationship satisfaction, commitment, and intimacy in their current relationships. Additionally, skin tone perception moderated the association between marital attitudes and relationship quality in two ways (i.e., between expectations and satisfaction and between importance and intimacy). Collectively, findings suggest that differing levels of marital attitudes and skin tone perception contributes to young adults’ perceptions of relationship quality. Considering these psychological factors of attitudes, skin tone perception, and relationship quality, together with systemic racial/ethnic discrimination, the authors discuss future research and practice considerations.
Details