Mixing it up: STEM labs as a space, place and process for rethinking gender equality

Leona A. Donaldson

doi:10.17918/00000129

This qualitative critical ethnographic collective case study explored how female faculty lab leaders in male-dominated STEM departments navigated their professional and personal lives to advance their careers. Additionally, the study investigated how the female faculty's backgrounds as minoritized population in their male-dominated STEM fields have shaped the ways in which they mentor their lab members. Moreover, the study investigated how the lab members-specifically doctoral students and postdocs who are at the last stage of schooling-have constructed meanings about their own identities and came to their STEM doctoral programs. Furthermore, the study investigated the lab members' experiences in their STEM doctoral programs and career plans in relation to their lab environments and experiences as well as beliefs and images they have constructed about diverse STEM careers. Utilizing gendered organizations and intersectionality as a theoretical framework, the study examined how the gender imbalanced structure of the historically male-dominated STEM departments as well as the STEM fields as an organization have negatively affected female faculty lab leaders who are minoritized population in the organizational settings. The study also examined how the culture of historical male-domination has influenced the lab members' career plans. The study was conducted at a STEM-focused comprehensive research university in the United States and the female faculty lab leaders and their lab members were the main participants of this study. One-on-one interviews with the participants, observations in various group settings, and related documents were collected during a nine months data collection period. All of the interview transcription was sent back to the participants for member checking. The data were analyzed using the NVivo software and the themes that emerged were organized into each research question. All of the female faculty lab leaders had experienced tensions that were related to their female gender identity not only in their professorship but also in their student lives. Each lab member had a unique pathway to their current position in academia and their interpretations, images, and beliefs about future STEM career options had influences on their career plans. The participants' life experiences suggested needs of interventions at all levels of schooling in the United States as well as changes in the American culture, systems, and policies in order to bring equality and equity in historically class-privileged white American male-dominated STEM occupations.

Mixing it up: STEM labs as a space, place and process for rethinking gender equality

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details

Mixing it up: STEM labs as a space, place and process for rethinking gender equality

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details

Drexel University Social media