Who is “good enough” for science? Gender and field differences in academic identity development and reasons for academic career exit

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68081740%3A_____%2F21%3A00551245" target="_blank" >RIV/68081740:_____/21:00551245 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Who is “good enough” for science? Gender and field differences in academic identity development and reasons for academic career exit

Original language description

Academic identity has been proved as an important factor behind the development of academic career ambitions (Lief et al. 2012, McAlpine 2012). Various disciplinary environments have been shown to create specific conditions and obstacles for constructing own academic identity of early-career academics while these obstacles are significantly gendered (Cidlinská 2019, Linková 2014). However, we miss greater knowledge of the academic identities of men and women who have left an academic career and the relation between academic identities and academic career exits because a majority of studies focus on actual academics. The presented study has the aim to contribute to fulfill this knowledge gap and to conduce to the discussion about gender asymmetries in neoliberal academia by focusing on the gender and research field specifics of the academic identity development of 'leavers'. The study is based on 45 narrative interviews with individuals from various disciplines who have left an academic path at doctoral and mostly post-doctoral stage. Interviews were collected in 2013-2017. The data analysis was based on the grounded theory approach. As a theoretical framework was used identity as a trajectory (McAlpine 2012). The analysis showed, based on retrospective comparison of academic identity at the moment of the entrance to PhD study and at the moment after the exit, that similarities in original academic identity, approach to academic work and confidence in one´s academic capability may lead to differences in the development of academic identity and reasoning of exit regarding research field and gender. Only women from the STEM field lost their original academic identity when they did not question their academic ability and did not lose interest in academic work. Men from the STEM field and both, men and women, from the SSH field in such case kept their academic identity after the exit. While women from the STEM field concluded that they are not 'good enough' for science, those who kept their academic identity exited with the conviction that the academic environment is not 'good enough' for those who want to do'good science'. The study supports our previous findings showing high exclusivity and masculine features of normative collective identity in the STEM field and rather inclusive collective academic identity in the SSH field (Cidlinská 2019).

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

50101 - Psychology (including human - machine relations)

Project

<a href="/en/project/GA20-13732S" target="_blank" >GA20-13732S: Excellent research between individuals, institutions, and discourses: Collaborative construction of research productivity at research institutions</a><br>

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů