January 31, 2012 by sarahaspen
I’m taking a personal day.
I’ve had a long day so far, and just got out of our Research and Stats class (our most intense yet). Therefore, I will be doing my reading solo this go-round. Sorry, all you in the cyberwebs, no SB wisdom today.
Find an article for me to read! See the links on the bottom right of the page.
Sarah Beth
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January 30, 2012 by sarahaspen
In this article, two researchers surveyed women on a small liberal arts campus in order to find predictors for college women’s leadership aspirations. They hypothesised that a woman’s self-reported femininity would be inversely related to leadership aspirations (as in, the more feminine the woman reports herself to be, the fewer leadership aspirations she will have); that “connectedness needs” will positively correlate with leadership aspirations (higher development of relatedness concern might correlate to higher aspirations ); that self-esteem will as well be positively correlated (the higher self-esteem correlates to higher leadership aspirations); and that fears of negative evaluation will be inversely related to aspiration (the higher the fear, the lower the aspirations).
The researchers found that “connectedness needs exerted the most important influence upon college women’s leadership aspirations” (p.663), which the researchers contrast with with the typical overlooking of relationship values in hiring for leadership positions. Furthermore, the research supports the initial hypothesis regarding self-reported femininity being inversely related to leadership aspirations–and in a significant way. However, the hypothesis regarding fear of negative evaluation seemed to have little relationship. Finally, self-esteem numerically represented the most significant predictor.
Looking at my own leadership aspirations and my self-perceived notions of these four “predictors,” I can see the logic in the hypotheses posed by the researchers. Personally, I find that I tend to separate myself from the rest of my gender quite often and vehemently when discussing my career aspirations. Being more “left brained” than right, more concerned with factual truth than tip-toeing around people’s feelings, and having a work ethic that occasionally endangers my personal life or well-being, I think myself distinct from many “feminine” personality attributes. I do tend to think that because of my more “masculine” personality, that I might be a better leader than someone who I think is overly sensitive to others’ whims and feelings (though I realize these are not in direct contrast). I wonder how much of my conception has been “fed” to me through the patriarchal society in which we live, or through my own preference for the left side of my brain. (I also recently noticed the correlation between my preference for what is deemed “masculine,” and the fact that of my two biological parents, I was raised by my father during the years of identity development. I don’t think this is one-to-one, but I find the link interesting.)
For me, this article opens more questions than offers answers. While the concluions are certainly interesting, I wonder what might or should be done about the findings. Perhaps that will be included in tomorrow’s fifteen minutes (I have 7 pages left!).
References
Boatwright, K., & Egidio, R. (2003). Psychological predictors of colege women’s leadership aspirations. Journal of College Student Development (44) 5, 653-669.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: anti-feminism,doubts,feminism,gender,higher education,leadership,masculine v. feminine,parental involvement,personal goals,undergraduate | No Comments
January 26, 2012 by sarahaspen
Concluding Yakaboski’s article today, I have highlighted a few of her key points which I find compelling.
How do parental roles affect men’s and women’s academic careers differently? Yakaboski nods to, but does not discuss the issue: “In addition, during the early years of employment, career interruptions due to childbirth affect women’s pay and promotions as the American work culture continues to penalize motherhood even though the social culture promotes it” (569).
According to my professor, the following is a great idea (he backs it up with studies, of course), no matter the gender gap situation: “giving greater weight to SAT scores, which benefited men more than women, who tended to be stronger in their writing scores (Clayton, 2001b)” (570).
When thinking of the gender gap and even “affirmative” policies for men, how can we forget the real minorities? Yakaboski writes, “For women and minorities (the former genuine minorities), being a minority meant the need to prove their merit through greater effort and determination. However, with men occupying the position of oppressed minority, the discourse does not focus on constructing higher expectations for them; rather, through power and privilege structures, the discourse encourages stereotypical gendered performance and behavior that opposes women’s merit-based opportunity” (573), emphasis mine. Instead, “educators and researchers need to focus less on the gender gap and more on the race and class gap that continues to be a concern in college enrollment” (574).
Who is really suffering from the gender gap? What might we gain by paying proper attention to the race and class gaps?
References
Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly stripping the pastels”: The Undergraduate gender gap. The Review of Higher Education (34)4, 555-580.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: anti-feminism,class,critical thinking,feminism,gender,gender gap,higher education,maternity,race,undergraduate | No Comments
January 25, 2012 by sarahaspen
As Yakaboksi begins her development of specific arguments regarding the ways newspapers are representing the gender gap in undergraduate enrollment, I am shocked by what she finds. Several of the news sources quote administrators who make outlandish claims about the value of gender balance in higher education. Yakaboski responds to the idea that colleges should maintain balance for dating/marriage reasons: ” This is also heterosexist in assuming that relationships found in college are only between a man and a woman and that women still go to college for the purpose of finding a husband” (565). Indeed.
Later, she points out the general assumption that academic quality is determined by gender balance, especially in light of women’s colleges recently becoming co-educational for this the sake of their reputations. If a couple generations ago, civil rights demanded equal opportunity for women’s education (likelyalso espousing that bringing women into the patriarchal academe would improve it), then how can we today argue against the same movement from single-gender study toward inclusion? In other words, if we think it is right and fair and beneficial that women have moved into the academy, then how can we also argue that it is best with only women? I am not arguing that the sexes must be perfectly equally balanced in order for high quality education, but I think that the women’s colleges, perhaps, have made a good move.
One last thought today regarding the following concept of the admissions policy and how it seems to be favoring women:
It is puzzling how the argument that a tilt in the gender balance equals “no better way to undermine a campus’s long-term success” (Clayton, 2001c) can exist side by side with the fact that the tilt results from admitting students based on academic merit—a policy that has rewarded women’s greater preparation and achievement. (567)
Yakaboski appears to favor the “fairness” of the admission of “students based on academic merit,” arguing further that it happens to favor women because they are achieving higher. What a complex issue! Traditionally, structural, merit-based admission has been considered a masculine practice (though I shudder at this attribution). Yet, this “masculine,” policy-heavy practice appears to be putting males at a disadvantage. Appears, but does not, I would argue. Perhaps preparation and culture factor into the uneven levels of achievement between the sexes, but a standard for achievement itself favors no specific group. We may be able to help males perform better to reach the bar of higher education admission (one which I feel is too low already), but lowering the bar helps no one.
References
Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly stripping the pastels”: The Undergraduate gender gap. The REview of Higher Education (34)4, 555-580.
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January 24, 2012 by sarahaspen
As I begin to read further into this researcher’s methods and aims, I find myself wanting to highlight all over the place without know what to write in the margin. These are ideas to ponder. For today’s entry, I will run through a few of my highlighted passages and react to them. Feel free to react along with me (there is a comments section below!).
In discussing her methods, Yakaboski reasons, “Uncovering hidden hegemonic values [in these newspapers] is important because these common-sense assumptions directly and indirectly influence societal and institutional opinions, admission policies, recruitment, and campus climate” (559). Upon first reading this, I was unsure what she meant by “uncovering” oppressive rhetoric influencing policies and climate, and to be honest, after reading further in the article, I am only beginning to have an inkling of her meaning. I suppose her conclusions will help me out here.
I find this next passage to be her best description of what she is doing with these articles and how the negative rhetoric about the gender gap beings to shape policy:
“For example, when covering the gender gap story, reporters used negative buzz words such as ‘alarm,’ ‘falling,’ ‘trouble,’ ‘unhealthy,’ ‘concern,’ ‘struggle,’ ‘danger of women taking over,’ ‘boys are flat-lining’ (Gonzalez, 2004), and ‘victim,’ to discuss the enrollment trend. The underlying narrative these words produce is that the gender gap is problematic and should be corrected. The power of this language and the resulting discourse is that it creates a binary of victims/perpetrators” (560).
Discussing the gap as a problem, she later explains, in a way vilifies or punishes girls who are succeeding. If the feminist culture change is pervading our schools and allowing female students to achieve more academically (exactly their goal), then somehow this seems to imply that boys are being put at a disadvantage. The struggle here seems to be finding the exact middle between what are considered to be masculine and feminine learning styles (a concept with which I have issues), but would that result in equal success for males and females? Would it even out college enrollment to 50%/50%? Is this the goal at all? Surely males should not be disadvantaged in the school systems, just as females should not be.
It seems the language in the articles propagates conceptions of distinct male/female learning styles; I do not believe this is the case. Furthermore, as part of Yakaboski’s premise, the larger culture greatly affects students’ sense of their gendered roles: “The idea that boys are disadvantaged due to cooperative learning in classrooms instead of rote learning and competition seems to do a disservice to young men while focusing on harming what works for young women” (561). On one level I agree with Yakaboski’s logic here, but one of her premises seems flawed to me (again, the distinct and unchanging learning styles for each gender).
Tomorrow, I’ll pick back up on the bottom of 562. Let me know what you think, where I’ve gone astray, another study to read!
References
Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly stripping the pastels”: The Undergraduate gender gap. The REview of Higher Education (34)4, 555-580.
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January 23, 2012 by sarahaspen
According to Yakaboski and her sources, females hold the majority position in undergraduate enrollment, but men dominate academic culture (p. 556). The author fears the already beginning dissolution of women’s studies as well as queer studies through “anti-feminism” (Ferguson, Katrak, & Miner, 2000; p. 556-67). She builds an argument against the rhetoric in the media as more than descriptive, but rather as a prescriptive force, citing Lacan among other theorists. Yakaboksi here is attempting to look at three mainstram public news sources and analyze the binary treatment of gender in higher education as a means of uncovering how the media’s rhetoric might be affecting reality. As she puts it,
The objective of this feminist media discourse analysis [...] is to identify and analyze the rhetoric used in three national newspaper sources and to highlight the underlying power discourse.[...] While the news sources I discuss present binary arguments to frame gender, the use of a poststructural framework allows the deconstruction of these dichotomies and presents an alternative framework. (pp. 557, 558)
At one point, Yakaboski argues that the patriarchal (or male-dominated) academic culture is not noticed because it is so prevalant. This makes sense to me. As I look at my own program and the male to female ratio as compared to those of the faculty in my program, I do not see balance. I have attributed this to two main factors: 1) generational trends, and 2) women’s desire to value family life over academic professionalism.
Now, both of these are generalizations, I admit, but I think that together they might begin to explain the trends we see. Many of the faculty in my program are male and many over the age of 60. I’m not exactly sure on the timeline, but it seems that in that generation, not as many women were respected enough or felt qualified to hold such positions. On the other hand, two of the three major administrative positions in the department are held by women. More men than women, but some women hold significantly more power.
As for my second factor, I find it pressing on myself and across the generations. I do not feel obligated to “stay home with the family,” but even as a highly educated and audacious academic, I find myself more than willing to draw back my academic and professional pursuits in favor of relationships and potential family. Furthermore, I do not feel as though I’m selling out or selling myself short. I cannot, however, say this is true for all the women who are not dominating academic culture.
I am curious to see how Yakaboski tackles this issue, how she gathers her data, and most importantly, what she makes of it. I wonder if my topics here will play a role in her study. Maybe I’m a sucker who has been convinced of my heart’s desire by the media.
References
Yakaboski, T. (2011). “Quietly stripping the pastels”: The Undergraduate gender gap. The REview of Higher Education (34)4, 555-580.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: anti-feminism,feminism,gender,gender gap,higher education,media rhetoric,poststructuralism,undergraduate | No Comments
January 20, 2012 by sarahaspen
Upon finishing Cullaty’s article on parental involvement, I reaffirm my previous intentions to look at this article again as I write my own research. In his conclusion, the author outlines exactly what he proved in the body of the article while spending some time discussing his study’s limitations and suggesting a reasonable scope of influence he hopes for his article.
Cullaty concludes that parents’ involvment is important in many ways, so long as those parents treat their role appropriately. According to Cullaty,
Parents should realize that support does not entail intervening with administrators on their child’s behalf. Rather, support involves listening to the student, asking questions, respecting independent decisions, and offering emotional encouragement. This type of support allows students to act autonomously. Not intervening also requires relinquishing control and allowing students to differ in opinion and make their own decisions even if this means allowing students to make mistakes. In addition, college is a time for parents to establish adult-to-adult relationshipswith their children. Mature relationships allow students to feel more like adults and express their own beliefs and opinions. (436)
In many ways, we already know that parents should care about what their children are doing in college while allowing the student to handle the issues him/herself. Parents who override students’ decisions, Cullaty’s study shows, makes students feel as though they are not in control of their own lives. Students with parents who listen and advise but ultimately relinquish unnecessary control feel the most adult. As Cullaty cedes, his article focuses on student reactions to parental involvement and their own conception of their autonomy. He suggests another study might look at parental reactions and conception of their students’ autonomy. Furthermore, Cullaty suggests that a further study might look at the ethnic disparities among students’ experience in terms of parental involvement. How do particular ethnic groups tend to differ from others in this vein? How much does this matter in the end? What other factors might play into this concern, thus skewing the results?
As an aspiring administrator, I value Cullaty’s recommendations for professionals who must deal with parents. First, he recommends diverting control from the parent to the student when a parent begins to meddle, and encouraging the parents to “let their children solve their own problems…[by] listening to the parent and thanking the parent for their concern but requesting that the student initiate future contact” (p.436). Easier said than done?
In the end, I now see overly involved parents as a learning opportunity for me, for the student, and for the parent. Undoubtedly I will be affronted by a parent at some point and must learn to delicately suggest they let the issue stay between the student and me. The student as well, seeing that I have done (or tried to do) that will see that even that controlling parent can be overturned, perhaps giving that student more confidence in his or her own ability to make decisions without consent from that parent. Mainly, the student will be made to handle the issue–perhaps a rare and valuable experience. The parent as well, if I do my job well, might begin to see his or her student in a new way and see the value in allowing the student to make mistakes. (With the most stubborn parents, the law is on my side, as I cannot discuss academic information with anyone but the student without the student’s permission. This might buy me some time while the paperwork is filed. In the meantime, I might be able to work on the student!)
Next: more on parental involvement? Some major articles on SAT/ACT scores as predictors? Try to find some articles responding to Cullaty’s?
References
Cullaty, B. (2011). The role of parental involvement in the autonomy development of traditional-age college students. Journal of College Student Development 52(4), 425-439.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: article model,autonomy,critical thinking,higher education,parental involvement,personal goals,qualitative data | No Comments
January 19, 2012 by sarahaspen
Today, I read several pages of the evidence in this article on how parental involvement affects students’ development of autonomy. The article seems to me a great example of how to write about qualitative date, though the study overall uses mixed methods. As such, Cullaty collected 169 quantitative surveys in order to get an idea of the overall demographics in relation to parental involvement, and including related information like the salary bracket of the parents. He then chose 18 students from the surveyed group to perform his qualitative assessment, making sure to equally represent the various levels of parental involvement reported (low, medium, high) and gender distribution. At this point in the article, Cullaty began to explicate some of the students’ interview and journal responses in an organized way, first discussing how parental involvement can support student autonomy, and then how it can inhibit it.
In the sections where Cullaty provides quotations from these students, he makes sure to relate each comment to his overall purpose and in terms related to his other findings. For instance, he quotes one student’s reaction: “‘It really helped because I actually schedule my classes where I have time to have meetings and do certain stuff in between or right after or before so it’s helped me a lot especially with organization.’ Learning how to structure time and organize daily life in this manner is one of the components of college students’ emerging autonomy” (p. 433). Given Cullaty’s consistent use of topic sentences and relation to the overall study, basically his highly organized findings, I will keep this study in mind as I write my own research paper. Cullaty has also modeled for me convincing application of qualitative data.
Tomorrow I will finish the article and call it a (short) week!
References
Cullaty, B. (2011). The role of parental involvement in the autonomy development of traditional-age college students. Journal of College Student Development 52(4), 425-439.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: article model,autonomy,higher education,parental involvement,qualitative data,surveys | No Comments
January 18, 2012 by sarahaspen
This project slipped my mind yesterday, but I’m going to make up for it (figuratively) today. I found an article about how parents’ involvement can affect their college-age kid’s development of autonomy. I have to day that having heard evidence that many college students today speak with their parents daily (like one of my own roommates in undergrad–I was worried, I’ll admit), I am curious about Brian Cullaty’s findings.
Upon reading the first 6.5 pages, I have fewer questions about the methods of the researcher than I did with the previous article. The article refers to NVivo rather than SPSS for its data software. I’m curious about the differences. It seems NVivo has capabilities to analyze qualitative data–perhaps that is its main strength.
So far, the article seems to suggest that parental support is key in a student’s development of autonomy, and that it does not necessarily interfere with it. I’ll be interested to see interviews from any of the extreme students. I did notice in the table about the students’ basic data that the more wealthy the parents, the more involved they tended to be in the students’ academic lives.
I’ll be interested to read the rest of this article and report back tomorrow!
References
Cullaty, B. (2011). The role of parental involvement in the autonomy development of traditional-age college students. Journal of College Student Development 52(4), 425-439.
Category Uncategorized | Tags: autonomy,critical thinking,higher education,parental involvement | No Comments
January 13, 2012 by sarahaspen
Day Three: 10:28-10:52am [gasp! 25 minutes!]
I know, I know. You’re all very impressed that I read for longer than I needed to. The truth is that at the same time I was curious to read the authors’ conclusions, I was also ready to just finish the article.
If any of you are reading along with me, would you mind explaining something to me? How do the authors’ data show increase in “Scale reliability” the more strongly respondents satisfice (p. 12)? In the conclusion, the researchers discuss the desire to decrease satisficing behaviors in respondents. Clearly “scale reliability” does not mean what I think it means.
The researchers bring up another valid consideration for satisficers: How do incentives affect the quality of the data gathered? Barge and Gehlbach discuss the differences between the two surveys, how the incentivised survey was often rushed through to the end, so the respondents could receive the incentive, but that the skipping, rushing, and non-differentiation in their answers indicate a decrease in data quality. Given researchers’ goal to collect more data, and their methods of doing so, they may be spoiling their own work: “For those conducting survey research on higher education populations, it seems crucial to know whether incentives sometime degrade individual survey responses even as they potentially boost overall response rates. Researchers often fixate on response rate as the key metric for determining whether or not a survey sample is sufficient for answering the research questions at hand” (p. 16).
Overall, this article makes me consider survey design in a new way: How might I design my own research project to decrease satisficing behaviors in my respondents? What will I do with data that seems compromised in this way? Will I include it in my results, or omit it? What if that rushed-through data, or the survey with only a few answers are actually accurate? I’ll be curious to see how these considerations of mine might develop over the course of the semester.
I’m not sure I want to follow the references in this article for my next read. Perhaps I’ll look for something Baylor related? Honors Program related?
Any suggestions?
References
Barge, S., & Gehlbach, H. (2011). Using the theory of satisficing to evaluate the quality of survey data. Research in Higher Education, Online First, 1-19. Retrieved from http://www.springerlink.com/content/681v56800r0071p6/
[available on my feeds page]
Category Uncategorized | Tags: critical thinking,data quality,higher education,personal goals,satisficing,surveys | No Comments
