Interaction Style, Expertise & Cultural Mismatch
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“I Don’t Know Everything, But Ethan Would Know”: Language, Expertise, and the Cultural Mismatch for Women Scientists Laura E. Hirshfield* University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Medical Education
Using participant observation and interview data, I explore interactional styles that men and women chemists-in-training (graduate students and postdoctoral fellows) use to navigate expertise within their research groups. I find that men are more likely than women to employ styles that feature their expertise when in group situations, while women are more likely to minimize theirs. Specifically, I discuss peer-to-peer challenges and gender differences in self-deprecating comments, as well as the consequences of these tactics for success in the natural sciences. Key Words: Interaction, Science, Gender, Social Psychology, Qualitative Methods *Please direct correspondence to: Laura E. Hirshfield, Department of Medical Education (MC 591), 808 South Wood Street, 968 CME, Chicago, Illinois 60612,
[email protected]. Phone: (312) 996-5448 Fax: (312) 996-3590 Short Title: Interaction Style, Expertise & the Cultural Mismatch
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“I Don’t Know Everything, But Ethan Would Know”: Language, Expertise, and the Cultural Mismatch for Women Scientists Women students and faculty members are evaluated more harshly than their male peers (Anderson & Smith, 2005; Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman, 2012; Steinpreis, Anders, & Ritzke, 1999; Wenneras & Wold, 1997), particularly in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) disciplines. One possible reason for this is a cultural mismatch between femininity and expertise (Fox, 2001), a quality necessary for success in academic science (Fox, 2001; Ridgeway & Correll, 2004; Thomas-Hunt & Phillips, 2004). Scholarship on gender and expertise has demonstrated that women’s expertise is more likely to be challenged or ignored (Thomas-Hunt & Phillips, 2004), especially in contexts like science where women tend to be the (numeric) minority (Eagly & Karau, 2002; Lincoln, Pincus, Koster, & Leboy, 2012). However, much of the scholarship that uses gender as a frame to analyze scientists’ experiences has focused on their entry into or exit out of STEM fields (e.g., Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, & Uzzi, 2000; Xie & Shauman, 2003; Xu, 2008), while research about what it is actually like to be a scientist (i.e., ethnographic work that explores day-to-day experiences) (e.g., Fujimura, 1987; Knorr Cetina, 1999; Latour & Woolgar, 1979) rarely tends to focus on gender. Thus, in this study, I improve upon existing research by using a multi-method qualitative approach to investigate gender and expertise at the interactional level. Women faculty in STEM fields earn less than their male counterparts (Beede, Julian, & Langdon, 2011), have a higher service and mentorship burden (Misra, Lundquist, Holmes, & Agiomavritis, 2011), and are promoted more slowly (Winkler, 2000). In this paper, I argue that an additional difficulty that women scientists must overcome relates to gendered perceptions of expertise. Expertise is difficult to navigate in scientific research groups (Owen-Smith, 2001), and
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this problem is only worsened by being a woman (Bachen, McLoughlin, & Garcia, 1999). In scientific contexts, displays of both explicit (easily transmitted, standardized) and tacit (abstract, difficult to transmit) forms of knowledge are necessary for success, and the latter, in particular, is easiest to communicate through interaction (Polanyi, 1966). Yet when men and women are in mixed-gender groups, women speak more tentatively and less frequently than their male peers (Carli, 1990). As a result, women scientists must work harder than their male colleagues to be judged as equally valuable members of their departments. This study investigates how expertise is expressed and challenged in science both in the laboratory and during the group meetings in which research is presented. Specifically, I ask whether there are gendered differences in the interaction styles used by chemists-in-training, and, if so, what they are. I focus on graduate students and postdoctoral fellows because they provide a unique lens through which to explore varied levels of expertise and because their recent socialization into their field (Austin & McDaniels, 2006) makes them more likely to be mindful about the norms of their discipline than more established faculty members. Identity and Language Individuals communicate their interpersonal status to one another in a variety of ways; one of the most important being the words and expressions they use. Such discursive practices can be used strategically in the construction and management of individuals’ selves (Davies & Harre, 1982; Goffman, 1959). In these descriptions, individuals are likely to choose to selectively present information that will make them look especially attractive and downplay or hide information that will detract from their appeal (Leary, 1996). In this way people hope to partially control the ways that others view and understand them, using particular forms of speech and language to communicate who they think they are or who they wish to be. In other words,
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language functions to form, establish, and maintain social relationships and provide information about individuals (such as background, status, values, or beliefs) (Trudgill, 2001). There is evidence that gendered stereotypes affect both men and women’s patterns of speech and the way that these interaction styles1 are interpreted. For example, women are more likely to use speech patterns that moderate the strength of their statements or make their comments sound tentative (Carli, 1990). These behaviors can include hedging (e.g., beginning comments with things like “I’m not sure, but” or “maybe…”), disclaiming knowledge (e.g., “I don’t know much about this”), or using tag questions (e.g., adding “don’t you think?” to statements) (Carli, 2006; Crosby & Nyquist, 1977). Gender differences in language use and interaction are also greatly impacted by cultural context and setting (Cheng & Chun, 2008; Leaper & Ayres, 2007). For example, women use more tentative language in mixed groups when they discuss masculine topics (like science) rather than feminine or gender-neutral ones (Palomares, 2009). Likewise, individuals, particularly women, from collectivist cultures (like many in Asia) tend to be less assertive in conversation than those from individualist cultures (like the U.S.) (Cheng & Chun, 2008; Pyke & Johnson, 2003). Carli (1990) found that when women use tentative language, it impacts how they are judged, causing both men and other women to see them as less competent and knowledgeable. However, men who use similar language styles do not experience similar negative appraisals (Carli, 1990). In addition, because men are presumed to be more competent than women, in mixed groups, women are less likely to be heard and are given fewer opportunities to speak (Ridgeway, 2011). This is further complicated by the fact that they are also less likely to interrupt (Anderson & Leaper, 1998; Zimmerman & West, 1975), less likely to successfully hold
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I follow Carli’s (1989) and Wood & Karten’s (1986) lead in using “interaction style” to mean behaviors and norms related to interaction.
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the floor after interrupting (Zimmerman & West, 1975), and when they do interrupt, their “acts of conversational rule-breaking” are much more noticeable (Orcutt & Mennella, 1995).2 These differences in interaction style result from the larger, structural inequalities that affect women, and in turn, the evaluation of these different styles has a significant impact on women’s experiences (Ridgeway & Correll, 2000). Differential evaluations of and reactions to men and women’s interactional styles are a particular issue in the natural sciences, a context in which cross-gendered interactions occur frequently but masculine norms still predominate (Fox, 2008; Sallee, 2011). Scientific Expertise and Gender Cultural understandings about expertise and their effects impact men and women’s subsequent success in the workplace (Eagly, Makhijani, and Klonsky, 1992; Hirshfield, 2014; Pierce, 1996). However, gendered understandings of expertise have an especially important impact on evaluations of scientific disciplines, given cultural associations between science and men (Etzkowitz et al., 2000; Finson, 2002; Keller, 1985). This is evident in both classic and more recent studies of gender bias in scientific knowledge and ability in academia (Hunter, 2010; Lincoln, Pincus, Koster, & Leboy, 2012; Steinpreis et al., 1999; Wenneras & Wold, 1997). There have been many excellent ethnographic studies of scientific workplaces, focusing on, for example, epistemic cultures (Knorr Cetina, 1999), skepticism (Owen-Smith, 2001), interdisciplinarity and reproduction (Clarke, 1998), gendered technologies (Wajcman, 2000), the “doability” of problems (Fujimura, 1987), legitimacy and gender (Smith-Doerr, 2005), the construction of scientific facts (Latour & Woolgar, 1979), and “shop talk” (Lynch, 1982). But with few exceptions (e.g., Conefrey, 1997; Traweek, 1992), these studies have not focused on 2
Interruptions have been characterized by sociolinguists as either cooperative or intrusive, the latter type providing power to the user within conversations. Women have been found not only to use fewer interruptions, but more importantly, to use far fewer intrusive interruptions than men (Anderson & Leaper, 1998), as have individuals from collectivist countries, such as many in Asia (Li, 2001)
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gendered interactions within scientific or academic workplaces. Studies like Conefrey’s and Traweek’s, however, have provided key insights not only into the culture of scientific workplaces, but how that culture impacts women differently than men. Thus, I examine language and interaction and ask, “How does the language used by ‘chemists-in training’ establish them as experts to others?” and “Does men and women chemists’ language use differ?” Given the importance of interaction in the ways that scientists evaluate their peers’ and students’ knowledge and expertise in their field, as well as the subsequent consequences these assessments can have on graduate student and postdoctoral success, this study is a preliminary attempt to investigate the use of language in these contexts. In addition, given what we know about gender interaction norms and the issues women face in being seen as experts in the scientific sphere, this study provides insight into the ways that language and interaction impact women scientists, in particular. Methods Context My overall interests led me to seek a scientific discipline in which there was sizeable proportion of women, but where women were still a numerical minority.3 Thus, I chose to explore the field of chemistry. Although less than a third of current chemists are women, its proportion of women is the second highest of all STEM fields, and the proportion of women in the field is steadily growing, especially among graduate students (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010). I conducted a qualitative, ethnographic study of scientists-in-training, i.e., graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, in chemistry at a research level-1 university.4 3
Much of the scholarship on women in STEM disciplines has focused on what it means to be a token. Continuing in that vein, I focused on a scientific discipline in which women were commonly in the numeric minority in their classes and research groups, but in which there were enough women to observe cross-gender interactions and a large enough number of both women and men to explore gender variations in interaction and impression management. 4 To protect the confidentiality of my subjects, I have not disclosed the names of those I observed and/or interviewed, the university where they work, or the location of the university.
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For this project, I conducted participant observations and interviewed graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in a highly selective chemistry program (U.S. News and World Reports, 2010). Similar to many of the departments in STEM at the university, the proportion of women faculty in the department of chemistry was fairly low (roughly one quarter); however, the number of women faculty had doubled over the past ten years. Further, at the time of my study, the graduate student population was much more gender-balanced: 49.2% of graduate students were women. On the other hand, the department was not racially diverse: of the graduate students in this department, 84% were White, 5% were Asian, 4% were Latino/Hispanic, 4% were Black or African-American, 1% were American Indian/Native American, and 1% were unknown/unreported (NSF, 2009). Data/Sample Due to my interest in interaction, for this research project, I chose to observe only those research groups with six or more members. I was also interested in observing groups that varied in terms of their gender demographics; thus, I sought to observe research groups that were directed by both men and women faculty members and groups that varied in their proportion of women.5 To control for seniority and rank, I also focused only on faculty members who were early in their careers.6 I sent email requests to all faculty members whose groups fit these criteria (13 in total), and five agreed to allow me to observe them. Two of the groups were led by men (Professors Mitchell and Moore) and three by women (Professors West, Williams, and Worth); for the sake of simplicity, I have used pseudonyms that begin with the letter “M” for the men 5
Using Rosabeth Moss Kanter's (1977) guidelines to define majority/minority ratios in my labs, I identified any lab with fewer than 35% women as “tilted,” or as having a low proportion of women (including women postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduate students), and any lab with more than 35% women as gender “balanced.” I used these ratios to identify the research groups to contact and study; however, the frequent transfers of personnel between groups resulted in all but one of the groups shifting between identifications over the course of the nine months that I observed them. 6 I was advised about faculty members’ rank by an informant in the chemistry department.
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professors and with a “W” for the women professors.7 The groups I observed ranged in size from nine to 21 members (excluding the PI), with a variety of personnel configurations. While each group was composed mainly of graduate students, some also included undergraduates and most had two or three postdoctoral fellows. During the nine months I observed these groups, membership shifted a bit, mainly due to the first-year rotation program8 and an influx of new postdoctoral fellows. However, since several of the research groups I observed shared similar research interests, many of the first-year students I observed left one of the groups in my sample only to join another of the groups I observed. Thus, overall, I observed a total of 56 graduate students and nine postdoctoral fellows, as well as their five principal investigators. The proportion of women in each group varied greatly (23-60%), and there was some ethnic/racial diversity, although this was highly correlated with international status. While there was only one student of color from the United States in these labs, there were 23 students from outside of the United States (mainly from China and Korea). I began by observing laboratory meetings, laboratory interactions, informal gatherings, and course sections led by graduate students. My observations were conducted over the course of nine months and comprised over 120 hours. Given my interest in chemists’ presentation of self, I took detailed notes about participants’ clothing, accessories, make-up, hairstyles, emotional expressions, interactions, and presentational methods. For example, I noted whether presenters used pictures in their power point presentations, whether individuals raised their voices during group debates, how formal their clothing was, what type of slide backgrounds they used, the use
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Despite my attempt to control for rank, my final sample ranged from assistant to full professors; however none had been at the University for more than 10 years. 8 Students usually performed research rotations in at least two different laboratories during their first year to find their permanent research groups.
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of humor in presentations, etc. As a novice to chemistry, the technical details of my participants’ science were at times beyond my comprehension9; however, this allowed me to concentrate my attention more fully on the interactions and relationships at the heart of my research question. As a result, fine distinctions regarding participants’ expertise may be diminished. Future studies, conducted by disciplinary experts, may thus be necessary. I followed up my observations with a set of 40 semi-structured interviews. I recruited interview respondents by making announcements in each group’s meetings and sending emails to each of the group’s listservs. Respondents were offered a $25 gift card to compensate them for their time. The majority (n=37) of my interviews were conducted with graduate students, but I expanded my interview protocol to include three postdoctoral fellows when they expressed interest. My sample was evenly split by gender (men=19; women=21), and the number of international students interviewed (n=10) was roughly comparable to their overall proportion in the chemistry department. My sample was generally representative of the population within the chemistry department overall; however, the generalizability of my findings is somewhat limited by the lack of ethnic and racial diversity of my participants. I used a semi-structured format to conduct the 40 interviews, which usually lasted one to one-and-a-half hours and took place in a private office. I conducted the interviews after the majority of my observations were complete, allowing me to revise my interview protocol based on my preliminary participant observation findings. Further, respondents’ familiarity with me from my observations allowed for especially rich interviews. Interviews focused on: advisor relationships and style, research group interactions, teaching, self-presentation, and overall images of scientists (please see Appendix A for the full interview protocol). I had several goals
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In addition, I chose not to provide those technical/scientific details I did record due to concerns for participant confidentiality and anonymity.
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in these interviews: to learn about how chemists were trained and socialized, to understand the stereotypes that chemists held about scientists, and to explore the impression management strategies that chemists-in-training used in their daily lives. With prompting, they also provided careful explanations about departmental and disciplinary politics and clarified chemical and technical processes that were discussed in group meetings. Indeed, the benefit of conducting these interviews after my observations was that I was able to ask specific clarifying questions about events or interactions that I had witnessed, which my participants were more than happy to interpret. In addition, interview participants filled out a short survey describing several demographic details such as socioeconomic status and sexual identity prior to their interviews, which were then used to orient both the interviews themselves and later analyses. However, I have not reported information about these variables due to concerns regarding participants’ confidentiality and anonymity. All interviews were digitally recorded and professionally transcribed. Analysis Using open and focused coding, I analyzed my data with the help of the NVIVO qualitative software program (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). To clarify, using an inductive process, I began my analysis by reading through my data with an idea of some of the general concepts I was interested in and noted instances in which obvious trends emerged. For this analysis, rather than compare across research groups, I examined similarities between them; in other words, I treated the individuals in my study (both in my observations and in my interviews) as the unit of analysis. The concepts that I anticipated and coded for included advising style, impression management strategies (such as language use and clothing choices), and group
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members’ interactions. Themes that emerged from the data analysis included authority and expertise in graduate experiences, teaching methods, group norms, and student mentorship. I developed thematic memos to describe each of the themes that emerged from the data (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). I paid particular attention to patterns that emerged related to gender, as well as race and nationality. Within themes, trends, or patterns, I was careful to look for disconfirming evidence or places where expected patterns did not emerge. The excerpts from field notes and interviews I include in the following sections are examples of representative patterns10 in my data and are taken directly from my thematic memos. Findings A striking difference in men’s and women’s interaction styles apparent in group meetings was that men more frequently went “out on a limb” when making declarative statements, and, as a consequence, appeared expert in their field or subfield. As I have discussed previously (see Hirshfield, 2011), these meetings are spaces that are devoted to working on developing expertise, so the willingness of students and postdoctoral fellows to present themselves as such is of particular interest. Male graduate students and postdoctoral fellows challenged presenters more frequently about their work than female students. In so doing, they reinforced their own appearance of knowledge, skill, and expertise as evidenced by the subsequent behavior of their research group. Notably, these challenges were also more commonly in response to female presenters. In contrast, when female students questioned presenters, they tended to use more timid language. Further, female graduate students and postdoctoral fellows were more likely to make humble or deprecating remarks or to put themselves down, both during their presentations and while they
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In other words, those trends that were consistent (meaning that they occurred regularly in multiple groups) and those quotes or fieldnotes that captured the essence of the general trend.
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asked questions of others. While male students and postdoctoral fellows did make these types of comments occasionally, they usually made them in jest. These differences all have important consequences for the ways that women scientists are viewed within the academic scientific context. Students Challenging Peers It was not possible to determine through observation whether male students purposefully challenged their peers in group meetings to present themselves as experts. Regardless, it was a clear consequence of their interaction style, observable through subsequent interactions within each research group. For example, when Jenny, a new summer rotator in the Williams lab, gave her presentation to the group, she presented a result that did not look the way that she or her supervising student had expected. Jeremy, one of the senior students in the group, challenged her during the presentation and asked whether she and her mentor had interpreted the result correctly or “were seeing what they thought they were.” In response, Patrick, another (much less advanced) student in the lab said, nodding, “I saw them [the results]; they’re clear.” In this conversation, Jeremy and Patrick spoke with utter confidence on opposite sides of this issue, and through their conversation, solidified their status as experts within the group. Indeed, it was obvious that none of the group members questioned Jeremy’s right to challenge Jenny’s interpretation of her results; and likewise, no one questioned Patrick’s ability to read (and verify) such results. However, rather than assuming that Jenny’s or her woman mentor’s expertise was valid, the group instead looked to the men in the group for validation. Likewise, during Maria’s presentation to the Mitchell group, Edward asked probing questions about how she had conducted some of her background research, and in the process, positioned himself as a more capable user of the system he asked her about:
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Maria: I looked this up on [website]. Edward: How did you look this up on [website]? [He goes on to explain that it doesn’t seem possible that she could have used [website] to look up the reagent if she didn’t know its name in the first place…] Maria: Maybe I didn't look this up on [website], but I thought... You know what? I bet it was referenced in the paper. While Edward did not seem to be asking Maria these questions to embarrass her, his questioning of her use of this product did not serve to improve her research; instead, his comment acted as a mechanism to highlight his own knowledge (at her expense). On the other hand, Edward’s comment might be seen as a “teachable moment” for others in the group: he could have viewed his role as mentoring less advanced students about the program she used. Regardless of his motivation, the end result of Edward’s questions was that he demonstrated to others his obvious expertise. In a particularly clear example in the West group, during Isobel’s practice talk11, Randall said, “Isobel, you said [scientific details], which is completely untrue.” The certainty Randall spoke with increased his group members’ assumption that his understanding of Isobel’s topic was more accurate than hers. Indeed, afterwards, a student asked a question about the topic and directed it to Randall, rather than to Isobel, who, as the presenter of the practice talk, was expected to be in the expert role about the topic within days. Although Randall had been in the lab just one year longer than Isobel, and was far from the most senior member of the group, his knowledge was accepted by the other group members over hers about this matter, perhaps partly
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She was practicing to give her departmental seminar, a requirement to receive her doctorate. In these seminars, students choose a topic, review literature, and present their review to the group, with the explicit goal of becoming an expert on the topic.
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because of the certainty with which he spoke. On the other hand, in numerous other instances, Isobel demonstrated her expertise to the group through references to her previous time working in industry. With this type of hands-on knowledge, both she (and Randall, who had also worked in industry) often provided insights both to their peers and to their advisor. However, unlike Randall, Isobel rarely used this expertise to directly challenge her peers. While students who push their peers in this manner may not be aware that they are demonstrating their expertise, some do seem to understand that their actions towards their labmates are not particularly collegial or friendly. For example, during another group meeting in the Mitchell lab, Aziz presented his project with slides that were difficult to read and riddled with mistakes. Nabil and Edward, who have been looking over Aziz’s handouts, challenge him about his work a bit. Nabil: “I just want to ask you about the DR thing again. Why is it so hard to get the DR?” Aziz waffles a bit, then says “I just did an NMR”. Nabil: “So what did the NMR look like?” Then Edward asks him something else in addition (with a kind voice, but clearly pushing Aziz further.) Aziz doesn’t respond, and stands there silently looking uncomfortable. During this interaction, both Nabil and Edward portrayed more confidence and knowledge about Aziz’s work than he did. Later, in our one-on-one interview, Nabil brought up this exchange and his thoughts about his actions. He told me, I mean I think I pulled a dick move being like OK, when he said he couldn't figure out something, and I raised my hand and was like “wait a minute, why can't Forthcoming Education
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you figure that out?” I think that was slightly mean of me, but at the same time, he's like a third or a fourth-year now, and it's like unacceptable for a PhD level student to say something like that, which is completely ridiculous.
In this case, and others like it, participants described their actions as mean and not “collegial”, yet unsurprisingly, none of my participants noted that their actions resulted in highlighting their own knowledge or expertise. Indeed, their stated goal, if anything, was to teach the student or to point out an “unacceptable” lack of knowledge, presumably to compel them to remedy the problem. Group meeting presentations, and even more importantly, practice seminars, are settings in which presenters hope to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise to their research group. These examples all illustrated situations where students’ (most frequently female students’) desire to demonstrate their expertise was impeded because of challenges by fellow male graduate students. As an observer, it was difficult to distinguish which student was correct during the presentations; however, it was obvious in each case that the groups turned immediately to the men who offered their expertise after they spoke up, forgoing whatever knowledge the presenter brought to the table.12 It is also important to mention that there may be other key characteristics associated with these men’s challenges (and subsequent demonstration of expertise) apart from gender, such as seniority or previous work experience. Due to the composition of the groups I observed, nearly all of the most senior students were men, thus it is difficult for me to disentangle these effects 12
It is possible that when male students speak up, they are interpreted by (some of) their peers as posturing. However, I heard little commentary in my interviews to suggest that students felt this way. More importantly, the impact of these comments would be similar regardless of how they were viewed by members of the group. In other words, regardless of how these sorts of challenges are interpreted, men’s knowledge and expertise is communicated to the group (and to the PI) and men gain practice in speaking authoritatively about their topics, while women do not gain this advantage.
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fully. However, it is notable that in the few cases where women were senior members of their research group, they did not demonstrate these types of interaction styles. Further, numerous male chemists at all levels of experience (i.e., from rotation students to postdoctoral fellows) used this style. Additionally, while prior work experience may contribute to the demonstration of expertise as well, this type of background was quite rare and manifested itself in different, gendered communication styles (e.g., Isobel and Randall, discussed previously.) Hedging and Self-Deprecation In contrast to their male peers’ method of challenging others and thereby displaying their expertise, women in these research groups were more likely to make self-deprecating comments and to display discomfort when they were called upon in meetings to act as an expert. For example, Tracy, during one of her group presentations, made several comments emphasizing her lack of expertise or skill (Williams Group). When she was asked by one of the men in the group why she thought her yield in a reaction was so low, Tracy replied, “I blame myself, but I don’t know…” Although it is possible she made a mistake, Tracy’s description of the error as something worthy of “blame” rather than a minor blunder suggested insecurity about her own abilities and knowledge about chemistry. Later in the same meeting, Tracy was asked another question and responded, “I haven’t seen it, but I don’t know everything. Ethan would know.” In this case, not only did Tracy make a self-effacing comment by noting that she “didn’t know everything,” but she contrasted herself with one of the male graduate students, Ethan, who she believed likely knew the answer to the question, and thus possibly did “know everything” about chemistry. In both of these cases, Tracy’s self-deprecating style differed greatly from the male graduate students I described earlier; rather than using methods of interaction that highlighted her expertise, she downplayed her knowledge and skill.
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Men and women in chemistry also displayed different levels of comfort when labeled an expert by their peers. During one group meeting, several students suggested that the presenter could make a computer model, and one whole side of the room turned to Patrick and said that he should help make the model since he was the “computer guy” (Williams Group). Everyone laughed quietly and Patrick smiled, nodded, and laughed along. By simply nodding, Patrick seemed to indicate his acceptance of his peers’ opinion that he was the expert in this group in computer programming and modeling, further solidifying everyone’s opinion. In contrast, at a later group meeting, students were asked to work through a problem set to practice their computations (Williams Group Meeting). As they worked together, they asked each other for help when they reached challenging sections in the problem set. At one point, Victoria turned to Stephanie and asked her for help with a particular problem, saying, “Stephanie, but you’re good at these!” loudly enough for many to hear. Stephanie responded apologetically, “Yeah, no, I know, I’m not….” Victoria’s statement seemed to indicate that she believed that Stephanie had expertise about the problem because of the topic of Stephanie’s research, but Stephanie expressed unease being thought of as “good at [this type of problem].” Lynn was similarly unwillingly to act as an expert in another group meeting in the Williams group. During her presentation, Claire turned to Lynn, a postdoctoral fellow, to ask her how long the half-life of a chemical was. Throughout Claire’s presentation, Lynn was quite engaged, so it was clear that she worked in a similar field and Claire’s question made sense in the context of Lynn’s knowledge set. However, when Claire asked her this question, Lynn held up her hands (arms extended, as in “stop”) and said, “Don’t ask me for numbers!” Not only did Lynn look uncomfortable being asked to represent the expert role on a topic she was expected to fulfill given her background, but her statement also highlighted her unwillingness to represent
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the role of expert in any quantitative area at all. This was especially striking given negative stereotypes about women and mathematical skill (Kiefer & Sekaquaptewa, 2007). During group meetings, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows often provided feedback and suggestions to their peers to help them with their projects. In these cases, they employed their own expertise to give these suggestions. However, female students and postdoctoral fellows were more likely than male students and postdoctoral fellows to introduce their suggestions with self-deprecating phrases. Disclaimers such as these tend to discredit their message (Carli, 1990). For example, Stephanie began a statement to the group by saying, “So I’m not very good at inorganic compounds, but...” (Williams Group). During another meeting, Joan told James, “Synthesis is not my strong point, so I do not want to propose a total synthesis…” (Moore Group). In both of these cases, women students offered important information to the group or to specific peers, but by belittling their own qualifications in the preamble to their suggestion, their expertise and knowledge came across as less useful and significant than their male peers’. Another common self-effacing communication style exhibited by women students included descriptions of their findings as things that they discovered by chance or coincidence, rather than because of their own skill or knowledge. Susan, for instance, told her group that one of her findings was “something [she] kind of stumbled upon” (Moore Group). Instead of focusing on the accomplishment, this style of presentation concealed the hard work, intelligence, and skill that went into her achievement. Isobel also described one of her findings as having been discovered “almost by accident” (West Group). This type of framing denies women scientists agency and makes them seem less in control of their skills, talent, and knowledge in comparison to the men they work alongside.
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Male graduate students and postdoctoral fellows did occasionally acknowledge their lack of expertise and knowledge to the group, but when they did, they tended to use humor to temper the effect. For example, in Aziz’s presentation of his work, a slide was titled “Lessons in Humility or Incompetence” and he introduced it by noting with a chuckle, “this is where I thought it would be easy” (Mitchell Group). By making light of the fact that he had difficulty with his experiment, Aziz’s words suggested that he might not actually believe that he was incompetent, or at the very least, that he did not think that it was important if he was. Similarly, Justin made many self-deprecating remarks during his presentation to the Williams group, yet he used them as comic relief, pausing briefly for people to chuckle after each funny comment. For example, he told the group, “So then [Professor Williams], demonstrating why she has the PhD and I do not, explained…” In this case, Justin’s comment highlighted both his high regard for his advisor, as well as a joking humility about his own skill. Finally, Ray, a postdoctoral fellow in the Moore lab, used a similar strategy during a brief presentation of his work. He explained that since previous literature about a reaction “generally describes a 90% yield of a fine white powder, [he] expects to get about 30% of some goo [sic] when he tries to replicate it.” Again, by choosing a humorous method of self-deprecation, Ray downplayed the importance he placed on his success. Rather than projecting dejection or unhappiness about his likely inability to reproduce others’ results, Ray made a joke about it, thus making the problem appear more minor. Research on gender and humor has shown that humor is more commonly associated with men (Berryman-Fink & Wilcox, 1983) and that men more commonly make jokes in mixed settings, so findings such as these are not surprising (Robinson & Smith-Lovin, 2001). However, while self-deprecating humor such as these examples may
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work to enhance high-status users’ (such as men’s) security and self-confidence, it may not be a similarly effective tactic for women. My results demonstrate that the women students and postdoctoral students I observed are less likely to embrace an expert role and that their language and interaction styles downplay their knowledge and expertise more than those of their male peers. In particular, this involves selfdeprecating language, describing their successes as accidents, and denying their expertise. In contrast, when men in this study use self-deprecating language, they tend to do so with humor. Conclusion Women in the sciences face numerous barriers to their success, including a chilly climate (Blickenstaff, 2005), fewer role models (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), and identity taxation (Hirshfield & Joseph, 2012). This article provides insight into an additional barrier that structural inequalities have led to for women in science: gender differences in interaction styles that may impact women’s likelihood of being seen as experts in scientific contexts. In particular, the study examines the experiences of the day-to-day lives of men and women graduate students in chemistry, employing a reflexive, multi-method, two-phase qualitative approach. My results suggest that in group interactions, men are more likely than women to use interactional styles that highlight their expertise, while women are more likely to downplay theirs. Using the common norms of asking questions in presentations, many of the male chemists I observed emphasized their own understanding of a topic or a procedure through their inquiries, while women chemists put down their own knowledge as preamble when in similar situations. Further, when women acted as presenters, they were more likely to use self-deprecating language that negated their own standing as an expert or to describe their findings as “just an accident,” echoing similar findings about gendered communication styles described by Carli (1989). In
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contrast, when male graduate students or postdoctoral fellows used self-deprecating language, they did so with humor, paradoxically reinforcing their own confidence in their skill by making a joke out of their failures (Robinson & Smith-Lovin, 2001). These gender differences in interaction style are good examples of what Ridgeway (1997) terms the “interactional mediation of gender inequality”. These results also may provide important new insights into another of the mechanisms through which women chemists-in-training are less likely to be seen as experts than are men (see Hirshfield, 2011). Not only are women less likely to be seen as “star” students, introduce new technology to the group, or to accept the label of “experts” when others place these labels upon them; when they are in expert roles (i.e., when they present in front of their research groups), they are more likely to downplay their own knowledge or fail to take advantage of question-andanswer periods in which they may demonstrate their expertise. The latter interaction style, in which peer-to-peer challenges effectively demonstrate students’ and postdoctoral fellows’ knowledge and expertise within group settings has not, to my knowledge, been identified previously, and represents an important area for future research. Since gendered patterns in interaction arise mainly out of structural inequalities that persist in the workplace (and in other arenas), it is imperative that scholars and policy makers strive to address the underlying structures that lead to these differences. On a more local level, this study provides insight into ways that STEM departments and individual principal investigators can help encourage their students to perform. Just as faculty members may cope with gendered teaching evaluations simply by discussing these issues with students in the classroom (Laube, Massoni, Sprague, & Ferber, 2007; Messner, 2000), similarly, STEM departments and PIs may discover that simply describing these interactional norms (and
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the problems associated with them), may help to diminish their appearance. This type of consciousness-raising has been frequently recommended as a potential start to remedying issues related to gender differences in communication, most notably by Tannen (1990). Holmes (1995) also suggested raising men’s awareness about gender differences in communication and also provided specific ideas for how managers and teachers can pay close attention to and provide space for women’s voices. Finally, PIs, who do much of the evaluation of graduate students, both formally (through letters of reference) and informally (through networking, providing students with “skill-level appropriate projects”, etc.), should take gender differences in interaction into account when judging the knowledge and skills of their students. My findings also suggest important implications for future research. This study used qualitative methods to investigate the experiences of scientists-in-training in a particular discipline in a comprehensive and thorough manner, which allowed for an interesting comparison to research by other scholars who had explored different disciplines (Conefrey,1997; Traweek, 1992). Given that my findings suggest that men’s and women’s behaviors may differ based on who is presenting, future studies should examine gendered interaction in scientific disciplines which have different proportions of women, such as biology, medicine, physics, and computer science. Additional studies exploring interaction outside of STEM disciplines, preferably in both numerically male-dominated non-STEM fields (such as economics or philosophy) and more gender-balanced ones (such as education and English), would also help to further disentangle the effects of scientific norms versus the effects of tokenism and the underrepresentation of women. A key limitation of this study was that given the size of my sample, I was unable to analyze my data using an intersectional lens (e.g., explore patterns in
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interaction style among international men and women), particularly given concerns about anonymity and confidentially. However, future studies should certainly investigate these issues. These types of studies are of particular import since evaluations of expertise are key for both students and faculty. Students who are not viewed as knowledgeable may be less likely to receive good letters of support from their advisors or positive evaluations from their undergraduate students. Similarly, decisions about faculty members’ promotion and tenure are influenced by their students’ and peers’ evaluations of their abilities: thus, any gendered bias in these decisions and the behaviors that affect them are imperative to understand and document so that they may be taken into account. Unfortunately, few comprehensive studies of interaction in the workplace, particularly the academic, scientific workplace, have been conducted to date. This study is an important first step towards understanding the ways that graduate students influence others’ evaluation of their expertise through their interactions with their peers, as well as how gender impacts these interactions. This study also functions as additional support for Ridgeway (1997) demonstrating how gender stratification is mediated by interaction, particularly at work. The findings of this study also have important implications for workplaces beyond academia and the natural sciences, given that the relationship between expertise and interaction explored here is likely to apply to many other workplace contexts, particularly other male-dominated workplaces. An examination of gendered language use and interaction style in, for example, surgery or the military may provide key insights into gender inequality in those fields. Finally, this study provides some important guidance for practice, particularly for STEM educators. Although graduate school is a time of professionalization into STEM careers, what STEM graduate programs should provide is more explicit instruction about diversity in
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interaction styles, particularly gendered styles. These workshops, focused on many of the differences described above, would be beneficial for both students and faculty and may improve student’s ability to present themselves as experts and to help students and faculty to avoid any misinterpretations of their peers, students, and faculty that arise due to language differences.
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Appendix A: Interview Protocol (Indented questions = probes) Introduction/Background: I’d like to start with a few questions about your background and your choice of the field of Chemistry. 1. Can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your background and how you got into Chemistry? 2. What led you to choose this particular department? 3. How many years have you been at this university? How much longer do you think you’ll be here? How does that compare with others in your department? 4. I’d like to know a little about your everyday work. Can you walk me through a day in your life as a graduate student? a. Is every day pretty much the same, or does it depend on the day? Advisor/Lab Background Questions: Now I’d like to talk a little about your advisor. 5. First of all, do you have an advisor in your department? Can you tell me a little about him/her? a. How did you get linked up with your advisor? b. What’s your relationship with your advisor like? What would you tell one of your advisor’s new advisees to be prepared for? c. What kinds of things does your advisor do for you? d. Do you feel supported by your advisor? Why or why not? e. How comfortable do you feel talking to your advisor overall? Do you talk about personal things with him/her, or just school related topics? f. Do you think having an advisor of the same/opposite sex has made things easier or harder for you? In what ways? g. What would you change, if anything, about your advisor or your relationship with him/her? h. What are your meetings with your advisor like? 6. Can you walk me through your last meeting with your advisor? How typical was it? Would you say that it was a bad or a good meeting? What made it good/bad? 7. Can you tell me about a particularly good meeting you had with your advisor? a. How did you feel during it? What about afterwards? 8. What about a bad meeting? a. How did you feel during and after? Now I’d like to ask you about your lab or research group. 9. Are you a member of a lab or research group? What would you tell a newcomer about your lab to prepare them for it? a. What is the gender breakdown in your research group? b. What’s the atmosphere like? i. Is it formal, informal? How cohesive is it? Are people friendly with one another? How competitive would you say it is? Do conflicts arise?
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c. Are there any lab parties or social functions? Do people attend? What are they like? Is there alcohol involved? Who pays for it all? d. About how typical would you say the lab/research group is compared with other groups? 2. What’s your role in the lab? Are there any techniques that you are particularly knowledgeable about in the lab? Are you ever asked to train other students or postdocs? What’s that like? Teaching Questions: I’d like to ask some questions now about your experiences teaching. 10. How did you choose which classes to teach? a. Did you talk to anyone about what classes would be best to teach? 11. Are you happy with your choices in terms of teaching? What would you have done differently if you could have? 12. Can you tell me a bit about your relationship with your students? What do you think your students think about you as a GSI? a. What kind of feedback have you received? 13. Some people have said that establishing authority in the classroom can be difficult and other people don’t think it’s such an issue. Has it ever been difficult for you to establish authority in the classroom? Are there any strategies you use to establish authority in the classroom? Have you ever felt that your authority was challenged in the classroom? What happened? What did you do? 14. Have you ever had any difficulties while teaching? Do you feel supported in terms of your teaching when/if you have difficulties? 15. Have you ever felt that you didn’t know the material you were teaching well enough? What did you do? How did your students react? 16. How do you present the material you teach in your discussions or labs? Do you use powerpoint, overheads, or the blackboard? Why do you use that method? Attire: I’d like to know a little bit about the clothing with the things they wear. 17. What kinds of things do you think about when you get dressed in the morning? Does it depend on the day? a. Do you wear glasses or contacts? How do you decide which ones to wear in the morning? 18. Are there particular things you are more likely to wear when you know you are going to see students during the day? Why do you wear them? 19. Are there things you choose not to wear? Why do you choose not to wear them? 20. What about clothes you wear when you are going to see your advisor or other professors in your department? Choose not to wear? Why? 21. Clothes you wear when you are going to see other grad students? Clothes you choose not to wear? Why? 22. What do you think what you wear says about you? Is there a particular image you are trying to convey? Accessories/Props: 23. What kinds of things do you tend to carry with you when you teach class? (probe: books, keys, paper, pads, drinks.) What, if anything, do you think they say about you?
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24. What kinds of things do you tend to bring to the lab with you? What do those things say about you? 25. What do you use to carry your books and papers in at school? Do you ever change briefcases or bags based on who you will see during the day? Why? Emotions: Now I want to talk about your feelings about your experiences in graduate school. 26. Since you began graduate school, was there a time that you felt uncomfortable or out of place? What made you feel that way? 27. Can you remember an experience while you were teaching that created strong emotional feelings for you? What happened? Did you let your students see your emotional reaction? Why or why not? 28. What about with your advisor? Did you ever have an interaction with your advisor that created strong emotional feelings for you? What happened? Did you let your advisor see your emotional reaction? Why or why not? 29. And with your peers? 30. Are there words or facial expressions that you avoid using with certain people? What are they? Are there any that you avoid using around students? Around your advisor? Peers? 31. Are there times that you didn’t feel that you could express your feelings to your students? In which circumstances? What did you do? 32. Are there times that you didn’t feel that you could express your feelings to your advisor? In which circumstances? What did you do? 33. Are there times that you didn’t feel that you could express your feelings to your colleagues? In which circumstances? What did you do? Image of a Scientist: The last thing I’d like to talk to you about is your ideas about scientists in general. 34. When you picture a scientist what do they look like? What are they wearing? What are they carrying? What kind of personality do they have? 35. Where do you think this image came from? 36. In what ways are you like this scientist? In what ways are you different? Do you try to look like that scientist? 37. Can you tell me about a time when you really felt like a scientist? What made you feel that way? Conclusion 38. Is there anything else I should be asking about your experiences in Chemistry, what you wear, how you feel…? Anything else you’d like to say?
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