TY - JOUR
T1 - Women drive efforts to highlight concealable stigmatized identities in U.S. academic science and engineering
AU - Busch, Carly A.
AU - Cooper, Katelyn M.
AU - Brownell, Sara E.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation awarded to S.E.B. and K.M.C. (NSF; No. 00035931). C.A.B. was supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. 026257-001 and K.M.C was supported by an NSF CAREER award (No. 00037072). Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Busch et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2023/7
Y1 - 2023/7
N2 - Concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) are hidden identities that carry negative stereotypes and can result in a loss of social status if revealed. Instructors often choose to conceal these CSIs due to anticipated negative student reactions, yet revealing CSIs can have a positive impact on undergraduates. Women are generally more likely to reveal personal aspects about themselves in social situations, but may face greater consequences for revealing a stigmatized identity to students given their already marginalized position in academic science and engineering. Therefore, in this study, we were interested in understanding to what extent there are differences between men and women science and engineering instructors in (i) the representation of CSIs, (ii) their decisions to reveal CSIs to undergraduates in their classes, and (iii) their perceived stigma of CSIs. Based on a national survey of over 2,000 instructors in science and engineering from very high research activity doctoral institutions, we found that women were more likely than men to report having depression, anxiety, or a disability. Of instructors who held CSIs, women had 1.5x higher odds than men of revealing their CSIs to some undergraduates compared to no undergraduates and perceived greater stigma associated with all CSIs. Despite perceiving greater stigma associated with concealable stigmatized identities, women are more likely to reveal their CSIs to college science and engineering students, leading the way to a more diverse and inclusive scientific community by demonstrating themselves as role models for these identities.
AB - Concealable stigmatized identities (CSIs) are hidden identities that carry negative stereotypes and can result in a loss of social status if revealed. Instructors often choose to conceal these CSIs due to anticipated negative student reactions, yet revealing CSIs can have a positive impact on undergraduates. Women are generally more likely to reveal personal aspects about themselves in social situations, but may face greater consequences for revealing a stigmatized identity to students given their already marginalized position in academic science and engineering. Therefore, in this study, we were interested in understanding to what extent there are differences between men and women science and engineering instructors in (i) the representation of CSIs, (ii) their decisions to reveal CSIs to undergraduates in their classes, and (iii) their perceived stigma of CSIs. Based on a national survey of over 2,000 instructors in science and engineering from very high research activity doctoral institutions, we found that women were more likely than men to report having depression, anxiety, or a disability. Of instructors who held CSIs, women had 1.5x higher odds than men of revealing their CSIs to some undergraduates compared to no undergraduates and perceived greater stigma associated with all CSIs. Despite perceiving greater stigma associated with concealable stigmatized identities, women are more likely to reveal their CSIs to college science and engineering students, leading the way to a more diverse and inclusive scientific community by demonstrating themselves as role models for these identities.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0287795
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0287795
M3 - Article
C2 - 37467167
AN - SCOPUS:85165372927
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 18
JO - PloS one
JF - PloS one
IS - 7 July
M1 - e0287795
ER -