Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students

Abstract

Despite efforts to recruit and retain more women, a stark gender disparity persists within academic science. Abundant research has demonstrated gender bias in many demographic groups, but has yet to experimentally investigate whether science faculty exhibit a bias against female students that could contribute to the gender disparity in academic science. In a randomized double-blind study ( n = 127), science faculty from research-intensive universities rated the application materials of a student—who was randomly assigned either a male or female name—for a laboratory manager position. Faculty participants rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. These participants also selected a higher starting salary and offered more career mentoring to the male applicant. The gender of the faculty participants did not affect responses, such that female and male faculty were equally likely to exhibit bias against the female student. Mediation analyses indicated that the female student was less likely to be hired because she was viewed as less competent. We also assessed faculty participants’ preexisting subtle bias against women using a standard instrument and found that preexisting subtle bias against women played a moderating role, such that subtle bias against women was associated with less support for the female student, but was unrelated to reactions to the male student. These results suggest that interventions addressing faculty gender bias might advance the goal of increasing the participation of women in science.

Feeding the pipeline: Gender, occupational plans, and college major selection

“…Other scholars point to the typic al pedagogy of required introductory science courses (e.g., organic chemistr y), which may ''w eed out'' a higher proportion of women than men (for a review, see Scantlebury and Baker, 2007). More recently, Moss-Racusin et al (2012) show throug h a series of experimental studies that academic scient ists evaluate mailed applications (from fictitious high school seniors) for lab manager positions more favorably if they believe the applic ant is male. 6 The elicited preferences in Hakim (2002) are from a samp le of women aged 16 to 64 in Britain, the vast majority of whom had made their career choices long before they were surveyed.…”

Leading scientists favour women in tenure-track hiring test

“…Postdocs from such elite labs also tend to be chosen for assistant-professor positions, perpetuating the cycle 3 . Other studies have found that individual faculty members of both genders view female students as less competent than their male counterparts when judging qualifications for junior positions in a lab 4 .…”

An Analysis of Doctoral Dissertations Based on the Sex of Supervisors: A Case of Sociology Departments in Turkey

“…It is noteworthy that female supervisors were just as likely as their male colleagues to favor the male students. The fact that discrimination was independent of their sex, scientific discipline, and age suggests that it is likely unintentional, generated from widespread cultural [20]. On the other hand, Anderson and Devanna [21] found virtually no sex bias in the supervising of graduate student.…”