Small Strokes Big Oaks

I stumbled upon this article: “New Study Ponders the Effect of Professors’ Gender on Students’ Success in Science.”  The article basically summarizes a study that found that women graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy that scored high on the math portion of the SATs were more likely to do well in – and consequently major in – science if they had a female teacher in their introductory science courses.  What follows is an outline of my thoughts while reading this article, and as you read the article yourself (it’s short, I promise), you can see if your thoughts matched up, or if you disagree with me entirely (I’d be interested to hear from someone who does).  If you don’t want to be tainted by my thoughts, go read the article now and come back.

Thoughts:
1) Excellent.  Another article proving that women can do things better than men.  This is typical of the attitude toward teachers, but still, excellent.  Also excellent that this study came out of the U.S. Air Force Academy, a place that historically, typically, and agressively employs a male hegemony.

2) Why are economists producing this study?  Is there some economic benefit to having women graduate with science degrees?  Do these economists dabble in feminist studies in their spare time?

3) Interesting: It makes absolutely no difference if male students are taught by men or women, but it makes a difference if female students are taught by men or women.  I wonder if this is because female students benefit from a female role model, or maybe something embedded even deeper within our society and upbringing.

4) I wonder if this study would work for upper division courses as well.  Do female students need that gentile push from from a woman to get them started, or are they also more successful if they have women teachers throughout their academic career.  Also, this is an interesting study, particularily to me, because I have heard several times that it takes an understanding, nurturing teacher to help students when they first enter a school (high school, college; science, math, English, it doesn’t matter) in order for them to be successful.  These teachers are often the least experienced (high school) or non-tenured, adjunct (college) faculty members and, as such, are often paid less (Because they are often women?  I don’t know.) for doing more work.  This sentiment is echoed in the first comment on the article by Mary Ann.

It was this last thought that really had me pondering for a while.  In my grad class this semster, we have talked a lot about adjunct faculty being forced to teach first year composition classes in universities, mostly because those courses are serious money-makers.  Every student has to pay to take the course in order to move on to upper division classes, and adjunct teachers are paid less to teach them.  25 students per section, $500 a credit hour (on average) for a 3-hour course, an infinite number of sections with adjunct teachers being paid around $12,000 a year (or TAs teaching it for FREE – OK, their education is paid for, but still, not a whole lot of money out of the proverbial pocket).  You do the math.  When we launched into these sorts of discussions, my general thought was: Well, first, TAs are getting a free education for a couple hours a week of work, so don’t complain.  Also, as long as there are TAs and adjuncts to do the grunt work, universities will continue to have TA and adjunct positions.  A paycheck is a paycheck in this economy, so either don’t complain that you have a job, or do what it takes to find a better one.  That’s how capitalism works, right?

But looking at this article, I’m siding a bit more with the adjuncts on this one.  They’re most often women!  Why?  Because women are expected to care for a family, and any money they bring in is often seen as “extra.”  They have fewer hours to put in, so adjuncting is good for them, but they are PAID LESS FOR DOING THE SAME JOB since they are not seen as “professors,” but “adjuncts.”  Granted, they may not have the same education as a tenure-track professor (although many do in this economy), but they do the same work.  It is studies such as this that perpetuate these working conditions for introductory-level faculty and it isn’t fair.

On a side note: I do understand this isn’t the case for ALL women or ALL adjunct faculty or TAs, but it is the overwhelming majority.

The Girl Politics Series (click to read them all) is a series of posts that first appeared over at my personal blog, and it was actually the response I received over there that made me think that keeping a feminist-leaning blog might be my calling.  It also partially inspired my tweeting and Good Wife paper.  I thought these posts might be breathed to new life and new conversation over here, and so here they are.