The Ideal Graduate Student: how gendered dIscourses shape the experIences of women doctoral students In bIology

Overview & Synopsis

Despite the increasing numbers of women pursuing graduate degrees inthe biological sciences, women remain underrepresented in senior fac-ulty positions, suggesting gendered experiences in graduate educationmay be contributing. Graduate education is a site for students to learnthe expected norms and values of their field, which include discoursesthat coordinate how scientists behave and perform. We used institutionalethnography framed through gendered organization theory to explore thediscourses and practices that organized the experiences of women doctoralstudents in biology, focusing on how those discourses constructed an idealgraduate student and what challenges were associated with meeting thestandards of the ideal graduate student for women. Our findings sug-gest the characteristics of the ideal graduate student, which include anadequate scientific background, prioritization of research, willing to askgood questions, time management skills, and self-motivation, contributedto fear of failure and imposter phenomenon for the women participants inthis study. The findings of this research highlight the importance of criti-cally reviewing how discourses and subsequent practices can perpetuateinequality within biology graduate education.