A postdoc will give his soul to science. Is that the right stuff? - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
A postdoc will give his soul to science. Is that the right stuff? Myths and false promises the beginning of the academic career K A T E I N A C I D L I N S K A N D M A R C E L A L I N K O V N A T I O N A L C O N T A C T C
K A T E Ř I N A C I D L I N S K Á A N D M A R C E L A L I N K O V Á
N A T I O N A L C O N T A C T C E N T R E F O R W O M E N A N D S C I E N C E T H E I N S T I T U T E O F S O C I O L O G Y A C A D E M Y O F S C I E N C E S O F T H E C Z E C H R E P U B L I C
Main research questions:
What are the career plans of early career researchers?
Which factors and values influence early career researchers’ plans for their future in science? Focus of our analysis:
Aspects of professional authenticity
Work-life balance Focus of the presentation:
Myths about academic career development
Individual X structural level
Data sources
KNOWING project, 2006-2008
Academic couples project, 2010-2011
Scientists in motion, 2011-2012 Target group:
PhD students and postdocs from the natural sciences Our sample:
34 in-depth interviews, 1 focus group (17 women, 17 men)
Economy of promise Scientific profession as a vocation
Current changes in the academic environment
New organization of research work and careers Traditional dynastic dynamic laboratories (Linkova, Cervinkova 2013) limited upward mobility but high job security (bounded career, career mystique) more opportunities for upward mobility but greater job precarity (economy of
promise)
disappearance of stable research staff
Early-career researchers
are critical of
the normalized (rigid) academic path
the dominant notions of success in science
the competitive academic career system
prefer mid-rank research positions
Refuse “doing career” X prefer “doing science” Only 3 men in our sample want to reach a top leadership position
Independence / freedom
Problem: bureaucracy and politicking, need to do “sexy topics”
The economy of promise failed even on the individual level
“giving one’s soul to science” is loosing the sense
Internalization of normative
Comparing themselves to them Normalization of exit attrition = ever present option science as a profession,
Planning an academic career + potential attrition - are strongly gendered
Men
without children – career imaginaries follow a linear professional path
family enters their career plans just at the moment when it becomes topical
But family is not seen as a barrier to their scientific career
Women
family (both real and potential) = automatic part of career planning
Family seen as a barrier to a scientific career
The conditions of the scientific professions seen incompatible with (proper) motherhood
preference of mid-rank positions more than men think about leaving the science
For women the economy of promise fails even more strongly
What purposes the maintenance of the normative vision of a linear, upward career progress and science as a vocation serves?
Exploitation of early-stages researchers
Strengthening the position of well-established senior researchers who followed this kind of a career but in different conditions
Different conditions are not reflected in demands on early-stages researchers
Who are these well-established senior researchers in policy-making positions?
Men.
What kind of men?
What is the result?
problem because they have not been faced with it.
For whom is science and who will remain in the system?
Who can be fit these criteria?
Those who perform one type of masculinity: highly competitive, with sharp elbows and a clear notion of career progression scientific habitus is exclusively male
Well established senior researchers and their young clones (young men)
Who tends to be excluded by such imaginaries?
Men who do not perform the competitive aggressive masculinity
Most women
Normative (masculine) notions of scientists and the scientific career X feminine gender
Right men X right woman
→ bigger difficulty to perform double-think
→showing the desire to stay in mid-rank positions inside teams
These positions are disappearing → what future in science can women with these imaginaries have?
Another myth broken: science as a gender neutral meritocracy based system
What does this mean in terms of the future of gender equality in research?
The same as in all others prestigious male-dominated fields
The need to start working on changing the normative values and notions
What are the implications for the future orientation of science?
Masculinity does not equal scientific quality…
We do not agree with our respondents that if all people like them leave science, science will not suffer any loss
Where to start a change?
To admit that the core of the problem is not on the individual level but on the structural level.
Rendering invisible (or underestimating) structural influences is just a burying one's head in the sand
and shifting responsibility from institutions to those in the weakest positions (early-stage researchers, especially women)