Intersectional Dynamics and Academic Advancement in the United States

ABSTRACT

I use the intersectionality framework to understand how processes of tenure and promotion operate as a system that systematically advantages members of some groups while systematically disadvantaging members of other groups. Empirically, I examine how gender, race, ethnicity, and nativity combine to structure the institution of tenure and promotion in US universities. Consistent with original conceptualizations of intersectionality as a lens that illuminates social structure, this empirical work demonstrates that foreign-born White men are the most advantaged members in the institution of tenure and promotion. Only by accounting for all bases simultaneously does the latent function of the promotion and tenure institution come to light: One that especially advantages White men while disadvantaging women and people of color, both foreign and domestic.

KEYWORDS:

• Foreign-born faculty
• academic employment
• intersectionality
• career trajectories
• social stratification

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers and editors of The Journal of Higher Education whose helpful critiques made this a better manuscript. I would also like to thank Barry Bozeman for believing in this paper, and in helping me to persevere.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. It is reasonable to hypothesize that LGBTQIA+ faculty are also disadvantaged in the intersectional social structure of universities. This study was not allowed (by an IRB) to ask about non-conforming gender identity or sexual orientation, which is ironic given Frye’s (1983) analysis of invisibility.

2. The use of the term foreign-born is consistent with the definition and usage of the National Science Foundation.

3. I use the term Black as a more inclusive term that includes African Americans as well as foreign-born people of African descent.

4. We rely on Carnegie 2000 classification for its elegance. The Research Extensive frame excludes two universities that do not confer any PhDs in the sciences. The Master’s I and II classifications also come from Carnegie (2000).

5. The U.S. National Science Foundation classifies African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as underrepresented.

6. Comparing White with everyone else erases the heterogeneity of everyone else, and should be avoided when statistical power allows. I include it here to examine the dynamics in a way that is more common in the sociology of science, when quantitative research rarely has the power to examine racial and ethnic dynamics at this level of granularity.

Additional information

Funding

I gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation. This research was supported under project award DRL-0910191 (Julia Melkers, PI, Monica Gaughan and Eric Welch, Co-PIs), and an ADVANCE Institutional Award (1824260) to Arizona State University. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.