Research in Higher Education. Diseño y Atención a las Oportunidades de Género en la Educación Superior

Research in Higher Education

		Selección de Artículos
Bielby, R., Posselt, J. R., Jaquette, O., & Bastedo, M. N. (2014). Why are Women Underrepresented in Elite Colleges and Universities? A Non-Linear Decomposition Analysis. Research in Higher Education, 1-26.		The emerging female advantage in education has received considerable attention in the popular media and recent research. We examine a persistent exception to this trend: women’s underrepresentation in America’s most competitive colleges and universities. Using nationally generalizable data spanning four decades, we evaluate evidence for three possible explanations. First, we analyze whether men’s academic profiles more closely match the admissions preferences of elite institutions. Next, we consider organizational preferences for male applicants. Finally, we test whether women self-select out of elite institutions through their application choices. Using Blinder–Oaxaca non-linear decomposition techniques and multinomial logistic regression, we find that men’s advantage in standardized test scores best explains the enrollment gap. Our analyses thus suggest that the gender enrollment gap in elite colleges and universities is a matter of access, not student choice. We discuss the implications of these results for educational equity and college admissions.
*Litzler, E., Samuelson, C. C., & Lorah, J. A. (2014). Breaking it Down: Engineering Student STEM Confidence at the Intersection of Race/Ethnicity and Gender. Research in Higher Education,* 1-23.**		It is generally accepted that engineering requires a strong aptitude for mathematics and science; therefore, students’ judgments regarding their competence in these areas as well as engineering likely influence their confidence in engineering. Little is known about how self-confidence in science, mathematics, and engineering courses (STEM confidence) varies at the intersection of race/ethnicity and gender. To fill this gap, this study examined the STEM confidence of multiple groups in undergraduate engineering programs. Results indicated that although some underrepresented groups may have lower STEM confidence overall, this finding no longer applies to all groups after controlling for personal, environmental, and behavioral factors. Specifically, African-American and Hispanic men report higher average STEM confidence than White men after controlling for these associated measures. In addition, White women continue to report lower average STEM confidence than White men after controlling for these measures, while other groups do not differ from White men. Further, many elements of student perception, including student views of professors, comparisons to peers, perceptions of the field as rewarding, and desirability of chosen major are positively associated with student STEM confidence. The changing patterns of significance for race/ethnicity and gender groups between the two models indicate that personal, environmental, and behavioral factors have different relationships with STEM confidence levels for different groups. This study contributes an understanding that gender differences in STEM confidence are not indifferent to racial and ethnic context. Social-cognitive theory provides a valuable framework for studying student academic confidence and would improve future self-confidence research.
Kessler, S. R., Spector, P. E., & Gavin, M. B. (2014). A Critical Look at Ourselves: Do Male and Female Professors Respond the Same to Environment Characteristics? Research in Higher Education, 55(4), 351-369.		We examined the relationship between gender and both job satisfaction and research productivity using data from 1,135 psychology faculty working in 229 academic departments. We found that gender differences in job satisfaction and research productivity were related to elements of the department (i.e., teaching orientation and structure). Overall, women reported lower levels of productivity than their male counterparts. Women also reported higher levels of job satisfaction in more teaching-oriented departments whereas men reported higher levels job satisfaction in more research-oriented departments. We suggest that these findings might be the result of gender differences in preferences with women preferring more socially-oriented positions and men prefer more “things/data”-oriented positions.
*Olitsky, N. H. (2014). How do academic achievement and gender affect the earnings of STEM majors? A propensity score matching approach. Research in Higher Education,* 55(3), 245-271.**		The United States government recently enacted a number of policies designed to increase the number of American born students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), especially among women and racial and ethnic minorities. This study examines how the earnings benefits of choosing a STEM major vary both by gender and across the distribution of academic achievement. I account for the selection into college major using propensity score matching. Measures of individual educational preferences based on Holland’s theory of career and educational choice provide a unique way to control for college major selection. Findings indicate that the earnings benefit to STEM major choice ranges from 5 to 28 % depending both on academic achievement and on gender and that high-achieving students benefit more from STEM major choice. Further, high achieving men benefit more from STEM majors than high-achieving women. Earnings differences in major choice may play an important role in explaining the underrepresentation of women in STEM major fields, especially among high achieving students.