Negotiating Boundaries: Women of Color in Academia

• In Event: 519 - Section on Race, Class and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 01. Institutions at the Intersections

Abstract

This paper examines the strategies of Women of Color use as they navigate inclusion into an elite profession. The concept of symbolic boundaries provides the framework for understanding how women doctoral students contend with the boundaries that exclude them from membership as professional scholars. I interviewed thirty women from eight different doctoral programs in social science departments at a single research-intensive university. While White women were mostly concerned with simply acquiring the tools and experience necessary to cross the boundary into the profession, Women of Color engaged in more complex boundary-work. Women of color regulated themselves in relation to the professional space by censoring themselves, isolating themselves from social settings and compartmentalizing their diverse identities. Women of Color also contested the contents of the profession with strong opinions about how research should be conducted and felt these opinions were fundamentally different from mainstream perspectives in the profession. This study contributes to the literature on symbolic boundaries and boundary making by examining how Women of Color manage professional boundaries while seeking inclusion into an elite, closed social group.

Author

• Kelly Marie Ward, University of California, Irvine