Interrupting Dominant Narratives and Addressing Erasures: Centering the Mentoring Experiences of Women Faculty of Color

• In Event: Transforming Early Academic Careers: Global Challenges and Individual Trajectories - I: Addressing Inequalities in Academic Careers

Abstract

The importance of mentoring for women faculty in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) has become a dominant narrative within the literature. However, the majority of studies have not disaggregated their data by racial identity. Consequently, while supposedly being representative of all women, this research is truly only representative of white women faculty (who make up the numerical majority). Grounded in critical race theory, this study attempts to interrupt this dominant narrative and to address these erasures by shifting the research focus to center on women faculty of color (WFOC). The presentation will explore how the dominant narrative around faculty mentoring fails to disrupt systemic inequities and how a shift to center the experiences of WFOC potentially alters our understanding of faculty mentoring.

This study is a meta-synthesis of qualitative research on mentoring and WFOC in STEM fields. A meta-synthesis integrates patterns across qualitative studies with an interpretative, rather than aggregating, intent. The process requires preserving meaning while identifying relational links across studies that may be reciprocal, complementary, or conflicting. This approach is well-suited to analyze the interrelated systems of power through which WFOC navigate in their mentoring relationships. The results of this study suggest how mentoring may serve both as a practical tool of resistance to advance WFOC and as a catalyst for institutional change. The presentation will conclude by asking attendees how centering systemically marginalized groups may interrupt dominant narratives and improve the social justice implications of their work.

Author

• Cara Margherio, University of Washington