Gatekeepers In Academia

An important chapter in the history of academia is the entry of women as students, teachers, and researchers. This development reflects not only a change within academia, but a broader liberalization of American society that allowed women to take on a wider range of jobs and roles in the society. Although there has been a great deal of research addressing women in science, and the workplace more generally, relatively little research examines how women have become taste-makers or gate keepers. This is an important issue to examine because the ability to help others achieve professional rewards is one important indicator of occupying positions of leadership within a profession. To study how women have claimed the role of gatekeepers in academia, …show more content…
In some cases, they wield formal authority. Academic journal editors are famous examples. The people who select articles for publication are often senior scholars and they can only accept a small fraction of journal articles for publication. Often, publication in academic journals is a prerequisite for employment or promotion in the most desirable universities. In other cases, gatekeepers have a more informal role. Due to their position and status, they can provide financial resources, endorsement during job searches, and provide valuable information about the opportunities available to people in their profession. They can also provide advice and assistance to others. Without the input and advice provided by established colleagues, individuals may waste time and resources. These practices can all be important for achieving …show more content…
Though we are clearly motivated by Crane's use of the term, we use it in a slightly different way. In Crane's definition, invisible colleges are organized around intellectual specialties. For example, there might be a group of scholars working on frog biology or Latin grammar. We retain Crane's focus on informal networks, but look at a larger unit of analysis - an academic discipline.
Expanding our focus from academic specialties to an entire discipline has a number of advantages that are beneficial for studying gender equity. One is that the gender ratio may vary wildly within a single discipline. For example, students of the medical profession have noted the extreme variation across specialties with surgical specialties often being almost entirely male with pediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology having an overwhelmingly large percentage of women. A second advantage is that gatekeeping practices may not respect intellectual boundaries. That is, the network of people who are influential within a profession may include people from very different specialty, or even a different discipline. For example, Lamont's study of elite academic fellowship competitions focuses on interdisciplinary panels of scholars who award fellowships