Mary Frank Fox

Publication Productivity among Scientists: A Critical Review

This article is a critical assessment of research productivity through publication among scientists. The article scrutinizes the literature on correlates and determinants of publication productivity; provides an overview and organization of that knowledge; indicates gaps and shortcomings in the research; and hence makes clear the questions and issues which are both answered and unanswered.

Gender, family characteristics, and publication productivity among scientists

This paper concentrates upon the relationship between marriage, parental status, and publication productivity for women in academic science, with comparisons to men. Findings indicate that gender, family characteristics, and productivity are complex considerations that go beyond being married or not married, and the presence or absence of children. For women particularly, the relationship between marriage and productivity varies by type of marriage: first compared with subsequent marriage, and occupation of spouse (in scientific compared with non-scientific occupation). Further, type of family composition is important: women with preschool children have higher productivity than women without children or with school-age children. Women with preschool children are found to be a socially selective group in their characteristics, particularly in their allocations of time.

Research, Teaching, and Publication Productivity: Mutuality Versus Competition in Academia.

This article assesses two theoretical views about which there has been considerable, unresolved speculation: the mutuality versus the competition of research and teaching in academia. Going beyond previous restrictions in aims and methods of analysis, it analyzes the influence of research and teaching interests, time commitments, and orientations of faculty and their perceived environments on the publication productivity of social scientists in BA-, MA-, and Ph.D.-degree granting departments in four fields. Contrary to the mutuality perspective, the findings point to a strain between research and teaching: Those whose publication productivity is high have strong investments in research, but not in teaching. These findings suggest that research and teaching do not represent aspects of a single dimension of academic investments, but are different, conflicting dimensions. The relationships are stronger for faculty in BAthan in Ph.D.-granting departments.

WOMEN, SCIENCE, AND ACADEMIA Graduate Education and Careers

In the study of gender and society, science is a strategic analytic research site—because of the hierarchical nature of gendered relations, generally, and the hierarchy of science, particularly. Academic science, especially, is crucial to, and revealing of, status in science and society. This article focuses on three questions: What is the status of women in scientific careers and the role of graduate education in these careers? What are the implications for the analysis of gender? Where can we intervene, and how? In addressing these questions, the arguments concentrate on the social and organizational context of science and its relationship to gender and status.

Social-Organizational Characteristics of Work and Publication Productivity among Academic Scientists in Doctoral-Granting Departments

This article advances understandings of the ways in which key elements of the social-organizational characteristics of work and publication productivity operate among academic scientists in doctoral-granting departments. Findings point to new formulations about the importance of a particular team composition and of collaboration, work practices, and departmental work climates.

Work and Family Conflict in Academic Science: Patterns and Predictors Among Women and Men in Research Universities

This article addresses work–family conflict as reported among women and men academic scientists in data systematically collected across fields of study in nine US research universities. Arguing that academic science is a particularly revealing case for studying work–family conflict, the article addresses: (1) the bi-directional conflict of work with family, and family with work, reported among the scientists; (2) the ways that higher, compared with lower, conflict, is predicted by key features of family, academic rank, and departments/institutions; and (3) patterns and predictors of work–family conflict that vary, as well as converge, by gender. Results point to notable differences, and commonalties, by gender, in factors affecting interference in both directions of work–family conflict reported by scientists. These findings have implications for understandings of how marriage and children, senior compared with junior academic rank, and departmental climates shape work–family conflict among women and men in US academic science.

Women and Men Faculty in Academic Science and Engineering: Social-Organizational Indicators and Implications

Drawing on recent survey data of women and men faculty in doctoral-granting departments in computer science, engineering, and science fields in nine highly ranked research universities, this article depicts four key social-organizational features of work, as reported by women and men respondents: frequency of speaking with faculty about research in home unit, ratings of aspects of position and department, characterizations of departmental climates, and levels of interference experienced with work and family.The article points to (a) the ways in which these features of work are consequential for significant status in academic science and engineering; (b) the ways in which experiences with these features vary for women and men faculty; and (c) the ways that institutional practices and policies, reflecting these features, may be improved toward greater equity for the full participation and status of both women and men in academic science and engineering.

Institutional Transformation and the Advancement of Women Faculty: The Case of Academic Science and Engineering

The participation, status, and advancement of women in academic science and engineering have been pressing social concerns in the United States, particularly over the past 25 years. The concern is rooted in two basic sets of issues: the provision of human resources for the science and engineering workforce, and social equity in access to and rewards for professional participation in these fields. As human resources, women are important to the size, creativity, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce, broadly (Hanson, 1996; Pearson & Fechter, 1994). Women faculty, specifically, contribute to the culture and climate of the university and the development of students’ capacities and potential in science and engineering—with potential consequences for future generations of scientists and engineers. The percentages of women faculty are positively associated with percentages of women students who are undergraduate majors in mathematical sciences (Sharpe & Sonnert, 1999), majors in science and engineering (Canes & Rosen, 1995), and majors and recipients of bachelor’s degrees in life sciences, physical sciences, and engineering (Sonnert et al., 2007). This provides empirical support for the long-standing discussion about women faculty as “role models” for undergraduate women in scientific (and other) fields (Astin & Sax, 1996; Hackett et al., 1989; Stake & Noonan, 1983; Xie & Shauman, 1997). In graduate education in science and engineering, women faculty are consequential because of whom they train and the ways in which they do so. In a survey of 1,215 faculty in doctoral granting departments in five science and engineering fields, women faculty reported acting as primary research advisors for a larger number of women graduate students than did men, and also had larger number of women students on their research teams. Further, women faculty put significantly more emphasis upon giving help to advisees across areas, not only in designing, executing, and publishing research but also in gaining social capacities, including participating in laboratory meetings, making presentations, and interacting with faculty (Fox, 2003a). The status and advancement of women faculty in science and engineering is a pressing, national issue also because of related concerns of social equity (or inequity)

Programs for Undergraduate Women in Science and Engineering Issues, Problems, and Solutions

We analyze programs for undergraduate women in science and engineering as strategic research sites in the study of disparities between women and men in scientific fields within higher education. Based on responses to a survey of the directors of the universe of these programs in the United States, the findings reveal key patterns in the programs’ (1) definitions of the issues of women in science and engineering, (2) their solutions to address the issues, (3) their goals and perceived success with goals, and (4) their organizational characteristics and relationship to the larger institutional environments. The findings—which are conceptually grounded in the distinction between structural/institutional and individual issues facing women in science—have implications for understanding gender, science, and higher education, and for initiatives undertaken to improve the condition of women in scientific fields. The findings may also inform strategic efforts to reduce gender disparity in other organizational contexts.

Women, Men, and Academic Performance in Science and Engineering: The Gender Difference in Undergraduate Grade Point Averages

Using longitudinal and multi-institutional data, this article takes an innovative approach in its analyses of gender differences in grade point averages (GPA) among undergraduate students in biology, the physical sciences, and engineering over a 16-year period. Assessed are hypotheses about (a) the gender ecology of science/engineering and (b) the structural advantage of the presence of programs for women.