SANAT ve SOSYAL BiLiMLER FAKÜLTESİ
KÜLTÜREL ÇALIŞMALARI PROGRAMI
Konuşmacı Dizisi
Frances Trix,
Indiana University,
5, Mart, 2008, Çarşamba
15:30
Room FASS 2034
"Gender Differences and Doubt Raisers:
Research on Faculty Letters of Recommendation"
Letters of recommendation for faculty positions provide information on what is valued and how the academic profession seeks to replicate itself. More pragmatically, such letters are used as a standard gatekeeping practice to provide selected information on various candidates---information that will stay in a successful applicant's file throughout his or her career in that institution.
In this discourse study of letters of recommendation for female and male medical faculty of two major medical schools in the United States, I ask whether there are systematic differences between the letters written for female and male faculty, and to what extent the letters portray the applicants as competent and professional. The study builds theoretically on work by Valian (1998) and van Dijk (1993) in gender schema and racial elites respectively. The findings include significant differences between letters for male and female faculty applicants, including distinctive differential reference to personal life, success, and collaboration.
