College of Education
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Item Managers, Mentoring, and Moving Up: The Role of Mentoring in Women's Career Advancement in the Chemical Industry(2008-05-13) Paquin, Jill Denise; Fassinger, Ruth E; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The underrepresentation of women in White male-dominated science and technology fields (STEM) has been documented, with special attention on the lack of women's advancement within these fields, including industry (NSF, 2004; Fassinger, 2001; Fassinger, 2002). Mentoring has been shown to be a key variable in the career advancement of both men and women. Lack of mentoring for women also has been demonstrated as a barrier to career advancement (Fassinger & Hensler-McGinnis, 2005). The chemical industry is the largest employer of U.S. scientists and therefore represents an important testing ground for identifying barriers and facilitative factors, such as access to mentoring, that could impact women's career success in this arena (NSB, 2000). Managers represent an untapped mentoring resource for women trained in science and engineering working in industrial chemistry. This study sought to better understand how managers think about mentoring and women's advancement within their field. Specifically, results suggest that managers' experiences with mentoring may have some influence on their perceptions of mentoring more generally, and that their perceptions of gender may be linked to their beliefs about mentoring for women in the workplace.Item Climate and Identity in the Career Experiences of Women Employed in the Chemical Industry(2006-05-02) Arseneau, Julie; Fassinger, Ruth E; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Despite recent gains in the literature on women's career development, scant information is available about women in nontraditional careers, including the sciences and engineering. The purpose of the present study was to utilize a qualitative methodology to investigate the experiences of 22 diverse women employed in the U.S. chemical industry in order to examine the role of workplace climate and demographic identity in their careers. Results of semi-structured interviews presented here suggest that formal and informal company policies impacted upon interviewees' perceptions of climate and that workplace support was a significant factor in managing general career challenges as well as those specific to demographic location. Differential influence of gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability, geographic location, and functional area within the company were described by participants. Results also suggest that some participants may engage in identity management strategies as a way of negotiating unfavorable aspects of workplace climate.