Mendez, S., & Watson, K., & Conley, V. (2022, August), Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--41315

\bibitem{asee_peer_41315}
  Mendez, S., \& Watson, K., \& Conley, V. (2022, August), \emph{Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family}
  Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.
  10.18260/1-2--41315

Sylvia Mendez, Kathryn Watson, and Valerie Conley.  "Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family".  2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August.  ASEE Conferences, 2022.  https://peer.asee.org/41315 Internet.  24 Apr, 2025

\bibitem{asee_peer_41315}
  Sylvia Mendez, Kathryn Watson, and Valerie Conley.
  "Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family".
  \emph{2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, Minneapolis, MN, 2022, August}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2022.
  https://peer.asee.org/41315 Internet.  24 Apr, 2025

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_41315
author = "Sylvia Mendez, Kathryn Watson, and Valerie Conley"
title = "Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family"
booktitle = "2022 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2022"
month = "August"
address = "Minneapolis, MN"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/41315}
number = {10.18260/1-2--41315}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - An instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) explored the messages STEM postdoctoral scholar women receive about balancing an academic career with a family. Concerningly, women with children are less likely than men with children, or women and men without children, to be offered tenure-track positions or to be promoted (Bird & Rhoton, 2021; Cech & Blair-Lory, 2019; Gregor et al., 2021; Williams & Ceci, 2012; Ysseldyk et al., 2019). This reality suggests that motherhood is in opposition to professional legitimacy in academia (Hill et al., 2014; Thébaud & Taylor, 2021). Furthermore, postdoctoral scholar mothers are more likely than their peers to cite children as their primary reason for not entering the faculty job market (NPA ADVANCE, 2011). Interviews were conducted with 22 demographically diverse STEM postdoctoral scholar women to explore how messages about balancing career and family are considered. Using inductive and deductive methods (Silverman, 1993; Stake, 1995), interview transcripts were analyzed using the ideal worker conceptual framework (Kossek et al., 2021). Two themes arose: (1) STEM postdoctoral women receive messages suggesting they must sacrifice family pursuits for an academic career, and (2) positive modeling and support for balancing career and family are vital for retaining STEM postdoctoral women in the professoriate pathway. These findings illustrate a systemic conflict for STEM postdoctoral scholar women. They describe a necessity to sacrifice family desires, yet positive modeling and support for balancing career and family send messages suggesting it is possible to plan for both. This research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP; award #1821008).
AU  - Sylvia Mendez
AU  - Kathryn Watson
AU  - Valerie Conley
CY  - Minneapolis, MN
DA  - 2022/08/23
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Sacrifice: Messages STEM Postdoctoral Scholar Women Receive about Career and Family
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/41315
DO  - 10.18260/1-2--41315
ER  -