Many studies of academic women have concentrated on women who have been deflected from their academic careers either by personal considerations or institutional procedures, such as becoming a mother or being denied promotion and tenure. Little research has been done with present-day professional women who have chosen a nontraditional sector of higher education. A fundamental problem, supported by the literature, are the perceptions and attitudes toward women's roles in the workplace. The literature describes today's society as one that has a set of assumptions that still supports traditional roles for men and women. The traditional value system in the United States views women who achieve in nontraditional ways as extraordinary performers; as exceptions to the rule. The current system supports structures and systems that prevent society from discovering and implementing changes that could solidify new roles for women and men. The purpose of this study was to assess the differences in attitudes of administrators and faculty toward faculty women teaching in the field of Industrial Technology (IT). More specifically, this study investigated attitudes toward the employment and advancement of Industrial Technology faculty women in higher education. The substantive findings after administering an opinionnaire were: (a) women in administrative and faculty positions in Industrial Technology programs recognized that employment opportunities were not the same for men and women in the institutions, and the opportunities favored men; (b) male administrators and male faculty felt that IT faculty women contributed as equals in the department and were not viewed as being subordinate, on the other hand, the female administrators and female faculty recognized the importance that the personality of the women affects the work environment; and (c) female administrators and female faculty and male administrators and male faculty varied when looking at the teaching effectiveness and related classroom climate. The women were more in consensus with the literature that described how women and men are perceived in the classroom by students and the differences between the genders when interacting with students. Lastly, recommendations were made to modify the study and suggestions were made for further research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-9071 |
| Date | 01 January 1995 |
| Creators | Tracey, Karen Coale |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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