A race re-imaged, intersectional approach to academic mentoring: Exploring the perspectives and responses of womxn in science and engineering research

Amsterdam

2019

346-355

Sonderdruck

40001148

In academic mentoring research, there is a need to include empirical designs that consider more sociocultural perspectives. The purpose of this exploratory study was to race re-image academic mentoring by considering its sociocultural perspectives (i.e., intersectionality, tokenism, and awareness). For this, a qualitative-dominant, convergent mixed-methods approach was used to explore the perspectives and responses of twelve womxn graduate students and faculty involved in science and engineering research. Using multi-modal approaches that included two structured interviews and electrodermal activity (EDA) sensors, participants were asked to respond to case studies of achievement-, race-, and gender-equity through an academic mentoring lens.
Highlights: Power, communication, and awareness roles on academic mentoring equity were initial themes.
When introduced to tokenism, themes differed based upon intersectional identities. Electrodermal activities increased for multiracial women on gender-equity issues. Electrodermal activities decreased for White/Caucasian women on race-equity issues. Womxn had varied responses to tokenism based on their academic research roles.