SBP: Collaborative Research: A Two-Part Project Examining Team Discrimination by Gender in STEM teams and a Way Forward

尽管性别问题在STEM（即科学、技术、工程和数学）职业中普遍存在，但女性在工程领域的代表性最低。研究人员调查了女性在工程领域参与度低的无数原因，比如薪酬和晋升机会，以及与家庭有关的限制。工作场所歧视的作用也得到了关注，因为STEM领域的女性比非STEM领域的女性遭受歧视的比例更高。然而，很少有研究人员将注意力集中在工程领域女性的日常经历如何促进或阻碍歧视行为上。虽然许多关于工作场所歧视的现有研究都集中在个人或组织上，但我们认为，团队在女性在工程领域的经历中起着被忽视的作用。本文采用以团队为中心的方法，研究了人际歧视及其对个人和团队结果的多层次涟漪影响。当前项目旨在完成三个高级别目标。我们的第一个目标是确定工程团队的经验是否以及如何因性别而不同，特别是在团队歧视方面。作为第二个目标，我们将检查团队歧视对工程团队结果（例如，绩效，创造力）的影响。最后，我们的第三个目标是检验团队歧视对个人层面结果的影响，特别是对女性工程师职业轨迹的影响。为了有效地实现既定目标，我们将采用互补的方法进行两项初步研究。我们将从STEM团队中歧视的多层次纵向检查开始，特别是与女性团队成员有关的歧视。这第一项研究将解决关于缺乏纵向的、团队层面的数据的问题，并提供关于一个未被充分研究的现象——团队歧视的见解。接下来，我们进行了一项经验抽样研究，研究了在STEM领域工作的女性受到的团队歧视，以及这种情况在她们的日常生活、长期职业抱负和决策中的影响。该项目的高潮将使人们更好地了解团队经验如何塑造STEM女性的职业道路，并实现留住STEM女性职业的总体目标。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Though gender issues are pervasive throughout STEM (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and math) careers, representation of women is lowest in engineering. A myriad of reasons for low female participation in engineering have been investigated, such as pay and promotion opportunities and family-related constraints. Attention has also been given to the role of workplace discrimination, as women in STEM experience discrimination at higher rates than women in non-STEM disciplines. However, few researchers have focused their attention on how the day-to-day experiences of women in engineering might facilitate or impede discriminatory behavior. While many of the existing studies on workplace discrimination have focused on the individual or the organization, we argue that teams play an overlooked role in women's experiences in engineering. Taking a team-centric approach, we examine interpersonal discrimination and its multi-level ripple impact on both individual and team outcomes. The current project is designed to complete three high-level objectives. Our first objective is to identify whether and how engineering team experiences differ by gender, specifically in relation to team discrimination. As a second objective, we will examine the effect team discrimination has on engineering team outcomes (e.g., performance, creativity). Finally, our third objective is to examine the impact team discrimination has on individual-level outcomes and specifically the career trajectory of female engineers. To effectively carry out the stated objectives, we will use complementary methods to conduct two primary studies. We will begin with a multilevel, longitudinal examination of discrimination in STEM teams, specifically in relation to female team members. This first study will address the concern regarding a lack of longitudinal, team-level data and provide insight regarding an understudied phenomenon, team discrimination. We follow with an experience sampling study examining team discrimination toward females working within the STEM field and the effects of such occurrences throughout their daily lives and long-term career aspirations and decisions. The culmination of this program will provide a greater understanding of how team experiences shape the career path for women in STEM, with the overall goal of retaining women in STEM careers.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.