Small Grant for Exploratory Research: Women's Advancement in Political Science, A Proposed Workshop for 2004 in Washington, DC

在政治学领域，女性一直是并将继续是全职教师中的少数，目前的统计数据表明，在可预见的未来，她们在这一学科中仍将低于男性，尽管在过去几十年里，女性政治学家的数量大幅增加。2001年，女性占所有全职教师的24%(APSA，2002年)，比1991年的18%增加了6%(Sarkees和McGlen，1999年)。尽管自20世纪70年代初以来，她们在所有学术级别都取得了进步，但越来越多的证据表明，在过去5年里，女性助理教授的比例停滞不前，约为35%。这是真正令人担忧的原因，这表明，管道的停滞将对未来女性政治学教师的数量造成明显限制。女性在政治学领域继续保持少数地位的可能原因有多种，但对这一点的研究远未确定，部分原因是，对女性在该学科的进步的研究不如其他社会科学领域的研究那么发达。为了更好地了解女性在学术界取得成功的因素，政治学家可以从与社会学和经济学研究人员的信息交流中受益，对这些研究人员来说，女性在学术界的进步是一个明确的研究调查主题。这笔用于探索性研究的小额赠款将于2004年初举办一次规划讲习班，以评估目前关于提高妇女在政治学中的地位的知识基础，并找出阻碍她们在该学科中人数增加的主要障碍。为了促进社会科学领域的交流，并受益于社会学家和经济学家获得的证据，调查人员将邀请几位在科学和社会科学领域研究过女性发展的学者。此外，被邀请的参与者将包括领导大型团队研究项目、在该领域担任领导职务和/或对性别问题和提高妇女地位有积极兴趣的政治学家。研讨会将为提交给国家科学基金会高级领导力项目的拨款提案奠定基础。研讨会有以下目标：(1)澄清女性在各级学术级别的政治学方面的进步速度。(2)澄清女性在政治学领域面临的关键晋升问题；例如，女性晋升为正教授的难度是否大于获得终身教职的难度？(3)探索女性在政治学领域中按大学声望和子领域的不同晋升速度差异的根源。(4)确定女性在不同过渡阶段取得学术成功的关键障碍。广泛的社会价值：研讨会旨在提高对女性在学术政治学领域的进步的了解，以便设计一项计划，以改善该学科中女性的招聘和留住。这对政治学作为女性研究生学习领域的吸引力有着深远的影响。反过来，更多的女性研究生应该会增加从事各种非学术职业的女性人数，包括选举政府官员、外交使团、国内和国际情报、民意调查和选举以及公共政策规划，此外，更多的女性政治学教员应该会在很大程度上提高妇女对政治进程的兴趣，部分原因是，女性教员最有可能教授涉及妇女政治参与的历史和重要性的课程。

Women have been and continue to be a minority of full-time faculty within politicalscience, and current statistics suggest they will remain below parity with men in thediscipline for the foreseeable future, despite substantial gains in the number of womenpolitical scientists over the last several decades. Women constituted 24% of all full timefaculty in 2001 (APSA 2002) an increase of 6% over 1991 when they made up 18% (Sarkees and McGlen 1999). And while they have made gains at all academic ranks since the early 1970s there is growing evidence that the percentage of women assistant professors has stalled at roughly 35% over the last 5 years. This is real cause for concern, suggesting a stagnant pipeline that will place clear limits on the number of future women political science faculty.There are various possible reasons for women's continuing minority status withinpolitical science but research on this point is far from definitive, in part, becauseresearch on women's progress in the discipline is not as well developed an area ofresearch as in other social sciences. To better understand the factors linked towomen's success within academia, political scientists could benefit from aninformational exchange with researchers in sociology and economics for whom women'sadvancement in academia is an explicit topic of research investigation. This Small Grant for Exploratory Research is to to hold a planning workshop in early 2004 to evaluate the current knowledge base regarding women's advancement in political science, and to identify the major barriers to their numerical increase in the discipline. To foster exchange across social science fields and benefit from evidence obtained by sociologists and economists, the investigators will invite several scholars who have studied women's development in the sciences and social sciences. In addition, invited participants will include political scientists who direct large-scale team-based research projects, hold leadership positions in the field, and/or have an active interest in gender issues and theadvancement of women. The workshop will lay the foundation for a grant proposal to besubmitted to the NSF ADVANCE leadership program.The workshop has the following goals: (1) Clarify the rate of progress of women inpolitical science at all levels of academic rank. (2) Clarify the key advancement problemsconfronted by women in political science; for example, are women having greater difficultyin getting promoted to full professor than in gaining tenure? (3) Explore the origins ofwomen's differential rate of advancement by prestige of the university and bysubfield in political science. (4) Identity the key barriers to women's academic success at different transition points.Broader Social Value: The workshop is intended to improve knowledge of women's progress within academic political science in order to design a program that will improve the recruitment and retention of women in the discipline. This has far reaching implications for the attractiveness of political science as a field of graduate study for women. An increased number of women graduate students should, in turn, increase the pool of women for a wide variety of non-academic careers including elective government office, the diplomatic corps, domestic and international intelligence, polling and elections, and public policy planning, Moreover, an increased number of women political science faculty should increase women's interest in the political process very generally, in part, because womenfaculty are most likely to teach courses that touch on the history and importance ofwomen's political involvement.