Double consciousness: Managing multiple identities at school

Identity management is used in order to manage the salience of a minority identity. The field of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), it is dominated by men. The number of women in the field has been slowly increasing. However, the larger increase has been in women seeking and getting STEM degrees, but not in those becoming and staying employed in STEM. Thus, I examined how women in STEM use multiple identity management tactics. I wanted to know if college women in STEM were using identity management tactics, and if so, if they were favoring social recategorization or positive distinctiveness tactics. The findings show that the identity management tactics that are most used (i.e., social recategorization) might be linked to a short-lived career or psychological exhaustion experienced by the person managing multiple identities