Mestizas in the Academy : Latina faculty and the negotiation of their personal and professional lives

Includes bibliographical references (pages 65-69Despite gains in the number of female and ethnic minority faculty, the numbers of both are extremely low within academia. The majority of female and faculty of color that are in higher education are disproportionately distributed amongst non-tenure track positions. This suggests that there are structural mechanisms at work that either: give unfair benefits or privileges to men and white professoriate candidates, result in the poorer performance (research, publications, resumes, etc ) of these minority groups in relation to whites and men, or discourage women and ethnic minorities from applying to professoriate positions. For Latina faculty, a doubly oppressive framework presents itself on the gendered and ethnic minority status. Through the use of 8 in depth interviews of various Latina faculty, I aim to uncover how Latina faculty negotiate their personal and professional lives. I will be paying close attention to how these women prioritize their competing simultaneous expectations of professors, colleagues, mothers, spouses, etc. and how these expectations shape their own identity/ies and their personal and professional negotiations. The populations will be drawn using a snowball sampling technique. Interviewees will be from Southern California across various 4 year universities