Misconceiving Merit

Paradoxes of Excellence and Devotion in Academic Science and Engineering

Mary Blair-Loy, Erin A. Cech

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780226820149
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

An incisive study showing how cultural ideas of merit in academic science produce unfair and unequal outcomes.
 
In Misconceiving Merit, sociologists Mary Blair-Loy and Erin A. Cech uncover the cultural foundations of a paradox. On one hand, academic science, engineering, and math revere meritocracy, a system that recognizes and rewards those with the greatest talent and dedication. At the same time, women and some racial and sexual minorities remain underrepresented and often feel unwelcome and devalued in STEM. How can academic science, which so highly values meritocracy and objectivity, produce these unequal outcomes?
 
Blair-Loy and Cech studied more than five hundred STEM professors at a top research university to reveal how unequal and unfair outcomes can emerge alongside commitments to objectivity and excellence. The authors find that academic STEM harbors dominant cultural beliefs that not only perpetuate the mistreatment of scientists from underrepresented groups but hinder innovation. Underrepresented groups are often seen as less fully embodying merit compared to equally productive white and Asian heterosexual men, and the negative consequences of this misjudgment persist regardless of professors' actual academic productivity. Misconceiving Merit is filled with insights for higher education administrators working toward greater equity as well as for scientists and engineers striving to change entrenched patterns of inequality in STEM.
 

One

Misperceiving Merit, Excellence, and Devotion in Academic STEM

Few beliefs are as sacred to scientists, engineers, and mathematicians as the belief that science is a meritocracy. As a system of advancement and recognition, meritocracy is thought to reward those who produce the best work in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This belief in meritocracy is especially strong in academic STEM, where the most innovative work and the brightest scholars are presumed to rise to the top.1 In our study of STEM professors, most believe that the best scientists ascend through the ranks to full professor status and national and international prominence solely on the basis of their creative brilliance, assertive leadership, and intense devotion to discovery. Kristen, a biology professor, described scientific excellence like this:

Someone who really goes after a question with intensity . . . really incisive, insightful, drilling down to a problem. . . . In terms of clear metrics of excellence, you know, people who really make discoveries that shed new light and really transform and move the field forward. . . . People who are always pushing things forward and in an aggressive way.

The scientists we researched were confident that they could recognize merit in other scientists and reward it fairly when they see it.2

Yet inequities in how STEM professionals are respected, treated, and represented are doggedly persistent. Many studies, including our own, find that equally devoted and productive scientists encounter strikingly different treatment depending on their race/ethnicity, gender, sexual identity, and family responsibilities. STEM is thus beset by a paradox: How can a profession that so highly regards merit and objectivity also produce outcomes that are unfair for many scientists and, as we will show, bad for science itself?

To unravel this paradox, this book aims a floodlight on the culture of academic science. Most studies of inequality in STEM focus on illuminating implicit biases about women, people of color, and sexual minorities and documenting unfair behaviors in classrooms and workplaces.3 Such research is vital for mapping these processes within STEM, yet it leaves unchallenged the notions of scientific merit and excellence themselves.

Our approach is different and unique. In this book, we train our gaze on the widespread, taken-for-granted beliefs within the professional culture of STEM. We take as our object of study the very beliefs among STEM faculty about what counts as good science and who counts as excellent scientists. We ask: How is merit conceived of and defined? How fairly is this definition applied? What are the consequences for scientists and for science? Answers to these questions not only illuminate how inequality manifests in STEM disciplines but also shed light on how cultural beliefs and practices around merit and excellence, commonly seen as legitimate and neutral, can reproduce inequality within professional occupations more broadly.

STEM faculty are an ideal population in which to study the core beliefs of STEM culture. These faculty are leading producers of a culture of scientific excellence and strive to live within its tenets. They transmit this culture to their students, who carry it with them out into scientific industries. Academics and the public view the university as a sacred space where basic research (the production of new knowledge about the underlying foundations of phenomena) thrives4 and where scientific discovery is largely buffered from pressures of politics and profit.5 Public funds pay for about half of the almost one hundred billion dollars spent each year in the United States on basic research. Much of this research occurs in public universities, and the public is counting on scientists to do their best work.6

We examine these beliefs at a top public research university using data from over five hundred STEM professors.7 Our case university, like many research universities, prides itself on transparency and fairness in faculty recruitment, evaluation,8 and promotion.9 Yet at the same time, not everyone has the same chances: Women, members of some racial-ethnic groups, and LGBTQ professionals remain underrepresented and undervalued in their STEM departments. Our study reveals how unequal outcomes can occur alongside earnest commitments to objectivity and excellence.

We show that definitions of merit and excellence in STEM are not the objective, universal concepts they are upheld to be. They are cultural constructs that emerge from historically rooted institutions and are reproduced in the day-to-day interactions of professionals. As cultural constructs, they can reflect and amplify the same biases that plague the broader society.

We analyze cultural schemas, or widely shared beliefs, that we argue are core to the definition of merit in STEM. These cultural schemas are cognitive categories that help STEM professionals organize and make sense of their world.10 They also have moral and emotional dimensions, which make them salient and compelling to scientists.11 We identify two prominent schemas that anchor cultural beliefs about merit in STEM: the work devotion schema and the schema of scientific excellence.12 This book describes these schemas and explains how they uphold various forms of inequality among a population of faculty across STEM disciplines.

Work Devotion Schema

The work devotion schema is a cultural mandate that defines work as a calling deserving of undivided allegiance.13 STEM faculty generally believe that their life’s work is their commitment to the mission of pursuing and sharing STEM knowledge.14 Work-devoted scientists personally identify with their quest for new knowledge and generally accept as valid the expectation of long working hours. Emotionally, work devotion entails a sense of inspiration from their work, sometimes referred to as a “love” or even an “addiction.”15

Ruben and Kristen, two of the faculty members in our study, will help us illustrate the work devotion schema.16 Ruben is an early-to-midcareer professor of color in an engineering department. Kristen is a white woman who is a full professor in a biology department. Despite their differences in demographics, discipline, and career stage, their beliefs about the meanings and values of academic science are tightly aligned.

Kristen talks about her work as “just really exciting” and as her “mission.” She says that her vocation includes discovery of the ways in which specific genes affect lung development. Ruben reveals a similar devotion to his research when he describes his research on the mechanics of circulatory systems:

I’m passionate about everything. Everything I do, I have to do it to the limit. . . . With research, you become a dreamer. . . . You are even doing something meaningful.

Both Ruben and Kristen take the single-mindedness and long hours of their vocation for granted. Ruben matter-of-factly explains that for him, the typical weekday and the typical weekend day look the same.

Ruben: During the week or during the weekend, it is the same thing. I’m here [on campus] every single day. I’m a night person, so it’s pretty [hard] to get up early, but I normally get up at 7:00. And I don’t have family. I only have two cats, so they don’t need too much attention, so I’m here from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Interviewer: Okay. Then you go home and sleep?

Ruben: No, then I go home and work on [writing scientific] papers [until] 1:00 to 2:00 in the morning.

Similarly, when we asked Kristen whether she took work home with her on nights and weekends, she responded:

Oh yeah. Always. . . . You can’t stop the tide of stuff. . . . I guess I’m kind of, on some level, I just appreciate that it’s how it’s always going to be.

Most faculty in our study, despite their varied demographic backgrounds, share Ruben and Kristen’s devotion to their work and their acceptance of intensive work hours as a necessary part of their calling.

Schema of Scientific Excellence

A second cultural schema that anchors definitions of merit in STEM is what we call the schema of scientific excellence. This schema defines certain characteristics as markers of excellence within STEM, and others as tangential or even threatening to excellence. The schema of scientific excellence serves as a cultural yardstick that STEM academics use to measure the competence and worthiness of their colleagues. Those who are seen to have the most valued characteristics are judged as the most meritorious, whereas the competence of those who do not measure up along this yardstick is questioned.

The two qualities that academic scientists generally view as most strongly identified with excellence are creative brilliance and assertive characteristics like competitiveness, self-promotion, and risk-taking. For example, when we asked Kristen what qualities characterize excellence in her field, she mentioned creative intensity, incisive analysis, transformative discovery, and assertively advancing the boundaries of knowledge in one’s discipline.

Although Kristen respects those who push forward the boundaries of the field, she also expresses concerns about an academic culture that admires aggressive individualism. She says that her department fosters a “Wild West” culture that rewards scientists who cultivate the persona of a lone cowboy and pay too little attention to the interpersonal skills necessary for the team science and interdisciplinary work that advance pressing social concerns. Yet few colleagues share her skepticism about the schema of scientific excellence.

The schemas of work devotion and scientific excellence are not objective judgments of performance or simple tallies of skill. They are subjective cultural models that help compose a professional meaning system and maintain an unequal status quo.17 We investigate these cultural schemas in the conceptions of merit in STEM to advance a new approach to a vexing problem: the continued marginalization and underrepresentation of women, LGBTQ persons, and many people of color in STEM. We show how these schemas work quietly in the background to shape interactions between colleagues, justify the distribution of resources, undermine innovation, and reproduce inequality.

Inequalities in STEM

Despite the widespread commitments to meritocracy in STEM, the field is far from providing equal opportunities to equally talented individuals. In some formerly male-dominated fields like medicine and law, women have comprised nearly half of professionals for many years. In contrast, women’s representation in STEM degree programs and STEM empl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• 1  Misperceiving Merit, Excellence, and Devotion in Academic STEM
• 2  The Cultural Construction of Merit in Academic STEM
• 3  The Work Devotion Schema and Its Consequences
• 4  Mismeasuring Merit: The Schema of Scientific Excellence as a Yardstick of Merit
• 5  Defending the Schema of Scientific Excellence, Defending Inequality
• 6  The Moralization of Merit: Consequences for Scientists and Science
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix
• Notes
• References
• Index