ISU APPROACH: COMPREHENSIVE INSTITUTIONAL INTERVENTION PLAN

We propose a Comprehensive Institutional Intervention approach for increasing the retention and advancement of women in STEM fields (Rosser, 1999; Stewart, La Vaque-Manty & Malley, 2004; Ely & Meyerson, 2000a). This framework draws components from all three traditional approaches to create a new, more integrative approach that seeks to create change from the "bottom-up" as well as from the "top down" in order to ensure that agents of change are self-sustaining over time.

Culture, Practice, and Structure all need to change. Comprehensive Institutional Intervention focuses on three interrelated institutional aspects: Culture, practice and structure.

Culture consists of common understandings of socially prevailing workplace ideologies (views and attitudes), norms (rules of conduct) and shared beliefs (formal and informal). Culture is embedded in institutions.

Practice consists of what people do and say and how this affects patterns of inclusion and exclusion (intended or not).

Structure consists of physical and social arrangements, including how work is organized, how workers interact, promotion patterns, and institutional policies.

Comprehensive Institutional Intervention as a gender equity strategy requires implementation of formal policies that ensure that underrepresented groups receive equitable treatment. It also requires intervention into the actual practices in which organizational members engage given the structure of the work and the culture within which work takes place (Calas & Smircich, 1996; Coleman & Rippin, 2000; Gherardi, 1995).

Transforming Culture and Practice. Changing culture and practice is challenging because it is difficult for administrators to legislate cultural norms and informal behavior. There are some patterns of intervention that focus on training individuals about the negative effects of often unconscious gender schemas (Valian, 1998).

A comprehensive culture approach shifts interventions from merely focusing on the individual level to those that also include the level of social interactions. This transformation strategy requires grassroots, participatory programs (Participatory Action Model) of assessment of practices and work culture; the assessment is then used to illuminate the taken-for-granted organization of work that systematically advantages men over women, whites over non-whites (Ely & Meyerson, 2000a; Meyerson & Kolb, 2000). In other words, the members of STEM departments who share a work culture need to be in charge of developing a clear and accurate assessment of how culture sustains particular patterns of work, work evaluation procedures, social networks, processes of inclusion and exclusion, and the effects of these on the individual opportunities of department members (Meyerson & Kolb, 2000).

Our approach will provide training and direction to facilitate these assessments/analyses. Research on work organizations in private industry suggests that such comprehensive strategies are best suited to long-term transformations (Ely & Meyerson, 2000a; also Utah State ADVANCE proposal 2002).

Transforming Structure. Most gender equity strategies are top-down and focus on structure in terms of policy change. While from an administrative perspective it is natural to think of institutional change in terms of policy change, policies without corresponding changes in culture and practice have only limited impact. This is the weakness of the "breaking down institutional barriers" approach. For example, a structure such as a flexible part-time tenure policy can only result in institutional change if departmental cultures value flexibility and faculty do not, knowingly or unknowingly, cast negative judgments on those who use this flexibility. If department cultures view such policies negatively, prudent candidates will not use them (Blair-Loy & Wharton, 2002; Jacobs & Winslow, 2004). Thus, our plan for structural transformation links structural initiatives to department level assessments of culture and practice.


Back to Initiatives