Chapter 3 Women of color faculty: Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention

Abstract

Myra Gordon (2004) argues that “the real reason for a general failure to diversify lies in the culture and practices typically associated with faculty hiring” (p. 184). This chapter examines the faculty hiring process and how it contributes to the underrepresentation of female faculty of color and to what happens to them if they are hired. Drawing on the existing literature and insights from critical theory and signal theory, the dissection of the process considers how institutionalized norms characteristic of the dominant group in the academy (white, males) play a role in the exclusion (oppression) of nontraditional candidates, and signal their fit with those norms.

Citation

Mertz, N.T. (2011), "Chapter 3 Women of color faculty: Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention", Jean-Marie, G. and Lloyd-Jones, B. (Ed.) Women of Color in Higher Education: Changing Directions and New Perspectives (Diversity in Higher Education, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 41-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3644(2011)0000010007