Research Project Proposal
Kathleen Montgomery
Abstract
This
research proposal hopes to examine the connection between gender and
technology in the Library and Information Science (LIS) field and the extent
to which technology creates a gender gap. Due to cultural and societal perceptions
surrounding technology and computing, the field of technology has developed
along gender lines, creating a divide among jobs and a salary disparity. Data on the subject will be collected
through the use of a non-experimental, fixed research design, which will
include implementing a survey of public libraries around the nation and the
content-analysis major publications from a five-year period.
Background
and Purpose
For
the last one hundred years, women have dominated the library field and have
contributed in a many various and significant ways to its growth and evolution
over this time. But with the
introduction of technological advances to the profession, women’s participation
and roles within the discipline have changed.
Our society and the organizational culture in which our field exists
have a significant effect on the way that we perceive the issues, norms, and
individuals roles in the workforce.
Around the world, men and women are “socially constructed for different
tasks” (Moghaddam, 2010) and this results in differences in how they perceive
and use technology, contributing to a disparity between the genders. This
project explores the extent in which technology and information technology (IT)
create a gender gap within the wider library and information science (LIS)
field.
In order to
clarify key concepts, a definition of many of the terms central to this study
will be given. “Information technology”
consists of a group of technologies that deal with processing information
rather than simply storing or transmitting it (Moghaddam, 2010). “Information
science” (IS) is a term that was coined in 1953 in order to differentiate
between the activities of information professionals and librarians, and in
recent years, the two fields have merged to create the larger field of library
and information science (Golub, 2010). “Gender”
refers to the different roles which women or men take on in a community, which
are determined by cultural, social, and economic factors (Moghaddam,
2010). Both gendered concepts, the
masculine and the feminine, are constructed within relation to each other. These gender roles can vary widely within and
between different cultures and countries and have the ability to change and
develop over time. Gender should be
distinguished from “sex,” which is the biological difference between men and
women and which in recent literature has determined should not be considered a
dichotomous concept. “Gender relations”
are the power dynamics that come out of perceptions of male/masculine and
female/feminine, or “the unequal variances or assumed equalities between women
and men” (Gillard, 2008, p. 264).
Lastly, “occupational segregation” occurs when positions within an
organization or company that hold similar education requirements, but have
different titles or locations and are therefore valued differently (Lamont,
2009).
Literature Review
Since
the 1880s in the United States, librarianship has been a profession that has had
a majority of female workers, with a dramatic growth from a 20% female
workforce in 1870 to a 75% female workforce in 1900 (Golub, 2010). Historically, because of a precedent set with
this influx of women into the field, female librarians have accepted lower
paying positions than males, but this was not examined until much later. By the 1950s and 1960s, men began to enter
the field in higher numbers, and a 1952 study discovered that more men held
administrative positions than women, and those men were an average of five
years younger than the female administrators (Golub, 2010). This gender divide, where a minority of male
library workers managed a female majority, would remain a trend for the next
few decades and created an increased salary disparity between men and
women. Though they existed long before,
these patterns of discrimination against women were first noted in 1974, when
Anita Schiller published research noting the pay gap and lack of women in
administrative positions (Moran, 2009). With
the feminist movement and the social activism of the 1970s, there was an
increase of females in administrative positions between the 1970s and 1980s,
and by 1997, there were three times the number of women in top positions (Golub,
2010). But despite a male minority, the
number of men in management positions was still disproportionate to their
percentage overall. In 2007, women made
up over 80% of the entire LIS workforce, but similar to other professions that
are made up primarily of women, there are negative perceptions surrounding
librarianship, seen in the switch from the term librarianship to library and
information sciences, with more masculine connotations seen with the latter (Sweeper,
2010). Despite impressive progress, a
2008 study noted that the gender gap in salaries still exists, with the
starting salaries of female librarians eight percent lower than men’s starting
salaries (Moran, 2009). Even as more
women gain management positions and as the salary gap between the genders
closes, the introduction of technological advances into the field, the
subsequent growth of information technology, and the transition from
“librarianship” to “library and information science” has created a new gender
divide.
One
thing that is important to keep in mind when studying gender and its
relationship to other topics, is that the experience of inequality between
genders is universal, although not all women or men share the same experiences. The focus here, like in many other gender
studies, is not on women themselves, but “on the socially constructed relations
between women and men” (Gillard, 2008, p. 264).
Our society, our culture, and our experiences within both create the
context from which we view our world, and as these change, so does our
understanding of the world around us.
Where before, the ideal management style was one of competition and
individualism, traditionally masculine traits, now as organizations shift into
less hierarchical structures, a more participatory and inclusive management
style is desired (Golub, 2010). This
change has facilitated the inclusion of women into management and
administrative positions, because they are viewed as holding more flexible and
supportive management styles. As the
value put on these styles and our perceptions regarding leadership have shifted,
the numbers of female administrators has increased. The shifts in the management gender gap took
place because perceptions changed and women’s skills became valued. In order for this to happen in other arenas
where gender gaps (or any type of inequalities) exist, there must be a
questioning of the situations surrounding the disparity and an examination of
the “organizational practices that disregard issues of pay, working conditions,
domestic situations and social injustice” (Gillard, 2008, p. 271).
Just
like with previous perceptions regarding management, technology is not a
gender-neutral concept, and women’s alienation from the field has come about
because of the historical and cultural constructs that assign masculinity to
technology. There is a significant
global history concerning gender and ICT that is so prevalent in ours and other
societies, that even at a young age around the world, there are differences
between men and women’s attitudes towards technology. In schools, girls tend to use technology to
solve problems and to expand personal relationships, while boys use technology
to extend their power through games and contest-centered entertainment
(Moghaddam, 2010). In studies from the
United Kingdom, girls displayed superior skills to boys in certain areas, but
by the time they reach 18 years of age, because of a lack of encouragement and
perhaps interest, women are no longer involved in computing (Wilson, 2003). By the time they reach higher learning
levels, females only make up 19% of students majoring in Computer Science in
the UK (Wilson, 2003). In the United
States, over the last two decades, the percentages of women in IT courses,
which were already low, have been steadily dropping, from 40% in 1986 to 29%
percent in 1999 (Golub, 2010) and such trends affect the makeup of the
occupations surrounding IT and computing.
When “confronted with a complex series of social, cultural, and
organizational, cues, women are made to feel less competent and less
comfortable with technology” (Lamont, 2009, p. 141) and they consistently
underestimate their own abilities when dealing with technology. In a society which sees men and women as
holding different and often opposing styles of working and thinking, and values
masculine traits over feminine ones, even working in the technology field “can
threaten a woman’s image of herself as a woman” (Wilson, 2003). The characteristics associated with
technology, which are often thought to be requirements for technological
careers are traditionally masculine qualities, such as ambition, toughness, and
skill. Also, the perceptions around the
organizational structure surrounding IT leads to assumptions that the positions
require a high commitment and long hours, affecting women, who often shoulder
more familial responsibility (Lamont, 2009).
But it is the assumptions rather than the reality of the situation that
actually upholds the gender disparity, and the “subculture [of IT] effectively
excludes women and exacerbates the segregation” (Lamont, 2009, p. 140).
The
inclusion of technology in library functions and careers has created a gender
gap between IS and the rest of the library field. The fact that IS positions garner a higher
starting salary than other library positions is an illustration of occupational
segregation in the workforce, and is further intensified by the fact that women
tend to avoid defining themselves as part of the technology field (Lamont,
2009). Furthermore, there is also a gap
within the IS field itself, as women are more often found in routine work or
sales, such as marketing or support functions, while men hold more technical
and managerial positions, such as programmers or analysts (Wilson, 2003 and
Golub, 2010). This also translates into
a salary disparity, with men holding 56% of the “high-tech” positions and
starting wages that are 28% higher than their female counterparts. The entirety of the computer and information
science field has 840,300 fewer women than men, and while men earn a median
salary of $74,000, women only earn $63,000 (Lamont, 2009). Also, men are more often employed as the
heads of computer systems departments and it has been shown that despite more
years of experience, female department heads are paid less than the
corresponding male department heads (Lamont 2009). Clearly, there is a disparity between men and
women in the field of library and information science that technology has
played a significant part in creating.
The question that remains is: to
what extent does this disparity exist?
Methodology
and Analysis
This
research study attempts to discover the degree to which technology is creating
a disparity among the genders in the LIS field.
The relationship between gender and technology in the LIS field will be
examined with the use of a non-experimental, fixed research design. Before going into the study, the researchers
will already have a clear idea of the contexts in which the gender gap exists
and research questions, strategies, and methods will have been determined. This research is descriptive in nature,
documenting characteristics of the subjects and content that will be
examined. Although a fixed design is
proposed, not all data will be quantitative but because of the objective nature
of the qualitative data, a fixed design is still suitable. This will be a
longitudinal study that gathers and analyzes data in two parts. This long-term design, while work intensive,
will offer invaluable insight into the changes and developments between gender
and technology in the LIS field, and the data collection methods will hopefully
keep costs down. Data collection will be
done with two methods: 1) the content
analysis of various publications and 2) a survey collecting relevant data from
people working in the library and information science field. All data will be compiled and translated into
quantitative number sets and statistics that should offer insight into the
state of the LIS field, especially in relation to gender and technology. In order to complete this study, a team of two
or three additional researchers will need to be assembled. This team should have knowledge of the
subject matter or of research collection methods. This team will help with the collection and
analysis of the data and once assembled, the study will be able to proceed.
This first
part of the study, the unobtrusive content analysis, will be an expansion of
Melissa Lamont’s work, seen in “Gender, Technology, and Libraries" (2009). In her study, Lamont reviews five journals
that focus on technology and three with other focuses for comparison, and takes
note of the gender of the author of articles published by each journal during
2006 and 2007. My research study would
continue her work by gathering data from 2008 through 2013 from 30 publications
overall, 15 technology focused journals and 15 of varying general focuses. The publication titles will be chosen
beforehand, with the only stipulation being that they produced articles for
each of the years being examined. The
gender of the author(s) of each article, if not apparent from the name, will be
discovered from notes, journal or author websites, or contact with the authors
themselves. The analysis of this data
should provide a more in-depth look at any trends in publishing between the
genders, specifically in regards to technology. Statistics from this data will
help to examine whether or not women and men are publishing at the same rates
and will give insight into the extent of the gender gap that technology has
created. Data will be assembled in
tabular form (see Appendix A) in Microsoft Excel, with one table for each year.
The information gathered will then be combined
and transferred into chart form for a look at changes in total percentages over
the five-year period.
The second
part of the study involves sending a self-completion, Internet questionnaire
via email to public libraries across the country (see Appendix B). The surveys will be distributed with the
permission of the individual organization, which will provide contact
information for employees. Surveys will
be created, distributed, and collected through Survey Monkey
(surveymonkey.com).
The collection of a small amount of data in closed question form,
with the help of data coding for analysis by the researchers, will allow the
surveying of a such a large population to be feasible. Also, the survey will consist of only three
simple questions, with the hope that the short length of the survey will not
discourage respondents from answering and that there will be no
misunderstandings in the meaning behind the questions. But, if the respondents do feel the need to
contact the researchers with questions or comments, that information will be
made available to them. Two weeks after
the surveys are sent out, a reminder email will be sent to those who have not
responded, and two weeks from that date, the survey will be closed and the data
collected. The three questions on the
survey were chosen in order to determine gender, salary, and whether the
employee works in a technology-related department or position. All three questions require an answer to be
chosen and allow only one choice from the given options. The answers to each of the questions will be
easily translatable into quantifiable data, which should simplify the
analysis. The results of the first two
questions will be examined for correlation between gender and salary, when in a
technologically focused position. On its
own, this data will not allow us to assume that the variables are causally
related, but it will help us to explore the trends and underlying themes that
can give insight into the situation.
Conclusion
Research into the differences between the
genders in the Library and Information Science field often studies the “equity
and parity in career development and attainment, salary and economic difference
among librarians, and opportunities for promotion into leadership positions”
(Sweeper, 2010, p. 4). This research
study is similar in that regard, but looks at the more focused topic of how
technology divides the field, through data surrounding salaries and publishing
rates. It should conclusively be
acknowledged that a gender gap exists, but the degree of difference that it
creates and the trends and development of that difference are still in
question. Although many organizations
recognize the issues and disparities surrounding gender, even when they try to
make policy changes, they often leave “the power mechanisms of conformity
unchallenged and intact…and actually reinforce and homogenize difference”
(Gillard, 2008, p. 266). In order for the LIS field to exist at its
highest possible levels, we need to explore this and other issues, because with
this exploration, we will be able to understand and hopefully change any
inequalities or problems.
Qualifications
of the Researcher
The
researcher is currently a student at the University of South Carolina’s School
of Library and Information Science, and will receive her Master’s degree in May
of 2013. She studied for her
undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Art in English, at the University of
Georgia, where she also took courses in women’s studies and several classes
focused on the female perspective. I
remain very interested in this topic and I firmly believe that one of the first
steps in changing inequalities is to bring attention to them and learn more
information about them.
Appendix A
Appendix B
References
Gillard, H.,
Howcroft, D., Mitev, N. and Richardson, H. (2008), “Missing women”: gender,
ICTs, and the shaping of the global economy. Information Technology Development, 14: 262–279.
doi: 10.1002/itdj.20098
Golub, E.
(2010). Gender divide in librarianship: past, present, and future. Library Student Journal, 5.
Lamont, M.
(2009). Gender, technology, and libraries. Information
Technology & Libraries, 28(3), 137-142.
Moghaddam, G. (2010). Information technology and gender gap: toward a
global view. Electronic Library,
28(5), 722-733. doi:10.1108/02640471011081997
Moran, B., Leonard, E., & Zellers,
J. (2009). Women administrators in academic libraries: Three decades of change. Library
Trends. 58(2). 215-228.
Sweeper, D., & Smith, S. A. (2010).
Does gender and race have an impact on earnings in the library and information
science labor market in the United States of America? LIBRES: Library and
Information Science Research Electronic Journal, 20(2), NP.
Wilson, F. (2003). Can’t compute, won’t
compute: women’s participation in the
culture of computing. New Technology, Work and Employment, 18(2). 127-142.
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