Research Project Proposal
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 around jobs and a salary disparity.
Data on the subject will be collected through the use of a
non-experimental, fixed research design, 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, the norms,
and our individual roles. 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 can change over
time. Gender should be distinguished
from “sex” which is the biological difference between men and women and which
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 valued differently (Lamont, 2009).
Literature Review
Since
the 1880s in the United States, librarianship has been a profession that has 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, in fact, 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 a work 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 (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 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 that 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
more often are 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).
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.
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." 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 analysis of this data should provide more
in-depth data and a 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. The
collection of a small amount of data in closed question form, with the help of
data coding for analysis by the researches, will allow surveying of a such a
large population to be feasible. Surveys
will be created, distributed, and collected through Survey Monkey
(surveymonkey.com).
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 survey will consist of a set of three questions, 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.
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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