Because of their minority group status and underrepresentation, faculty of color (FOC) are tokens and as such, are highly visible within the academy. Paradoxically, token status may result in their ...being made to feel simultaneously invisible (e.g., accomplishments are unimportant, lack of belonging) and hypervisible (e.g., heightened scrutiny). Drawing from 118 interviews, we identified six themes related to how Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, and American Indian faculty members at a single, predominantly White, research-intensive university, describe issues of (in)visibility at work. FOC experienced hypervisibility when they were treated as Tokens and used to represent diversity within the institution, and they felt invisible when they experienced Social and Professional Exclusion and Epistemic Exclusion (i.e., lack of recognition for their scholarship and achievements) from colleagues. FOC responded to tokenism and exclusion using three (in)visibility strategies: Strategic Invisibility (i.e., disengaging with colleagues while remaining engaged with their scholarly activities) to remove themselves from negative environments; Working Harder to prove themselves, counter exclusion, and create positive visibility; and Disengagement (i.e., removed effort from work). Our analysis suggests that a lack of control over one's (in)visibility is problematic for FOC. In response, FOC may attempt to increase or decrease their own visibility to counter such experiences, often with some positive effects.
•Faculty of Color (FOC) experience hypervisibility as diversity tokens.•FOC feel invisible because of social/professional and epistemic exclusion.•Lacking control over one's (in)visibility results in distress.•FOC work harder to counter exclusion and create positive visibility.•FOC use strategic invisibility to remove themselves from negative environments.
Although intersectionality has become part of the everyday lexicon, the field of psychology has demonstrated resistance to the theory, which we argue reflects epistemic exclusion. Epistemic exclusion ...is the devaluation of some scholarship as illegitimate and certain scholars as lacking credibility. We suggest that intersectionality has been epistemically excluded because it challenges dominant psychological norms about the scientific process and has been most readily endorsed by psychologists from marginalized groups. We provide evidence that epistemic exclusion has occurred through formal means (e.g., exclusion from mainstream journals) and informal processes (e.g., repeated misrepresentation of the theory). We use visibility theory to highlight the role of disciplinary power in this process, such that dominant psychologists act as gatekeepers. Finally, we discuss how the epistemic exclusion of intersectionality is a barrier to social issues scholarship and social justice in psychology, and offer structural recommendations for intersectionality's epistemic inclusion.
Faculty of color experience a number of challenges within academia, including tokenism, marginalization, racial microaggressions, and a disconnect between their racial/ethnic culture and the culture ...within academia. The present study examined epistemic exclusion as another challenge in which formal institutional systems of evaluation combine with individual biases toward faculty of color to devalue their scholarship and deem them illegitimate as scholars. Using data from interviews with 118 faculty of color from a single predominantly White, research-intensive institution, we found that epistemic exclusion occurs through formal hierarchies that determine how scholarship is valued and the metrics used to assess quality, and through informal processes that further convey to faculty of color that they and their scholarship are devalued. In addition, there was variability in reporting these experiences by race, gender, nationality, and discipline. We found that faculty of color coped with epistemic exclusion by being assertive and by seeking validation and support outside the institution. Finally, participants described a number of negative work-related and psychological consequences of their epistemic exclusion. We discuss epistemic exclusion as a form of academic gatekeeping that impedes the recruitment, advancement, and retention of faculty of color and offer strategies to address this barrier.
Visibility at work, being seen fully and accurately by others, is important for individual self-determination and authenticity, and for organizational outcomes such as commitment and sense of ...belonging. Although there has been increasing attention in the organizational literature on marginalized groups' workplace experiences of harassment, discrimination, and identity-based microaggressions, little attention has been given to issues of invisibility and hypervisibility. We conceptualize invisibility and hypervisibility as additional forms of identity-based mistreatment that are in opposition to visibility for marginalized groups. This special issue expands the limited existing research in this area to advance theoretical and empirical knowledge around issues of visibility in the workplace. In this introduction to the special issue, we provide a framework for understanding visibility, invisibility, and hypervisibility through definitions and key features of the constructs. We also highlight the contributions that the special issue papers make to organizational research generally, and to research on visibility in the workplace specifically. We end with suggestions for future research related to visibility and organizational psychology.
Eighty-nine black women's racial & gender identities were examined within an intersectional framework that emphasized their unique integration of these identities. Quantitative analyses indicated ...that the intersected black-woman identity was more important than the individual identities of woman & black person. Further, interference in the black identity (but not interference in the woman identity) was related to lower self-esteem & depression. Qualitative analyses of rewards & difficulties experienced as black women identified four themes: stereotyping & discrimination, personal esteem, isolation from others, & opportunities & resources. Black women who mentioned any reward reported higher self-esteem than those who did not. The value of an intersectional framework for thinking about black women's identities is discussed. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.
Using intersectionality to change how psychologists think about the demographic profile of their participants is one readily available change that psychologists across the discipline can implement to ...improve psychological science. In this article, we aim to provide a guide for psychologists who are not already engaged with feminist practices and/or are unsure of how an intersectional approach to participants applies to their research. We argue that by engaging with four perspective shifts of intersectional thinking: multidimensionality, dynamic construction, structural power, and outcomes of systemic disadvantage and advantage, psychologists can more accurately represent the “person” that psychology, as a discipline, seeks to understand. We suggest changes at the researcher, journal, and grant-making agency levels to support an intersectional reconceptualization of participants. As psychology continues to change, in order to foster reproducible science practices and research with relevance to real-world problems, there is opportunity to promote discipline-level change that would take intersectionality seriously.
Faculty diversity has received increased attention from researchers and institutions of higher education, yet faculty demographics have not changed substantially for many underrepresented groups. ...Several barriers to the retention of women and faculty of color have been offered, including a lack of belonging, discrimination, social exclusion, and tokenism. Epistemic exclusion, scholarly marginalization rooted in disciplinary and identity-based biases, is theorized to act as another barrier to the retention of these faculty. The present study examines the effect of scholarly devaluation, a primary component of epistemic exclusion, on faculty workplace outcomes using data from 1,341 tenure-track faculty from a predominantly White, research-intensive institution. We found that women and underrepresented faculty of color reported higher perceptions of scholarly devaluation. Further, scholarly devaluation was associated with higher intentions to leave the university and this relationship was mediated by lower job satisfaction and poorer perceptions of the workplace climate. Notably, the negative consequences of perceiving scholarly devaluation were found for all faculty, not just women and faculty of color. We discuss the implications of these findings for retaining marginalized faculty and for institutions of higher education more broadly.
Early research on the impact of COVID-19 on academic scientists suggests that disruptions to research, teaching, and daily work life are not experienced equally. However, this work has overwhelmingly ...focused on experiences of women and parents, with limited attention to the disproportionate impact on academic work by race, disability status, sexual identity, first-generation status, and academic career stage. Using a stratified random survey sample of early-career academics in four science disciplines (N = 3,277), we investigated socio-demographic and career stage differences in the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic along seven work outcomes: changes in four work areas (research progress, workload, concern about career advancement, support from mentors) and work disruptions due to three COVID-19 related life challenges (physical health, mental health, and caretaking). Our analyses examined patterns across career stages as well as separately for doctoral students and for postdocs/assistant professors. Overall, our results indicate that scientists from marginalized (i.e., devalued) and minoritized (i.e., underrepresented) groups across early career stages reported more negative work outcomes as a result of COVID-19. However, there were notable patterns of differences depending on the socio-demographic identities examined. Those with a physical or mental disability were negatively impacted on all seven work outcomes. Women, primary caregivers, underrepresented racial minorities, sexual minorities, and first-generation scholars reported more negative experiences across several outcomes such as increased disruptions due to physical health symptoms and additional caretaking compared to more privileged counterparts. Doctoral students reported more work disruptions from life challenges than other early-career scholars, especially those related to health problems, while assistant professors reported more negative changes in areas such as decreased research progress and increased workload. These findings suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately harmed work outcomes for minoritized and marginalized early-career scholars. Institutional interventions are required to address these inequalities in an effort to retain diverse cohorts in academic science.
As a Black, female, feminist, intersectional psychologist whose scholarship defies traditional categorization, I have faced several challenges within academia including identifying my scholarly ...niche, finding collaborators, and building networks. In this article, I identify how, by building and extending my network, I have been able to: (a) become an "authentic scholar," who conducts scholarship consistent with my training, feminist values, and intersectional theoretical framework; (b) find support and coaching to deal with issues of stereotyping and unequal treatment within academia; (c) support graduate students and early-career faculty, especially those of color; and (d) take on leadership roles.
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