UWM Sociologist Looks at Obstacles Facing Women and Minorities in Professional Schools

Carrie Yang Costello

MILWAUKEE — To succeed in professional graduate programs, students need a record of academic achievement and a disciplined work ethic. But those alone will not guarantee success for women and minorities: They must also reevaluate their personal identities, says a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM).

Despite a more diversified pool of professional school students today, white men from privileged class backgrounds continue to enjoy better grades than women and students from different social, religious, and economic classes.

The reason, says Carrie Yang Costello, is that those groups often have trouble developing an appropriate professional identity that is expected by professors, but not openly discussed. She calls this problem "identity dissonance."

"Almost all professional students are used to doing well in college, but when they get to graduate school there's an unspoken ‘norm' that professors adopt in evaluating their performance," says Costello, whose book, "Professional Identity Crisis: Race, Class, Gender and Success at Professional Schools," was published this month by Vanderbilt University Press.

The professional role is about not only knowledge, but also mindset and presentation. Expectations include such intangibles as manner of speech, body language, a "certain writing style," tone of voice, and assertiveness.

The traditional debate about the disproportionate success of white male professional students pits liberals who claim that the cause is a conspiracy of discrimination against conservatives who say the admittance of under-prepared women and minorities under Affirmative Action is to blame.

Costello says she did not find evidence of either.

"It's been a much debated issue, but people can't seem to get past these two simplistic arguments," she says. "So as a sociologist, I wanted to pursue it."

"Professional Identity Crisis"

The identity issue takes many new graduate students by surprise, her study indicates. They often misdiagnose their problem as academic, and compensate by studying more or getting a tutor – only to find out that neither helps, says Costello.

For others, acting the role changes them in ways that can cause a crisis in their personal lives, such as broken relationships or marriages. Minorities often risk alienation by family and friends by adopting a persona that is much different from those of their communities of origin.

Costello, a Harvard Law School graduate who earned her doctoral degree in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, chose those two professional schools at which to conduct her two-year project. Harvard Law School represents a traditionally male-dominated professional school and UC Berkeley's School of Social Work represents a traditionally female-dominated one. She then interviewed 72 students and observed hundreds of students during their first three semesters.

Some of her other findings include:

• Strong religious or political commitments also have a negative impact on a student's performance.
• The more nontraditional variables in a student's profile, the more complicated graduate school becomes. White women who do the best in law school are more aggressive, mimicking the male style. But the same style doesn't help African-American women.
• Men pursuing graduate degrees in social work are usually not aggressive personalities. But even in a traditionally female field, male students had an easier time assimilating into a professional role.
• Women often experience no relief from spouses in covering domestic duties while attending graduate school. Male students with partners often have such support.

Costello suggests making the issue overt by offering a class to discuss expectations openly. "People need to hear that you have a choice in front of you from the beginning," she says, "especially since there are some things that are out of your control or very hard to change."

Costello will sign copies of her book tonight, along with two other Urban Studies faculty who also have new books out, Frank Harold Wilson and Amanda Seligman. Check out the details.

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