New Directions for
Higher Education
Betsy O. Barefoot
Jillian L. Kinzie
Co-EDITORS
Number 176 • Winter 2016
Jossey-Bass
San Francisco
How Ideal Worker Norms Shape Work-Life for Different Constituent Groups in Higher Education
Lisa Wolf‐Wendel, Kelly Ward, Amanda M. Kulp
New Directions for Higher Education, no. 176
Co‐editors: Betsy O. Barefoot and Jillian L. Kinzie
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Work and family concerns are increasingly on the radar of colleges and universities. These concerns emerge out of workplace norms suggesting that for employees and students to be successful, they must be “ideal workers” dedicated solely to their careers. As a part of this singular focus on work, ideal workers are expected to limit attention to nonwork pursuits including children or at least have a spouse to meet family needs (Acker, 1990; Bailyn, Drago, & Kochan, 2001). The workplace remains organized around traditional male, White, and middle-class life patterns of decades past in which women tended to home responsibilities and men worked outside the home (Williams, 2000). With the prevalence of dual-career couples today, ideal worker models disadvantage both men and women since such workplace expectations clearly can be at odds with the demands of family life.
Researchers suggest that work-life policies are a way to remedy the structural inequities and to improve the work experience for faculty and students (Finkel & Olswang, 1996; Goulden, Frasch, & Mason, 2009; Quinn, 2011; Sallee, 2012). The academy has slowly adopted work-life policies, but these policies have had mixed success, in part, because workplace norms and subcultures pressure individuals to conform to the ideal worker model, leaving people fearful of relying on policy (Grant, Kennelly, & Ward, 2000; Thompson, 2008; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2012).
Ideal worker-norm pressures can be especially challenging given the number of women in the workplace today and the number of men and women who juggle responsibilities as members of dual-career couples. In 2008, 79% of married or partnered employees were members of dual-career couples (Galinsky, Aumann, & Bond, 2008). In more than 70% of two-parent households with children, both parents now work outside the home (Harrington, Van Deusen, & Ladge, 2010). Without the support of a full-time homemaker, ideal worker norms, such as working full time and taking little time off, become difficult to meet (Moen, 2005). Ideal worker norms are frequently unspoken, and individuals are left to figure out how to navigate ambiguous demands. For a variety of reasons, the inability to meet unspoken norms can lead women and men who want to play a role in caregiving to opt out of careers, fail to advance, or compromise personal goals such as having children at a biologically appropriate time (Armenti, 2004).
Although most of the existing research has focused on the ways in which faculty experience ideal worker pressure in the academy (e.g., Sallee, 2012; Thompson, 2008; Ward & Wolf-Wendel, 2012), this volume broadens the scope of the existing conversation to consider how a variety of actors in the academy, including faculty, staff, and undergraduate and graduate students, understand, interpret, strategize, work with, and resist the ideal worker model. These varying perspectives are important because the ideal worker is often context dependent, and people may navigate ideal worker norms differently within the same institution or department given their relationship to the context. As the number of tenure-track positions in the academy declines and calls for greater accountability across higher-education rise, each of these constituent groups may find itself feeling compelled to conform to ideal worker norms. Addressing workplace norms calls for shifts and changes in the attitudes and beliefs of employees at all levels across the academy. Research that only focuses on one group of employees fails to address these macroscopic perspectives.
The intent of this volume is to explore perceptions of the ideal worker in higher education and the ways in which various campus constituents experience and interpret ideal worker expectations. The ideal worker model provides a useful frame for thinking about the norms that operate to shape the behavior of constituents in differing contexts. We examine how visions of the ideal worker vary for faculty, administrators, and students. We also discuss the ways in which the model, with its context-dependent norms, can constrain employees’ ability to balance personal and professional lives. Finally, the chapters will promote dialogue, analysis, and critique of academic workplace cultures as a way to promote further action and policy. Most importantly, the chapters offer recommendations for how institutions and policymakers might modify ideal worker norms in the academy.
The volume primarily addresses two overarching questions:
How do ideal worker norms shape work and family life for members of the campus community?
How do individuals in positions across the academy understand, conform to, and resist ideal worker norms in light of family responsibilities?
As higher education continues to evolve, answers to these questions have important implications for the work-life balance experiences of employees, the diversification of a quality academic workplace, and the future of the academy. The goal of the volume is to engage in critical dialogue regarding ideal worker norms present in the academy as well as to provide recommendations for institutions regarding how to make work expectations transparent and attainable for diverse individuals with a range of work-life commitments.
The first chapter in this volume explores how mid-career tenured women faculty members, who are mothers and academics, manage multiple roles. The chapter is based on a longitudinal, qualitative study. The perspectives offered contribute to how ideal worker norms shape family formation and family life throughout the academic career for tenured academic mothers. The researchers use life-course perspectives and feminist theory to challenge ideal worker norms and institutional contexts that support such norms. We start with this chapter because so much of the research on work-life focuses on women faculty members on the tenure track; this chapter adds a new perspective by focusing on women in mid-career stages.
The second chapter, drawing on an analysis of existing literature, examines how work norms and work-life concerns affect the growing number of non-tenure-track faculty. The chapter demonstrates the importance of understanding the diversity of contingent faculty experiences and of underemployment to explain their work lives rather than notions of the ideal worker.
Chapter 3 focuses on the work-life experiences of male and female administrators at a private, doctoral institution where ideal worker norms constrained administrator behavior. Administrators with and without some degree of informal workplace flexibility desired to challenge ideal worker norms in their areas and replace existing norms with a work environment that emphasized results, not time spent at work.
Chapter 4 looks at the consequences of ideal worker norms for graduate student-parents in both higher education and student affairs master's degree programs. Using Schein's (2004) levels of culture, the chapter considers the ways that programmatic structures and interactions with faculty and peers reflect and reproduce a culture across graduate programs that privileges the norm of the always-working and engaged student, thereby creating barriers to full participation for students with children.
Chapter 5 considers how undergraduate single mothers navigate ideal student expectations. Undergraduates are an important population to consider because they represent the first step in the academic pipeline. Their experiences have the potential to influence who enters graduate school and who becomes administrators or professors in higher education. Relying on a review of current literature, the chapter looks at the ways undergraduates who are single mothers are counter to the “ideal student” norms. Policy and best-practice recommendations, based upon the literature, conclude the chapter.
Based on a quantitative national study of doctoral degree recipients, Chapter 6 focuses on the presence of career-related resources that doctoral students attain during graduate school, and the influence of those resources on PhD-earning mothers’ attainment of tenure-track faculty jobs at U.S. higher-education institutions.
The final chapter integrates the themes throughout the chapters to explore what ideal worker norms mean for future research, policy, and practice. Building upon the conclusions of each chapter, the author offers important policy recommendations that are related to the groups discussed and that provide a path forward for colleges and universities wanting to attract and retain a diverse student body and workforce.
Lisa Wolf-Wendel
Kelly Ward
Amanda Kulp
Editors