Social Support in Doctoral Education: The Role of Relationship Resources and Gender in Graduate Student Professional Socialization
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Date
2010-06-03
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[Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University
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Abstract
Sociologists have explored the effect of social relationships on the outcomes of education for many years. Relationships with parents, teachers, and peers have long been established to influence student socialization, academic achievement, and educational aspirations, expectations, and attainment. Therefore, it is surprising that social support, as conceptualized mainly in the medical sociology literature, has rarely been explored as a source of influence on educational outcomes. Using the context of doctoral education in the United States and conceptualizing social support as resources accumulated through social relationships, I examine not only the effect of social support on graduate student professional socialization, but also the effect of organizational and individual level factors on the perceptions and use of support. I use measures from a private dataset entitled the Survey on Doctoral Education (SDE), as well as data from the National Research Council and the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), to conduct factor analysis and multivariate regression analysis. My findings suggest that organizational factors such as institutional and departmental characteristics, discipline, and departmental climates significantly but differentially affect the perception of most forms of social support. Furthermore, although women are more likely than men to perceive higher levels of peer support and personal support from their advisors, they tend to perceive significantly less support from faculty across several social support measures. Results also indicate that although social support is thought to be a positive aspect of social relationships, support can both benefit and detract from the development of professional self-concepts. Women also use some types of social support differently than men in the development of task preparation and confidence, as well as in the establishment of preferences and expectations to work at particular types of institutions as future faculty members. This study has implications for sociological research on social support, social capital, professional socialization, and the reproduction of inequality in education, and offers suggestions for higher education reform.
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Thesis (PhD) - Indiana University, Sociology, 2007
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relationship networks, socialization, graduate education, advising, gender, social support, departmental effects, educational inequality, professional socialization, social capital
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Doctoral Dissertation