THE IDEAL GRADUATE STUDENT: HOW GENDERED DISCOURSES SHAPE THE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN DOCTORAL STUDENTS IN BIOLOGY.

Despite the increasing numbers of women pursuing graduate degrees in the biological sciences, women remain underrepresented in senior faculty positions, suggesting gendered experiences in graduate education may be contributing. Graduate education is a site for students to learn the expected norms and values of their field, which include discourses that coordinate how scientists behave and perform. We used institutional ethnography framed through gendered organization theory to explore the discourses and practices that organized the experiences of women doctoral students in biology, focusing on how those discourses constructed an ideal graduate student and what challenges were associated with meeting the standards of the ideal graduate student for women. Our findings suggest the characteristics of the ideal graduate student, which include an adequate scientific background, prioritization of research, willing to ask good questions, time management skills, and self-motivation, contributed to fear of failure and imposter phenomenon for the women participants in this study. The findings of this research highlight the importance of critically reviewing how discourses and subsequent practices can perpetuate inequality within biology graduate education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]