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Whereas the literature on educational inequality extensively illustrates how parents shape children’s educational experiences, we know little about parental involvement in track selection – even though tracking is a major determinant of educational inequality. This study investigates the impact of social class on parental roles in selecting the best-paid educational tracks among Indian American students in the US. Focusing on Indian Americans, and the best-paid tracks, we explore social class differences in parental roles in track selection. Data from 71 in-depth interviews of Indian American students majoring in engineering and science tracks, employs grounded theory to explore differences in parental strategies across social classes. Findings indicate that while the overall parental encouragement strategies are similar regardless of social class, the methods employed by affluent and less affluent families differ significantly. Affluent families leverage their resources and networks, whereas less affluent families rely on non-familial resources to support their children’s educational aspirations. This is because the best-paid tracks hold different meanings to different classes. This further highlights the complex interplay between social class, parental involvement, and track selection while contributing to understanding the broader implications of educational tracking and parental roles in perpetuating or mitigating social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Very little is known about leadership at an individual level in the scholarship of leadership and social change. In this study using institutional ethnography as a research method, I survey graduate students of the Organizational Development and Leadership program of a mid-Atlantic university. Qualitative data analyses reveal that majority of the respondents believe that leadership has a micro perspective and can be practiced at individual level. Literature defines leadership primarily as a group dynamic. Literature also suggests that one of the functions of leadership is to facilitate positive social changes. Via the data analyses in this study, I propose that any attempt or idea that makes positive differences at an individual level (and not necessarily at the group level) can also be regarded as an effective leadership. Thus, I intend to build on the traditional concepts of leadership by underpinning leadership at an individual level. Future research should further explore this definition of leadership in enhancing the well-being of individuals.

This paper analyses the role that forms of documentation play in faculty members' experiences of tenure and promotion. Taking an institutional ethnography approach, it examines inconsistencies and ambiguities in documents and connects them to the experiences of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty at one institution in the USA. The authors argue that the university documentation surrounding tenure and promotion does not capture the actual practices and experiences of faculty members as they prepare for their tenure or promotion and that the documentation creates a "flexibility bind" of tenure and promotion. Faculty members' strategies for navigating this bind are also examined. The implications of these findings for diversity among STEM faculty are also explored.

Identity narratives enhance the understanding of women's leadership, but there exist very few in‐depth analyses of negative identity tensions that influence agency. In this study, we examine the negative identity tensions of well‐to‐do women from small towns in India, who hold two leadership positions: organizational and social movement. We borrow from the discourse on well‐to‐do women's participation in social movements in India to draw on the notions of identity, perceptions of feminism, and patriarchal challenge. Our data are derived from 49 in‐depth interviews with women leaders. Findings from qualitative analysis and creation of a composite narrative show that negative identity tensions arising from two leadership positions are gendered in nature. Furthermore, agency is (i) contingent on one's reflection on challenges, (ii) rooted in an underlying principle, and (iii) practiced through the mechanisms of "managing femininity," a concept that is widely discussed in the Western paradigms of postfeminism and neoliberalism. This paper contributes to the feminist dialog on the global South in the context of gender, class, and geographical location intersection by revealing certain non‐Western ways of managing femininity. However, in the process, the hegemony of Indian men remains intact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Women continue to face barriers and unequal expectations in the academy. Parental leave policies have been instituted in many countries to help address some of these barriers. Nevertheless, many researchers have found that the presence of such policies is not enough to ensure they are used by those they were intended for. We conducted an in depth qualitative study of one midwestern university in the United States to better understand difficulties that arise with policy usage. The United States is an interesting case to study as it has a weak national policy for parental leave and some institutions with stronger policies, including the one we studied here. Our results suggest that the policy does not account for many aspects of academic careers and that the policy is under-utilized or undermined by contextual pressures, as other researchers have found around the globe. The results also demonstrate that structuration theory is a useful framework for analyzing how faculty members are constrained by and act within or transform a policy. Importantly, we find that the lack of a national policy and fragmented policies across institutions further complicates faculty members' use of parental leave at this institution. This has implications for other national and institutional policy imbalances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This research examines the effects of gender, race, human capital, work conditions, and organizational characteristics on employees' current supervisory status at work, and their perceptions of their future promotability. Methodology - Data are drawn from the salaried employees of The National Study of the Changing Workforce in 2002, a nationally representative sample of all U.S. workers. Employees are compared by race and gender using correlation coefficients, t-tests, and multiple regression. Findings - In contrast to earlier research, in 2002 non-white women are as likely as white women and non-white men to have attained supervisory status at work. There also is no gender or race effect on employees' perception of their future promotional opportunity. Workers who are supervisors, both white and non-white, are more likely than non-supervisors to perceive that they have future promotional opportunity. Having a work context that is supportive, and having supportive coworkers and a supportive supervisor, leads to the perception of greater chances to continue to move up in one's company, as does having greater job demands and union membership. On the contrary, work/family spillover, having a supervisor of the same race, and perceiving racial discrimination at the workplace leads to perception of less chance to continue to move up. Research limitations - Employees' actual job titles are not known except that supervising others is a major part of their job. Practical implications - Many of the variables shown to be related to supervisory status and promotability suggest directions for the restructuring of workplaces to provide more supportive and less biased environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following an interactionist theoretical perspective, this study examines the effect of self-perceived competency and reflected appraisals of others on the job-related selfesteem of a national sample of employed women and men. Women report having higher selfesteem than men, even when numerous selfperceived competency variables are added to the equation. When several reflected appraisal variables are added to the equation, however, women lose their self-esteem advantage over men. White employees report having higher selfesteem than non-whites, until self- perceived competency variables are added to the equation; then non-whites have comparable selfesteem scores. The addition of self-perceived competency variables accounted for much more of the variance in selfesteem than reflected appraisals, suggesting that perceived competence as a worker is a more important source of selfesteem in the workplace than reflected appraisals of supervisors and co-workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the effects of race and selected work experiences on employees' current supervisory status at work and their perceptions of future promotability. Data are drawn from the salaried employees of The National Study of Changing Workforce in 2002, a nationally representative sample of U.S. workers. In contrast to studies in the 1980s, in 2002 Black workers are as likely as white workers to have attained supervisory status at work. Additionally, Black workers perceive that they have more chance of future promotion than other minorities; whereas white workers do not perceive that they have any advantage. In general, this research finds little evidence of treatment discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]