Evidence Supporting Pre-University Effects Hypotheses of Women’s Underrepresentation in Philosophy

Author(s)Chris Dobbs
JournalHypatia
Thematic Cluster/Special IssueIssues in the Profession
AbstractIn this short essay, I report results from a representative national dataset (n>7,300) from the Cooperative Institutional Research Program that shows that significantly more men than women intend to major in philosophy at the high‐school and pre‐university level. This lends credence to pre‐university effects hypotheses of women’s underrepresentation in philosophy and successfully replicates a smaller analysis performed by Cheshire Calhoun at Colby College in 2009. I also defend my analysis against an objection that claims that intention to major is not a good predictor of final major selection. Finally, I argue that this new analysis should lead to further investment in university‐level diversity programs.
Keywordsunderrepresentation; women in philosophy; diversity  Cheshire Calhoun; feminism; high school students; undergraduate students
Date Published Fall 2017
Volume32
Issue4
Pages940-945
DOIdoi.org/10.1111/hypa.12356
URLhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/abs/evidence-supporting-preuniversity-effects-hypotheses-of-womens-underrepresentation-in-philosophy/13A372EFAE134779366BB488582767D2
Google Scholar Linkhttps://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cluster=14642277701644620549&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5
Open Access?No

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