Learning in the Wild: Fieldwork, Gender, and the Social Construction of Disciplinary Culture

Julie R. Posselt and Anne-Marie Nuñez

The Journal of Higher Education, 2022, vol. 93, issue 2, 163-194

Abstract: This paper examines the creation and negotiation of disciplinary culture, through ethnographic fieldwork about socialization in a critical learning environment: scientific fieldwork. Field-based science has received scant research attention relative to its importance as a degree requirement, a professional rite of passage, and a site where sexual harassment and assault are disturbingly commonplace. We conducted a comparative ethnographic case study of two field-based geoscience courses, one each for undergraduate and graduate students. The data include 264 hours of participant-observation and 34 interviews with students and faculty. Three prominent qualities of the culture — eroding temporal and spatial boundaries, navigating challenging conditions, and normalizing alcohol — reflect and/or reinforce disciplinary norms of informality, togetherness, and toughness. We observed these qualities and norms could be leveraged for exclusion or inclusion; they are tools that, together, create a gendered disciplinary culture. Some women resisted the narrow definition of these norms, reframing toughness to include mental toughness, for example. Implications for course design and field leadership, as well as the possibilities and limits of disciplinary cultural change, are discussed.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00221546.2021.1971505 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:uhejxx:v:93:y:2022:i:2:p:163-194

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/uhej20

DOI: 10.1080/00221546.2021.1971505

Access Statistics for this article

The Journal of Higher Education is currently edited by Mitchell Chang

More articles in The Journal of Higher Education from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().