ASAP reflection papers (3) based on 5 articles each - Human Resource Management

ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY / February 2001Alfred / AFRICAN AMERICAN VOICES

EXPANDING THEORIES OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT: ADDING THE VOICES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMEN IN THE WHITE ACADEMY

MARY V. ALFRED University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

Many theorists have proposed models to explain career development. The appropriateness of these models for women and minority groups, however, has been widely criticized. Changes in the composition of the workforce, including the increased number of minority professionals in majority organizations, call for new ways of theorizing career development. Using a bicultural framework, this study examined the professional development history of five tenured African American women at a predominantly White university to explore how minority professionals develop competencies to meet career expectations in White organizational cultures. The findings indicate that race, culture, and identity play a vital role in the career development of minority professionals in majority organizations. An important finding is the way the women accessed the power of their bicultural life structure to develop strategies for maintaining successful careers in White organizational cultures.

When I was a doctoral student in an adult education program at a major White research university in the Southwest during the early 1990s, career development was one of the courses that I had to complete as a component of my program. The first part of the course took place at a small resort area several miles away from the university. There, our cohort group spent a week with a psychologist, as we explored and reflected on our career biography. In a group of 24, there were 3 students of color, 2 Black women and a Latino male. Of the 2 Black women, the other was an African American from the South, and I was a British Caribbean immigrant who later became a U.S. citizen.

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Author’s Note: Portions of this manuscript were presented at the Academy of Human Resource Devel- opment Conference, March 1999.

Editors’ Note: This article was accepted under previous editorship.

MARY V. ALFRED is assistant professor in the Department of Administrative Leadership, Division of Adult and Continuing Education, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee (e-mail: [email protected]).

ADULT EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Vol. 51 No. 2, February 2001 108-127 © 2001 American Association for Adult and Continuing Education

As we shared our histories, the themes that emerged from our stories were situ- ated within existing theories of career and adult development. My lived experiences as an Afro-Caribbean woman who later turned American citizen; the wife of an Afro- Caribbean man and mother to three school-age American-born children; a member of a small Caribbean community, an African American community, and the larger European American community within the city in which I live; a member of my predominantly White Catholic church; an employee of a predominantly White col- lege; and a student at a predominantly White major research university pursuing a doctorate degree were neatly packaged into traditional models of career develop- ment. My reaction was, Wait a minute, what about my race? My sex? My ethnicity? What about the challenges and obstacles I encounter as I try to navigate the many cultures and their expectations? What about my early experiences of socialization into the U.S. culture? Why are they not considered important? How does my early socialization within a European system of education on an Afro-Caribbean island influence my learning and my preparedness for careers in White American organi- zations? How do my experiences of race, ethnicity, national culture, identity, and community influence my career development as an Afro-Caribbean woman in pre- dominantly White workplace institutions? Don’t these experiences count? It was obvious that the themes that originated from my biography did not fit neatly into the traditional models of career development.

Although these traditional career development theories have been widely criti- cized for their exclusion of minority voices and for generalizing the White male de- velopmental experience to that of minority groups (Brown, 1997; Cheatham, 1990; Johnson-Bailey & Tisdale, 1998; Kerka, 1992; Thomas & Alderfer, 1989), few mod- els are available today that represent the experiences of people of color. Brown and Brooks (1996), for example, note,

Because one of our major goals is to expand thinking about the career development of women and ethnic minorities, three new directions in career development theorizing focus on theories to explain the career development of women. Sadly, no similar efforts have been advanced regarding the career development of ethnic minorities. (p. xii)

Efforts at understanding race, culture, and ethnicity and other sociocultural factors in career development have shown little progress (Betz & Fitzgerald, 1987). Much of the inquiry on gender and race, for example, has simply documented differences between two or more demographic groups or various career-related outcomes among the groups.

It is important to note that career development cannot be examined outside the realm of adult development and learning. Although adult educators have made progress in theorizing about adult learning and development, career development processes have often been excluded from the analysis. Consequently, the field of adult education is left with traditional models of career development, which do not fully represent the majority of their learners. Although a few adult education scholars

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(Bierema, 1998; Merriam & Clark, 1991) have attempted to highlight the impor- tance of careers in the lives of adult learners, few models have been advanced that address the specific developmental experiences of people of color.

This article is an attempt to expand the literature on career development within the field of adult education. As Merriam and Clark (1991) found, work is a major force that shapes women’s lives and contributes to identity formation. Consequently, to study women’s learning and development, adult educators must incorporate wo- men’s career development for a more comprehensive understanding of women’s lives. The purpose of the study was to examine the developmental experiences that contributed to a successful career (measured by tenure and promotion) of five Black tenured female faculty at a predominantly White research university. More impor- tant, the study explored the strategies the women use to successfully navigate the White-dominated academic culture.

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

The theoretical review supporting this study addresses four areas: (a) the status of Black women in predominantly White universities, (b) the role of culture and iden- tity in career development, (c) biculturalism and its influence on the career develop- ment of Black female professionals, and (d) academic culture and the Black female faculty.

Status of African American Women in the Academy

Regardless of how their number is measured (by presence, rank, or tenure), Afri- can American female faculty continue to be underrepresented in White-dominated universities (National Center for Education Statistics, 1993, 1994). With Black wo- men constituting 2.2% of full-time faculty, the number is indeed quite small. And those who are able to enter these institutions find themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy and are among the least likely to be tenured (Collins, 1986; Howard-Vital, 1987; Silver, 1988). Alienation, isolation, and social marginalization characterize the Black experience in predominantly White academic institutions.

Black women experience problems in White institutions because institutional leaders and other members do not recognize and acknowledge the cultural evolu- tion that is taking place with the inclusion of Black professionals in their White institutions. Black women’s entry into White academic institutions results in new patterns of interactions as a result of their different values, assumptions, and cul- tural orientations. These women experience problems when their values and ethnic group cultural orientations are not recognized as significant and when they are forced to deny their own culture and adopt the majority culture.

Despite the disadvantages that Black women experience in predominantly White universities, some have achieved tenure and promotion, a symbol of their profes-

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sional success in the academy. It is important, therefore, that the literature that informs career decisions in organizations includes models that address this group’s career development experiences.

Culture, Identity, and Career

Most definitions of culture assume that culture is an expression of monolithic ethnic/racial communities, through symbols such as art, food, music, clothing, reli- gion, or other outward forms (Akinyela, 1992). Similarly, traditional psychology (e.g., Erikson, 1980) has portrayed identity as a fixed phenomenon to be captured and located in well-defined stages. Such traditional views of culture and identity are guided by certain core suppositions: (a) that culture is static, unitary, essentialist, and all encompassing; and (b) that identity arises from inside the person—the inner core of the self—and is a fixed and stable structure (Yon, 2000).

I hold the view that culture and identity are elusive phenomena that are socially and contextually constructed. Consequently, cultural identifiers become elusive and change as situations change. Grossberg (1996) also supports the notion of iden- tity as an elusive and flexible construct: “Identity is always a temporary and unsta- ble effect of relations . . . thus the emphasis here is on the multiplicity of identities and differences rather than on a singular identity” (p. 91). Hall elaborates on the no- tion of temporary and multiple identities:

Identity is not already there; rather, it is a production, emergent, in process. It is situa- tional—it shifts from context to context . . . meaning is essential to this whole process of identity production, but is always an open weave to be reinflected and re-appropri- ated. (cited in Yon, 2000, p. xi)

Defining race is likewise problematic. Empirical evidence (Yon, 2000) suggests that race, culture, and identity are elusive phenomena, which are continuously ne- gotiated and reconstructed as a result of varying places and contexts. The tension of constantly having to negotiate the contradictions between internalized definitions of race and stereotypical definitions indicates that identity cannot be explored with- out the simultaneous exploration of the culture.

Although race has been identified as an important variable in the study of career development of minority groups (Cox, 1993; Thomas & Alderfer, 1989), it cannot be examined outside of culture and identity. To do so would mean that there is a uni- versal Black race, for example, that shares a monolithic and fixed culture. Although there is not a monolithic Black race, those of us who support an Africentric world- view (Alfred, 2000; Asante, 1987; Collins, 1990; Schiele, 1994) agree that although each group member is an individual with unique characteristics, we share core val- ues and philosophical assumptions that originate from a shared African history. Consequently, while we construct our own individual identities, we also construct

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certain group identities as semblance of our belongingness to our racial-cultural groups. Therefore, a study of career development should take into account concepts of personal and group identities and their influence on the developing career.

Cox (1993) defines group identity as “a personal affiliation with other people with whom one shares certain things in common” (p. 43). Group identities have been found to play a significant role in individual behavior (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). According to Brewer and Miller (1984), “an individual’s personal identity is highly differentiated and based in part on membership in significant social catego- ries, along with the value and significance attached to the membership” (p. 281). Specific group identities emanate from group experiences and cultural histories. The African American identity, for example, has been shaped by the unique history of slavery and by the experiences of rigid racial segregation and widespread dis- crimination. These experiences have contributed to the emergence of a group iden- tity characterized by feelings of community, similarity, and common purpose (Schiele, 1994). Personal identity, on the other hand, entails a sense of individual autonomy that allows for multiple constructions and definitions of self. It gives one a sense of place within varying social groups because of one’s distinctive or unique characteristics. Because identity is about human experience and a sense of belong- ing, personal as well as group identities change with new contexts and situations.

Understanding group identity is critical to studying careers because it provides a framework for observing and understanding behavior in work organizations. Cox (1993, p. 44) suggests three reasons for the importance of group identity in the study of behavior in work organizations: (a) group identities are important compo- nents of the self-concept for most people; (b) for some individuals, the recognition and preservation of their group identities is a matter of personal pride and self- esteem, and to ignore these identities is to undermine something of great signifi- cance to the individual members; and (c) even though these identities are not very important to our self-definition, they will still influence how others interact with us.

The study of career development, therefore, must incorporate the phenomena of race, identity, and culture to examine how they influence the developing career. Attempts at such efforts, however, have resulted in studies that simply articulated the negative effects of discrimination or early socialization (Brown, 1997; Cohn, 1997; Peterson, 1997; Rashid, 1984) and have proposed few advanced models to use in examining career development. Cohn (1997), for example, examines the effects of racial and ethnic discrimination on the career development experiences of people of color. Her findings indicate that race and culture influence the learning experience to which people are exposed. She also finds that early discrimination, particularly in school, results in low self-concept and self-doubt in the participants’ perception of their ability to perform certain career roles. Her findings support the notion that early experiences of the effects of race and culture must be considered in our study of career development in adulthood.

Johnson-Bailey and Tisdell (1998) examine issues of diversity in women’s career development and suggest that stereotypical images of women of color also complicate

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their career endeavors. Their statement endorses Cox’s (1993) notion that the way we are viewed by others in the organization affects our careers in organizations: “Negative images of minorities also exist as part of the complicity of denying the operation of privilege” (Johnson-Bailey & Tisdell, 1998, p. 89). As they explain, if women of color are stereotyped as being lazy, dishonest, or having explosive tem- peraments, then middle-class women of the dominant group are seen to have reverse characteristics. Consequently, this dichotomous analysis privileges the dominant group while it disadvantages the minority group, thus promoting the notion of group supremacy in work organizational cultures (Johnson-Bailey & Tisdell, 1998). Elaborating on the dynamics of culture and power, Akinyela (1992) argues that cultural phenomena arise from the dialectic tension that exists in the asymmetrical power relations between and within groups. He further suggests that culture is constructed as the more powerful and the less powerful segments of soci- ety contend for power and privilege among them.

The cultural perspective proposed here will serve to integrate the psychological perspectives of career with the sociological aspects of organizations (Barley, 1989; Deer & Laurent, 1989; Schein, 1984) to capture the totality of the career. Schein (1984) conceptualizes the internal or subjective career as the individual’s interpre- tation of her power in negotiating and managing the institutional and societal expec- tations of the career. Elements of the internal career emanate from the personal and group identity structure. The internal career, therefore, varies with individuals, groups, and contexts. The objective or external career, on the other hand, represents the competencies, roles, and expectations, as defined by the institutional and soci- etal cultures (Schein, 1984). Because the careers of professional Black women de- velop within the milieu of their bicultural life worlds, as represented by their group and institutional cultures, it is important to understand how these bicultural worlds influence the developing careers.

The Bicultural View

According to DuBois (1903), African Americans face the dilemma of double consciousness in their struggle to survive in two raciocultural worlds, one White and one Black. An analysis of historical events in the United States suggests that there still exist today a Black world and a White world that are separate and un- equal, based on educational, economical, political, and philosophical structures of power. As a result of the unequal nature of the life worlds, Black professionals must evoke power strategies to successfully combat and manage oppressive forces in the dominant cultures. Scholars of color (Bell, 1990; De Anda, 1984; DuBois, 1903; Rashid, 1984) have articulated the psychological and societal impact of living with- in two worldviews:

Double consciousness refers to the interplay between the external world and the intra- psychic dynamics that result from living in an oppressive and racist society, a society

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whose ideological creed boasts equal opportunity for all, yet where Black people are systematically denied full access to opportunities solely because of the color of their skin. They are perceived as second-class citizens—a subordinate group—by White America, the dominant group. (Bell, 1990, p. 461)

The bicultural life structure theory is an important lens to use to understand the dy- namics of “double consciousness” (DuBois, 1903) and to understand the process by which women of color internalize their location within and their interactions with White-dominated institutional cultures. Bicultural theory stresses the interrelation- ships of the individual and the environment as key determinants in the developmen- tal process (Bell, 1987):

The life structure is the underlying pattern or design of a person’s life at any given time. It is the individual’s pattern of involvement in relationships, roles, activities, and physical settings . . . the life structure is the bridge between one’s inner workings and the demands of society and is a product of both sets of forces . . . the life structure en- ables one to live out and elaborate basic choices and values, conscious or not, as well as adapt to one’s surroundings. (Wolfe, O’Connor, & Crary, 1990, p. 958)

The bicultural perspective allows us to examine issues of biculturalism and the power dynamics that emerge from the contested terrain of difference. It also allows us to examine issues of identity and community, inclusion and exclusion, voice and representation, power and subordination, in the study of bicultural groups:

Biculturalism involves the ongoing process of identity definition, construction, and reconstruction, driven by the collective efforts of subordinate cultural groups to build community solidarity, renegotiate the boundaries of subordinate cultures, and rede- fine the meaning of cultural identity within the forces of oppression and majority power and domination. (Giroux, in Darder, 1995, p. x)

The bicultural life structure, therefore, is the nucleus from which Black women de- rive the power to contest their marginal location, to articulate their worldview, and to continuously renegotiate their elusive culture and identity to meet career expec- tations in White-dominated institutions.

Academic Culture and Black Female Faculty

Cultural differences between Black female faculty and the White male-domi- nated institution may lead to conflicts and misunderstanding, which often hinder the women’s chances for tenure and promotion. Scheurich (1993), a White male scholar, suggests that one area of misunderstanding stems from the way in which Blacks and Whites experience themselves. He notes that because of racism, people of color have been treated as a social group and have come to see themselves as defined by that group. Because they experience themselves collectively and historic-

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ally from being treated differently based on their skin color, they learn to see them- selves as a racialized people and as a social group defined by skin color. Scheurich (1993) continues that Whites, on the other hand, experience themselves as non- racialized individuals. They do not experience themselves as defined by skin color or by another group’s actions and attitudes toward them because of their skin color. His argument suggests that Blacks have a collectivistic orientation, whereas Whites have an individualistic orientation.

The differences in how Blacks and Whites experience themselves create prob- lems for Black women in the White male-dominated academy, which nourishes an individualistic orientation:

Because of the hierarchy of positions that exists within our social structures, White males have historically positioned themselves at the top of the hierarchy and Black women have been positioned at the bottom of the hierarchy. In a real sense, the cream is skimmed off of the social milk and fed to those in the higher groups . . . while those at the very bottom of the hierarchy drink a milk so diluted as to be hardly distinguish- able from water. (Scheurich, 1993, p. 8)

If Black women are situated at the bottom of the hierarchy, then they are the recipi- ents of the diluted milk while White males enjoy the cream-laden milk. Because of this hierarchical arrangement, White males consistently reap the most benefits and have done so for a very long time within Western cultures. The result of this histori- cal dominance is that the styles of thinking, acting, speaking, and behaving of the dominant group have become the socially correct or privileged ways of thinking, acting, speaking, and behaving (Collins, 1990; hooks, 1984).

Scheurich (1993) suggests that the best way for members of minority groups to receive rewards, recognitions, promotions, salary increases, and material resources is for them to learn and reproduce the ways of the dominant group. His thesis suggests that for Black women to enjoy the rewards of tenure in the White male-dominated academy, their knowledge-production endeavors should mirror the behavior of White males. This ideology has created major conflicts for Black academicians in White institutions who choose to deviate from traditional social science research as defined by the White academic culture (Stanfield, 1993). Whites may not share the academic and research interests of Black female faculty and may offer less support for their knowledge claims.

Although these and other problems exist in the White culture of the research academy, some Black women are overcoming these obstacles and are creating ave- nues whereby they can negotiate the traditional conceptualization of the White aca- demic culture. Therefore, the primary question guiding this study was the follow- ing: What are the avenues through which Black women navigate the White academic culture to fulfill the expectations of the academic career?

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METHOD

Drawing on an interpretive interactionist perspective (Denzin, 1989), this study took a life history approach as each participant and I attempted to reconstruct her bicultural lives to discover the sociostructural experiences contributing to her suc- cessful career in the White academy. Each woman’s sociostructural experiences result from her interactions with the sociostructural life worlds of family, commu- nity, institution, and the wider society.

An interview guide was used for the collection of data, and it was constructed to address the following issues: (a) early family influences on career orientation and bicultural life structures; (b) community influences on early experiences of bi- culturalism; (c) schooling, career orientation, and bicultural experiences; (d) career orientation; and (e) institutional culture, bicultural experiences, and the tenure pro- cess. The guide was purposefully constructed to examine the career development experience as an integrated whole stemming from a multiplicity of interactions occurring within various sociocultural contexts. Two interviews (lasting 1 to 3 hours each) were conducted and audiotaped with each respondent. Follow-up telephone discussions were used for clarification and contextualization.

The sample for this study consisted of five tenured African American female faculty at a major White research university in the Southwest. The five study partic- ipants—Elizabeth, Jean, Kendra, Myra, and Sara—made up the total population of African American tenured female faculty at that institution. They ranged in age from 45 to 51 and came from diverse disciplines—journalism, social work, anthro- pology, and engineering. The members grew up in various socioeconomic house- holds. Sara and Elizabeth came from upper middle-class families, and both grew up on a university campus, as their parents were faculty members at a predominantly Black university in the South. Each of their parents had graduate degrees. Kendra considered herself middle class. Both of her parents had undergraduate degrees and professional careers. Myra and Jean considered themselves working class, and they were the first in their families to obtain college degrees. Jean grew up in an inner- city neighborhood surrounded by what she described as “lots of counterculture.”

To understand and interpret the historical experiences contributing to the profes- sional experiences of African American female faculty, I first completed a case anal- ysis of each woman’s story and constructed a narrative of her experiences. Each narrative was sent to participants for member check. Second, I isolated each signifi- cant experience and situated it within the sociostructural context of family, commu- nity, institution, and society. Each significant experience was analyzed for the cul- tural context within which it occurred and its effects on the developing individual. Third, I did a thematic analysis and finished with a cross-case analysis to discover the common themes in the participants’ developmental experiences. It is important to caution that the findings to be presented here are representative of the five women studied and should not be generalized to all Black professional women in majority organizations or to Black female faculty in higher education.

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FINDINGS

The study results indicate that participants found professional success (mea- sured by tenure and promotion) in the White institutional culture by (a) creating positive images of self-definition and rejecting stereotypical images of themselves as Black women, (b) finding a safe space where they could reaffirm themselves as Black women, (c) knowing the academic culture and its role expectations, (d) becom- ing visible within their disciplinary and institutional cultures, and (e) maintaining a fluid life structure from which they could draw the power necessary to negotiate White-dominated cultures.

The Power of Self-Definition

One of the most illuminating findings of this study is the role of positive self- definition in the participants’ management of White-dominated cultures. Bell (1987) suggests that the Black woman’s cultural affiliations have a definite impact on the way she defines herself. It is not surprising, therefore, that the findings reveal the school, together with the family and the Black community, contributed greatly to building a positive definition of the Black self. Black schools, during the period of segregation, functioned not only as transmitters of knowledge but also as build- ers of self-esteem and self-efficacy to prepare students to enter and become suc- cessful in the White world. These goals were accomplished partly through implicit and explicit messages about Black self-worth. Core themes running through their messages were that they were just as good as Whites and that their Black skin did not make them inferior. Jean’s band director, for example, was influential in the de- velopment of her Black cultural identity and positive self-worth:

My band director was an influence on all of us in the band because he would talk to us about getting better than what we are, but it was always in reference to White people. He always talked about advancing and improving ourselves because we were Black, and you know, we had to be better.

Sara’s teachers had a similar message:

Our teachers used to say that we must be better than anybody out there. We just knew that we had to be the best, so we were constantly reminded of that. . . . I grew up in an all-Black community with Black teachers who really talked about how we were just as good as they were, meaning, we were just as smart and just as important as they were.

Parents and community members transmitted similar messages about being Black in a predominantly White society. They prepared the youth for the debilitating ex- perience they might encounter in the White world. Kendra’s parents, for example, told her, “You will experience racism, and you will be in situations where people will not want to sit next to you. Do not worry about it; remember that you are just as

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good as they.” Although they were confronted with White domination and oppres- sion during a period of total segregation, African Americans adopted what Collins (1990) and hooks (1989) call “a culture of resistance” to create a social reality of Black equality and positive cultural identity.

Consequently, the participants, through implicit and explicit messages from family, community, and school, developed a Black cultural group identity that formed a lens through which they viewed themselves in relation to Whites. They saw themselves not as inferior to White people but as different from them, and that difference did not make them inferior. This perception of “different but equal” was found to be critical to the participants’ definition of their place in the academic institutional culture.

Finding a Safe Space

The use of a safe space was found to be a method by which the women preserve their constructed definition of the self when the environment becomes disconcert- ing. According to Ward (1995), “the safe space serves as a prime location for the Black woman to resist objectification as the Other” (p. 153). The findings from this study indicate that the participants were able to identify and access places or people in the Black community where their objectification as the Other was minimized. bell hooks (1989) refers to these safe spaces as “homeplace”:

a safe place where Black people could affirm one another, and by so doing, heal many of the wounds inflicted by racist domination . . . we can make homeplace that space where we return for renewal and self-recovery, where we can heal our wounds and be- come whole. (p. 42)

Elizabeth, for example, resists institutional marginalization by retreating to the safe place she has created in her home:

I won’t allow myself to feel marginal at this university. I guess if this meant more to me, if it were my whole life, then perhaps I may have a different view of it; but it’s only part of my life . . . I love my work, but this is not my main life . . . I am very happy with my family. I have my husband and my daughter, and we are very happy; we have lots of fun together. We have a beautiful home to come to. This is not my only reality. When this becomes too much, I can go home and forget it, at least for a while.

Elizabeth sees marginality as something you allow to happen. This refusal to be marginal suggests a power within to control the definition of one’s self. Elizabeth’s home and family provide a refuge where she can escape external definitions of her marginality.

Sara’s safe space, on the other hand, consists of her childhood neighborhood, where she grew up within an all-Black academic community. Going back to her community gives her a sense of wholeness and reminds her of the support, the love,

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and the safety she received from the family and community. This is particularly im- portant to Sara:

I think the times I feel like an outsider are really when I go to meetings in which I don’t know anybody else, like some of the committees that I serve on. Sometimes I go, and I get the feeling when I walk in that there is a surprise that I am there. I hear some of the interactions that suggest that some of the other faculty know one another. Those are the times I feel like an outsider because I know nothing about them, and they know nothing about me . . . when we go home, there is such a feeling of well-being. It feels good to be there. We still know the people, and they know me because of my father. The neighborhood is still predominantly Black. I try to go back at least once a year.

Sara’s childhood community provides a safe space where she can recreate and so- lidify her definition of herself, which is sometimes challenged by her interactional experiences in the White academic life world.

Retreating to a safe space is a method of resistance that Black women embrace to escape forces of oppression prevalent in the dominant society. The immediate and extended family, churches, African American community organizations, and even the individual psyche have been found to be important locations where African Americans retreat to safety. This safe place becomes a house of refuge where Black women can resist objectification as the Other. In this safe place, the Black woman can reconstruct any image of herself that has been threatened as a result of her inter- actions within White-dominated institutions.

The Power of Knowledge

The power of knowledge was found to be very significant to Black women’s career development in an academic culture that professes to sponsor the pursuit, creation, and disbursement of knowledge. The findings of this study indicate that knowing the academic culture and role expectations contributes to Black women’s ability to meet cultural expectations.

Knowledge of academic culture. Participants placed great emphasis on knowing and meeting academic cultural expectations. Their knowledge of the academic cul- ture was first enhanced through their role as teaching and/or research assistants and through supportive relationships with mentors and other significant members of the culture. Their early interactions with significant members of the culture gave them a competitive advantage for developing the competency necessary to successfully meet academic cultural expectations.

Elizabeth, for example, noted that her mentor was grooming her for an academic career and giving her visual imagery of the academic culture: “He was bringing me along, even though, at the time, I didn’t know that’s what he was doing . . . he gave me a picture that exemplified an ideal of wouldn’t this be great, working with ideas, working with graduate students.” She continued,

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During the Ph.D. program, you need to get a teaching or research assistantship that will connect you with other professors if that is possible. Those of us who had jobs within the university were the insiders; we knew the faculty, and we knew the culture.

Through their relationships with significant members of the culture, the partici- pants learned its rules and expectations, and such knowledge facilitated their mem- bership into the culture. Myra, in referring to her present institution, noted, “I don’t feel like an outsider in the university because I understand the way things run here.” Her knowledge of the way things work enables her to successfully manage expecta- tions of the job.

From their experience as tenured faculty, the participants suggested one way of learning the culture was to interact with institutional members. Myra also noted that interacting with members not only facilitates knowledge of the culture, but it also opens the way for developing meaningful relationships with those who share simi- lar interests. Kendra noted that academic culture also varies with disciplines and suggested that the faculty member should become knowledgeable about the culture of her specific discipline: “Find out from the people who are on the faculty you want to be associated with what is required. It varies from department to department.” Kendra’s statement substantiates the findings of Bowen and Schuster’s (1986) study of American professors, in which they found that faculty members in differ- ent disciplines exhibit different attitudes, values, and personal characteristics; there is not one unified academic culture, but many disciplinary cultures.

Knowledge of role expectations. Research studies on the process of tenure in research universities often reveal the lack of knowledge that participants have about the process (Menges & Exum, 1983; Verrier, 1992). On the contrary, the findings of this study suggest that the women had clear knowledge of the cultural expectations with regard to the tenure process. They knew the political workings of the process and had an awareness of the academy’s cultural rules. Although they found some of the rules inappropriate, they chose to follow them to ensure their success in the cul- ture. As Jean noted,

I always said, even before I went up for tenure, I know the rules of this game that I have chosen to enter, like them or not, these are the rules. If I want to succeed in this system, then I have to abide by the rules. . . . Know the rules and play the game by the rules.

Myra also articulated the importance of playing the game by the rules. She said, “There are rules, follow the rules.” To Myra, knowing the culture and its expecta- tions means knowing not only the explicit but also the implicit expectations that the culture has of Black women: “You really have to do what you are supposed to do, and you have to do a lot of it because being an African American, people are gun- ning for you. Practically everybody is gunning at you.” Myra is suggesting that the Black woman should exceed academic cultural expectations to avoid the guns of others in the institution. The message, to be equal, you have to be better, is part of

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her ancestral legacy, and it is a constant life script the professional Black woman uses to pattern her life.

The Power of Visibility

Although Black women are rendered invisible by virtue of their femaleness and their Blackness, successful Black women are rendered highly visible by their insti- tutions. As one participant said, “The University has my face plastered all over campus.” The development of visibility started in the family and community life worlds, was promoted in the White institution through mentoring relationships, and was enhanced by the employing institution and by the women’s participation in regional, national, and international organizations. Such visibility provides oppor- tunities for career enhancement.

Kendra noted that one’s visibility within her academic community becomes cru- cial at review time:

You need to be visible in the community that you say you are an expert in. You need to be visible at your national conferences and in your publications. They ask other peo- ple who are experts in the field, “What do you know about this person?”

Elizabeth also emphasized the importance of remaining visible within the aca- demic community. As she said, “You need to be active and visible in the national or- ganization. I was visible in the national organization, and I think that is important.” For Myra, her visibility has been the avenue through which she has been recruited for her academic positions:

I do not go out looking for jobs. I have never applied for a job. I just sit and wait for the phone to ring. Folks know me, they know my reputation, and they know what I can do. If you want me, you will have to come after me.

The findings suggest that for women to become powerful in the academy, they have to be known, and to be known, they must be visible within their professional com- munity.

Life Structure and Bicultural Competence

An individual’s mode of participation within her various sociocultural life worlds depends on the fluidity or rigidity of the life structure. This study found that the participants’ success in the academy is partly due to their fluid life structure, which enables them to float in and out of their various sociocultural groups and manage the expectations of each group. By having a fluid life structure, the partici- pants were able to navigate their bicultural worlds with little of the strain and stress Bell (1987) found to be associated with biculturalism. The Black women professors

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saw their bicultural lives as interconnected rather than separated. When I asked Kendra, for example, about the duality of her life, she said,

No, I don’t have a dual life. I cannot distinctly separate my lives. This is all my life. What I am finding is that we may have some cultural uniqueness, but what has brought us together is our work. My professional and personal life is just a continuum.

Jean, on the other hand, agreed that she had a Black life and a White life, but she did not see any distinct separation between the two:

I guess there is a Black life and a White life. Work is White, and everything else is Black, meaning social contacts and all that, but that is all my life; I cannot distinctly separate the two. I cannot tell where one ends and the other one starts. They are all parts of my life.

Sara also indicated her inability to distinctly separate her life into a Black world bounded off by a White world:

When I go home, it is really totally apart from the university world. What I am in my private life at home, I am still connected to the university in a sense that I am writing and doing things related to my work. I am just not connected on a social basis. . . . I think I am a part of both worlds. It is hard to separate the two. It is all my world.

Seelye (1984) suggests that “a truly bicultural person acknowledges that she is not merely 50% X and 50% Y but unique blends of X and Y with a variety of successful behaviors to choose from when dealing with Xs and Ys” (p. 29). He notes that the bicultural person does not deny the influence of one or another culture on her char- acter but sees her life as a composite of all experiences originating from her various life worlds.”

The participants’ inability to see the distinct separateness of their lives is facili- tated by their bicultural life structure. The power of Black women to pattern their mode of interactions to fit their bicultural life worlds is what La Fromboise, Coleman, and Gerton (1993) term bicultural competence. They note that to be biculturally competent, one must possess a substantial degree of personal integra- tion and individuation to avoid the negative consequences of a bicultural living situ- ation. Accordingly, Rashid (1984) notes that for African Americans, biculturalism is a vital prerequisite for coping with racism and classism that permeate this society. The women were found to have high self-esteem and Black cultural group identity, elements that Seelye (1984) finds necessary for maintaining a bicultural life struc- ture and bicultural competence.

DISCUSSION

For more than a century, researchers have researched, discussed, and formulated theories that explain career behavior and have prescribed interventions for career

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development practices. These theories have developed from a prescriptive model of matching individuals with jobs (Parsons, 1909), through stage models of career choice and career development (Super, 1953), to more specific factors involved in career choices and adjustment (Holland, 1985). Most of the traditional career theo- ries were drawn from observations about people who were quite different from the participants of this study and from the representative demographics of today’s labor market. It has been established that missing links in these grand theories are the voices and career developmental experiences of those who are non-White males.

The findings from this exploratory study of five tenured female faculty at a pre- dominantly White research university suggest culture and identity play a vital role in the career development of minority professionals in majority organizations. The cultural framework used in this study allows one to examine the influence of both the personal and organizational dimensions of the developing career.

An important finding of this study is the way the women accessed the power of their bicultural life structure to develop strategies for managing the White academic cultures. Many of the dimensions of the developing career that emerged from the study can be organized according to an internal and external career framework, which is driven by the bicultural life structure of the individual (see Figure 1). The bicultural life structure is the nucleus from which people of color evoke the power to contest the terrain of differences that contribute to their marginal positions in White-dominated organizations. Because of the fluidity of the life structure, Black women can negotiate their identity and culture and situate these definitions within the appropriate sociocultural contexts. The life structure promotes the notion of agency and individual power in the midst of cultural group values and philosophical differences. Through the life structure, people of color develop the ability to navi- gate environments of cultural dominance and build successful careers.

The internal career represents the psychological or the personal contexts of the developing career. It is the personal construction and application of strategies, tools, and resources for managing the majority culture. The internal career is guided by the notion of personal agency originating from life structure: that is, the power within to choose the strategies, behaviors, and interactions to meet the expectations of the external career. The internal career of the five participants is represented by their (a) positive self-definition, which was found to be strongly influenced by their Black cultural group identity; (b) management of such definition by finding a safe space where they could reclaim any aspects of the constructed self which, by their perception, may have been threatened as a result of their interactional experiences in White-dominated cultures; and (c) bicultural competence, which allows them to successfully navigate their various cultural worlds and maintain meaningful rela- tionships in these worlds. These internal dimensions are psychological in nature and facilitate management of the institutional expectations of the academic career.

The external career represents the structural contexts of the developmental expe- rience. It is the institutional cultures, structures, and role expectations. The partici- pants’ external career was represented by their (a) knowledge of the academic cultures

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and their expectations, which resulted in successful performance as evidenced by tenure and promotion; and (b) professional visibility within the institutional and disciplinary cultures. The study found that mentoring relationships developed dur- ing the graduate school experience contributed significantly to academic cultural socialization. Such relationships not only facilitated cultural knowledge and role expectations, they also contributed to the women’s professional visibility within the academy. These external dimensions represent the expectations of the institu- tion (written and unwritten) and constitute the structural components of the career.

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Figure 1. A Model of Career Development for Black Women in White-Dominated Academic

Institutions

The resulting effects of these dimensions make up the criteria by which success is evaluated.

The task of expanding traditional theories of career development and offering alternative views of how careers are formed and developed is critical. Although some adult education programs include the study of career development, adult edu- cators have given little attention to that component of adult development. Unless we actively research and theorize alternative models of career development, we may continue to foster images that fit the experiences of only some of the people whose learning we facilitate. My experiences in my career development class during my doctoral program highlight the critical need for alternative ways of theorizing about careers. Unless we attend to this void, the voices of women and minorities will con- tinue to be absent in the career development literature.

Although the framework presented here originated from the study of Black wo- men in the academy, it is by no means applicable exclusively with that group. Other groups may find it to be a useful framework as they attempt to explore alternate ways of theorizing career development of minorities in majority organizations. The framework can be an important lens through which to examine the formation and structure of the internal career and its effects on the external career. More research using the internal/external career framework is needed to explore how different groups of minority professionals enter, develop cultural competence, and become successful in White-dominated institutions. The bicultural life structure through which personal and group identities are negotiated and constructed can also be an important dimension to include in the study of adult development.

Scholars who are exploring career development of professionals across nations may also find this framework to be useful. Minority professionals include others besides people of color. European Americans working in international countries, for example, may find themselves among the minority population. As the market- place becomes more globalized and American companies acquire markets across other nations, it is anticipated that there will be an increase in American nationals working across international boundaries. Therefore, the framework presented here can also serve as a lens through which to examine their career development experi- ences in majority (non-White) cultures.

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