Blue-collar background brings obstacles

A study by Signe Kastberg, assistant professor at the Warner School, has shown that women who become professors and administrators in higher education often find that their gender and class keep them on the margins of their professional and personal lives.

At times, the women seem to hold multiple identities, she said, because of the contradictions in the value systems of their past and their present.

"The academic climate in education, from the earliest years of schooling through the terminal degree, sometimes rejects--literally and figuratively--deserving women from lower social classes," said Kastberg in her study. "Blue-collar academic women are rare indeed."

For her work, Kastberg earlier this month received the Ruth Strang Research Award and an honorarium from the National Association for Women in Education.

In her doctoral dissertation, titled "Turning Fish into Swans: The Ambiguous Transformation of Women from Blue-Collar Backgrounds into Higher Education Professionals," Kastberg focused on social class and gender, and how these intersect with educational and professional opportunity and achievement. She explored the experiences of a select number of women through in-depth interviews and data analysis.

Kastberg received her doctoral degree from the Warner School in February and now teaches in the school's counseling and human development program.