Abstract
This paper compares men and women graduate students at one university and identifies conditions under which women students equal or surpass men in ambition. Men and women were broadly similar in background characteristics, though different in current family status. They studied different subjects, aimed for different degrees, and were concentrated in different years in the university. If women were to equal the most highly ambitious men on ambition to publish and engage in related behaviors, they had to aspire to a doctorate, survive past the second year of study, and have nontraditional attitudes toward women's role. The results are discussed in terms of differential “student careers” and barriers to the development of ambition in student women.
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The research upon which this paper is based was carried out with the assistance of a Lena Lake Forrest Fellowship from the Business and Professional Women's Foundation, Washington, D.C.
The author wishes to thank G. L. Millerson and C. T. Husbands for comments on the draft, and Beryl Collins and Bryn Saunders for help with the typing.
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Acker, S. Sex differences in graduate student ambition: Do men publish while women perish?. Sex Roles 3, 285–299 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287616
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00287616