Abstract
Research has examined the influence of a graduate student matching their advisor’s demographic characteristics on a variety of outcomes, but comparatively few studies have examined students’ preferences concerning such matching. Using data from a national survey of U.S. graduate students in five natural and social science disciplines, the analyses examine the importance students place on matching their advisor on three focal characteristics: gender, race, and religion. Overall, the analyses also find that the importance a student places on matching on one characteristic tends to be positively associated with the importance they place on matching on other characteristics. On gender-matching, the analyses find that female graduate students are more likely than male students to place importance on gender matching, but a majority still indicate that it is not at all important. However, a majority of Black students place importance on matching their advisor’s race. Few students place any importance on religion matching, even among those who identify with a religion. While not discounting some groups’ greater preference for matching their advisor’s characteristics, these findings suggest that graduate programs should not assume that such preferences are universal or even particularly strong.
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This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Award #1749130, Christopher P. Scheitle, Principal Investigator).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Christopher P. Scheitle. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Scheitle, Platt, and House-Niamke and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Scheitle, C.P., Platt, L.F. & House-Niamke, S.M. Graduate Student Preferences for Demographic Matching on an Advisor’s Gender, Race, and Religion. Innov High Educ 48, 477–499 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-022-09632-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-022-09632-7