Covert Discrimination Research Articles

Achievement Against the Odds: The female secondary headteachers in England and Wales

This paper sets out to examine and explain the reasons why there are relatively few female secondary headteachers in England and Wales. Research relating to women in management has been mainly qualitative, but the data on which this paper is based are drawn from a large scale questionnaire survey which was sent to all the female headteachers in England and Wales, and which achieved a 70 per cent response rate. The issues covered include: demographic characteristics: career constraints associated with domestic commitments; overt and covert discrimination in the workplace and the reasons that the respondents gave for their own success. The author concludes that despite minor changes, there is a continuing and high level of discrimination faced by women who aspire to senior management in education.

Treatment of Stage III and Stage IV Supraglottic Carcinoma

vanced head and neck cancer is lower than that for a 40-year-old patient, it is reasonable to expect that the patients themselves may elect to forgo standard protocols. The otolaryngologist has a duty to present standard treatment protocols to the patient in a clear, unbiased manner, regardless of age. However, the proposed treatment must benefit the patient and not represent “futile” care. Data may be forthcoming that will demonstrate the futility of treating stage IV supraglottic cancer in octogenarians as research interests begin to focus on outcomes. Although the allocation of limited resources should not be rationed on the basis of age, as we determine age-adjusted outcomes of treatment, we can better determine what is beneficial for our patients and make rational and reasoned treatment recommendations. The American Medical Association enjoins physicians to safeguard the interests of patients in decisions made at the societal level to prevent discrimination against the elderly. 3 Covert discrimination ( eg, n ot o ffering treatment that may be more expensive, exotic, or not locally available) is also unethical. The moral imperative is then to

The Human Genome Diversity Project: cogitations of an African native.

We have seen strange things with comprehensive studies. On May 1, 1987, all the UK media and world news services proclaimed that an important in a teaching hospital had identified a something that predisposed Africans and some homosexuals to AIDS. I looked up the study in the medical journal (Eales et al., 1987), and having been researching AIDS in Africa myself, I was the first to respond: To use genetic from this anthropologically distinct group (the Bi-Aka pygmies), who do not even have AIDS, to cover 'Central Africa' leaves a lot to be desired (KonoteyAhulu, 1987). After much correspondence, the authors withdrew the paper because it contained erroneous data (Eales, Nye, and Pinching, 1988). The media ignored this; meanwhile Africans suffered covert discrimination. A retired Nigerian engineer [L. O.] living in London had used a swimming pool three times a week without any problem, but now, whenever I get into the pool, everybody gets out! If this thing is genetic, perhaps it is in my blood and the other swimmers know that. He asked for an AIDS test four times in as many months, all negative. He stopped swimming in London. How many are like the Lancet's editor, who allowed a year-long correspondence debate just to get at the truth?

Covert Discrimination Against Gay Men by U.S. College Students

This study examined the use of sexual orientation as a meaningful social category and the consequences of using this category. The sample consisted of 260 U.S. college students who viewed a video and completed a 29-item scale (L. L. Thompson & J. Crocker, 1990) and the 7-item Homophobia Scale (R. A. Bouton et al., 1987). Results showed that participants' adjective ratings of targets favored gay men. Participants did not exhibit greater bias toward gay men when provided with justification. However, there was a pattern of bias in which participants showed favoritism toward heterosexual male targets when provided with no justification for bias.

Women's Work in Urban Bangladesh: Is there an Economic Rationale?

The general phenomenon that women in Bangladesh engage less frequently in market work than men is commonly explained as the lack of response of female labour to economic imperatives due to the overarching influence of purdah. However, this emphasis on a cultural rationale for gender‐differentiated work behaviour diverts attention away from the deep‐rooted economic inequalities at the societal level. This article examines women's work in urban Bangladesh from a female labour supply and demand perspective that is rooted in the socio‐economic institutional context. The study finds that, despite the strong gender segregation of economic roles, women's roles are more flexible and lend themselves to changing household strategies more easily compared to men's. The evidence indicates that female labour market participation is largely the outcome of the supply effect shaped by the pattern of gender roles and gender‐specific access to human capital. Consequently, women are relegated to low‐skill market activities and have lower earnings than men, even without any overt discrimination in labour demand. The covert discrimination that leads women to pursue a different pattern of labour use than men is the fundamental gender bias of socio‐economic institutions that govern household allocational decisions and dictate gender‐specific behaviour.

"Sista Docta": Performance as Critique of the Academy

Before I even open my mouth with these words and drummer Alli Aweusi strikes first PA on djembe, critique of academy has begun. sista docta was created in 1994 as seriate sketches that offer my commentary on being an African American woman professor at predominantly European American academic institutions.' This essay explores ways performance in general, and sista docta specifically, challenges academy's philosophy of inclusion and academy's predilection for print scholarship. By time I speak in sista docta, there has already been drumming, which invokes long history of African American women in academy. That history is a collective biography marked on downside by exclusion, silence, and overt and covert discrimination, and on upside by determination, courage, and achievement. While genre of autobiography explores singularity of experience, autobiography of marginalized peoples often serves as a collective biography, giving name to experiences of many through experience of one.2 In a discussion of Maya Angelou's autobiographical work, Selwyn Cudjoe explains that the Afro-American autobiography, a cultural act of selfreading, is meant to reflect a public concern rather than a private act of selfindulgence (1990:275). African American autobiography as collective cultural

Barriers to career progress for women in education: the perceptions of female headteachers

Summary The number of women who achieve senior posts in educational management is disproportionate to the number of women employed. This is particularly true for women in secondary education, where only about 20 per cent of headships are held by women. All the female headteachers of one English shire county were interviewed about their own experiences and views on barriers to women's progress. The interview schedule was based on the author's classification of the theories of Shakeshaft and Schmuck. The data are analysed under the headings of: overt and covert discrimination; constraints experienced within the work situation; and constraints experienced through roles outside the work situation and early career influences. The headteachers had experienced both overt discrimination and more subtle sexism and tended to meet both with pragmatism, rather than confrontation. They had avoided gender‐stereotyped roles within the work situation, and were generally free of the major responsibility for domestic affairs. As children, they had been aware of high educational expectations held of them by their parents. Supportive partnerships and minimal career breaks had been important in their progress.

Female cancer patients and caregivers: experiences in the workplace.

Working women who have a cancer history, or who have some responsibility for the care of relatives with cancer, often face a cluster of attitudes and behaviors in their employers and co-workers to which individuals touched by other kinds of illness are not exposed. Patients and caregivers may find that others in the work environment are compassionate and helpful in many ways, but may also encounter considerable hostility and fear expressed verbally or as shunning or other attitudinal problems in the worksite. They may also be targets of overt or covert discrimination. These problems are explored using data from three recent studies on workplace experiences of white collar and blue collar workers who had recovered from cancer, and of former pediatric cancer patients.

Book Review: Review of Modern Sexism: Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimination

Book Review: Review of Modern Sexism: Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimination

Aboriginal Drinking: A Case Study in Inequality and Disadvantage

This paper examines an aspect of social inequality experienced by Aboriginal people living in a remote Queensland mining town. We contend that non‐Aboriginal perceptions and attitudes of Aboriginal drinking behaviour contribute directly to structural inequalities within the Mount Isa community.Social drinking in the township is, for reserve‐dwelling Aborigines, restricted mainly to one bar in one hotel and adjoining park and river bank area. The restrictions are preserved through both overt and covert discrimination. Aboriginal inebriation and excessive drinking are therefore more visible to the wider community and more accessible to police prosecution than that of any other ethnic group in the town.Although White folk tales concerning Aboriginal drinking often contain fear about acts of violence and crime directed towards the White community, soundly documented incidents are rare. This paper argues that the persistence of such attitudes is at the heart of a symbolic differential between the White and Black community in Queensland. Moreover, problems within the Aboriginal community that can be directly related to the excessive consumption of alcohol must also be seen as a product of these White reactions and perceptions.

Sex role and developmental evaluations in the just world

The Just World Hypothesis indicates that individuals are evaluated in relation to the situation in which they are observed. This study examined the application of the equity relationship in Just World evaluations, and the extent of overt evaluative and covert behavioral sex-role-related biases. Males or females rewarded or punished and later rated members of the same or opposite sex who were seen in favorable or unfavorable circumstances. Subject—stimulus person dyad age (adult or 7 years old) was also varied. Results agreed with hypotheses derived from role, exchange, and developmental theory. As predicted, women used less equity than men, while both sexes tended to apply the equity relationship less in cross-sex pairs. Adults showed a covert discrimination favoring their own sex, while children showed a similar overt bias as well. Some suggestions are made for further research.

Covert Discrimination Training: An Experimental Test of the Assumed Functional Equivalence between Covert and Overt Conditioning Procedures

This study experimentally evaluated the assumed functional equivalence between covert and overt conditioning procedures by determining whether a discriminative stimulus for a yawning response could be developed by using only imaginal, covert conditioning procedures. Two groups of 5 (6 men and 4 women) were tested. The results strongly supported the assumed functional equivalence and suggested that covert conditioning procedures may be used by the subjects themselves.

Sex-related patient and therapist effects on clinical judgment

The purpose of this investigation was to submit the claim of sex-related bias in clinical judgment to more thorough empirical testing than had been the case in previous research. Patient sex and stereotypic sex-role were factorially varied in a clinical protocol that was sent with related materials to 640 sex-stratified, randomly selected Members and Fellows of APA Division 29 (Psychotherapy). Approximately 30% (N=182) of those contacted returned usable data, including information about their own sex-role traditionalism and evaluation of the hypothetical patients' psychological well-being. Results confirmed the effectiveness of the stereotypic sex-role manipulation. However, no consistent effects were found for any of the four variables of interest considered in isolation or in combination, thereby refuting allegations of covert sex-related discrimination perpetrated under the aegis of psychological appraisal. Favorableness of clinical impressions was not mediated by therapists' self-reported attitudes toward the patients. The study's generally unexpected outcome was tentatively attributed to enhanced professional sensitization to the sociocultural barriers to full psychological functioning in women.