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Men make up the minority of students who receive undergraduate and graduate degrees. As a group men also tend to dropout of school at a greater rate than women. Men are even more in minority status as students in fields like psychology and education.

So, what books, biographies, survival guides, or other resources exist for men who say want to become educators?

Doug Spoonwood
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    I don't understand "in education in academia." Do you mean e.g. being a professor in the field of education? In general "want to become educators" is off topic for this site unless it is restricted to "educators at the university level" or "educators who do research on education", and as far as I know men are not a minority among professors. – ff524 Jul 15 '14 at 19:00
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    Perhaps you could change the question to "men in academia in female-majority fields" and ask for resources for men who "want to pursue graduate degrees and/or academic careers in female-majority fields" – ff524 Jul 15 '14 at 19:08
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    For these 5 (as of now) downvoters: is it a double standard (cf. What books, biographies or survival guides are helpful for women in engineering in academia?)? I mean, the question may be not ideal, but it looks (relatively) clear, on topic and answerable. (And no one asks you to empathize with the OP. So "I don't feel that way about academia." does not sounds like a good reason for downvoting.) – Piotr Migdal Jul 16 '14 at 14:11
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    @PiotrMigdal I suspect that the downvotes are due to some false assumptions presented in the question. The title is also quite clearly plagiarized from the linked question. Perhaps the topic could be phrased with a more eloquent and directed question, but I agree that it's certainly valid. [upvoted] – Moriarty Jul 16 '14 at 14:33
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    Because the text and question is plagiarized, this question sure seems like it might be men's rights trolling. – mako Jul 16 '14 at 14:54
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    From his behavior on the site so far it seems clear to me that Doug is not an academic and has far more interest in misogynist trolling than in genuine questions about academia. Don't feed the trolls. – Noah Snyder Jul 16 '14 at 16:55
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    @NoahSnyder Yeah... I'm sure a question like this is "misogynist" (sarcasm), even though though this question focused on men. – Doug Spoonwood Jul 16 '14 at 18:00
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    I think the answer lies in the fact that your question is receiving downvotes, while the same question posed for females instead received 25+ upvotes, with spammed links to feminist blogs as answers. The blatant sexism against males in almost all of academia is quite absurd to say the least. – Keith Jul 21 '14 at 12:08

2 Answers2

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I would suggest reading survival guides (or anything that will prepare you and give you an advantage) since academia is a difficult road. I would not worry so much about finding gender specific or field specific reading, especially if you are a male. The reason I say this is, while I am sure there are some factors that make males less likely than females to succeed in academia and some of these factors may be unique to "female dominated" fields, by limiting yourself to those factors, you are missing the critical fact that the vast majority of people fail to succeed in academia, regardless of gender or field.

For the purposes of this answer, I am going to define succeeding in academia as becoming a full professor. This is not demean those who choose to aspire to different goals (e.g., making a valuable contribution, having a well balanced life, or being happy), but it is merely a byproduct of the available data. For the same reason of the availability of data, I am also going to limit the analysis to STEM fields, for which Psychology is a member, but Education is not.

The reason I suggest reading survival guides is that over 99% of people fail (i.e., do not become a full professor) in academia regardless of gender or field. The Royal Society did a study which found that less than 0.5% of the people who enter academia do not succeed:

enter image description here

This is a huge problem, and if you are not prepared, and even if you are, you are likely to fail.

There is also a lot of research on gender differences. HESA has a study, which I can only find summary data of, which shows a "leaky pipeline" for women in STEM fields. For example, in the male dominated field of Physics:

enter image description here

at the GCSE level there are essentially equal numbers of men and women, but less than 6% of women are Professors. The same leaky pipeline exists in the so called female dominated field of Psychology:

enter image description here

At the undergraduate stage, the numbers are essentially the opposite of Physics with more women than men, but by the time you get to level of full Professor, the female domination is lost. The existence of this leaky pipeline means a lot of effort has gone into determining why women do not "succeed" in academia. The fact that both male and female dominate fields show the same trends means that most of the research into gender issues, in particular why women are less likely to succeed, are field (at least within STEM) independent.

In summary, men are doing better than women in "female dominated" fields, but no one is doing particularly well. Therefore, limiting yourself to small effects, while ignoring huge effects, is generally not efficient and you should read in a field and gender invariant manner.

StrongBad
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    "For the purposes of this answer, I am going to define succeeding in academia as becoming a full professor." This is a very strange definition when the vast majority of students in academia are simply not pursuing such a goal. It furthermore implies that the vast majority of both male and female students are engaging in a several year project in which they will almost surely fail. It also seems clear enough that plenty of programs, such as a masters in education program, are NOT solely designed with the purpose of training people to become a tenure-track professor. – Doug Spoonwood Jul 16 '14 at 15:05
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    @DougSpoonwood your question asks about "in academia". From your comment, it seems like your question is about surviving/succeeding in the workplace in general and therefore may be outside the scope of academia.SE. It might help if you edit your question to make it clearer. – StrongBad Jul 16 '14 at 15:43
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    I'm pretty sure the question is well within scope of this site http://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/17253/what-post-phd-path-alternatives-are-there?rq=1 – Doug Spoonwood Jul 16 '14 at 16:05
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    This also isn't an answer to the question. It more qualifies as an attempt to dissuade the question from even getting asked in the first place. – Doug Spoonwood Jul 16 '14 at 16:07
  • @DougSpoonwood that question is asking about about alternatives career paths, which I agree is on topic, from your comment it seems you are asking about hope to have succeed at an alternative career, which I think is off topic. – StrongBad Jul 16 '14 at 16:08
  • @DougSpoonwood my answer is that I the same books that are helpful for men are helpful for women and this is independent of whether the field is predominately men or women. I don't provide specific recommendations since that is a huge list and depends on your current level of seniority. – StrongBad Jul 16 '14 at 16:11
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    The above doesn't show that psychology as a whole is male dominated for the simple reason that it purposefully excludes consideration of non-academic fields that people with psychology degrees go into, or at the very least comes as significantly misleading. This especially becomes clear when you think about the ratio of men to women practicing psychotherapy http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_ratio_of_men_vs_woman_therapist – Doug Spoonwood Jul 16 '14 at 18:55
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    "In summary, men are doing better than women in "female dominated" fields, but no one is doing particularly well." Utterly false and nonsensical, as evident by your own images. How many of psychology professionals are there compared to undergrads? – Keith Jul 23 '14 at 11:18
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    @Keith this site is about academia! In academia Psychology, especially at the Professorial level, is not female dominated. Given the proportion of female Psychology undergraduates, it wouldn't surprise me if many non-academic Psychology careers were female dominated, but those types of careers are off topic here. – StrongBad Jul 23 '14 at 11:34
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    Academia does not encompass students in your mind? – Keith Jul 23 '14 at 13:17
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    @StrongBad Academia is NOT confined to the world of professors. Look, even if undergraduates were not part of academia, and if graduate students were not part of academia, what you've said is not plausible. That is, it is not plausible that psychology is not female dominated. You'd need absolute numbers to back up such a claim. Your own graph indicates that 67.6 % of researchers in psychology are women. It also indicates that 61% of senior lectures in psychology are women. And it's generally known that most faculty are not professors... Here's a quote and a source for that... – Doug Spoonwood Jul 24 '14 at 07:16
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    "The article says that in 1960, 75% of college faculty were full-time and either tenured or tenure-track while today only 27% are." "While the New York Times may have just noticed this, it's certainly not news to those of us working in academia" http://hudsonvalleygeologist.blogspot.com/2010/01/full-time-vs-adjunct-faculty.html So, in academia psychology is female dominated (unless you can supply absolute numbers, or have better reasoning that you can demonstrate here). – Doug Spoonwood Jul 24 '14 at 07:17
  • The last two points (senior lecturers&professors) are hugely off because they are based on decisions (individual & of hiring committees) that were made in another time, twenty or thirty years ago. – Karl Oct 21 '16 at 16:14
  • @Karl I agree the data are not perfect, but your claim that they are hugely off is completely unsubstantiated. – StrongBad Oct 21 '16 at 16:24
  • They are hugely off, by the numbers you can see, and that is because they come from an incomparable, twenty year old dataset. In 1990, when those profs were hired for their first junior lecturer positon, there were not 75% female postgrads in psychology. – Karl Oct 21 '16 at 16:33
  • @Karl Again an unsubstantiated, and likely an incorrect/exaggerated claim. In 1990 73% of BS Psychology degrees went to females as opposed to 77% in 2010: http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/14/percentage-of-bachelors-degrees-conferred-to-women-by-major-1970-2012/ – StrongBad Oct 21 '16 at 16:49
  • Sorry, i meant postdocs, not bachelors. You hire postdocs for junior lecturers – Karl Oct 21 '16 at 16:55
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Given that non-academic careers are off-topic here, and StrongBad has already offered an answer for academic careers, I will answer the question of resources for men who want to pursue graduate degrees in female-majority fields.

I would offer the same advice to anyone of any gender who wants to know what it is like to be a member of a gender minority in graduate school: Learn what it's really like by reading about the personal experiences (both positive and negative) of others who have been in that position.

As such, here are a few resources that I believe may be helpful:

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