Work-Life Integration in Academia: From Myth to Reality

Work-life integration is often considered the stuff of myth, especially for women in academia. The inherent conflict between an identity as a mother or parent and that as a working professional effectively limits diversity efforts in STEM. Addressing this conflict is therefore crucial to creating a more inclusive academic environment. Work-life integration has two fundamental components—structural and cultural. Workplace polices need to enable attainment of work and life goals; at the same time, the work culture is important in assuring individuals take advantage of existing policies. In this chapter, we review several work-life integration interventions at UC Davis, including the Partner Opportunity Program and Capital Resource Network. We discuss the challenges associated with these and other efforts during the implementation of our ADVANCE programs. We also make recommendations for improving work-life integration in academia and beyond—to turn myth into reality.

Making Sense of One’s Place in an Educational Opportunity Program

A college degree has been shown to decrease the income gap, but disadvantaged students are at a greater risk of dropping out of college. This study explores meaning-making of students in an educational opportunity program (EOP), the Search for Education Elevation and Knowledge (SEEK) in the City University of New York system. It is important to examine the experiences of students who are receiving additional support to understand how they develop through this complex transition process. Forty-six first-year SEEK students and 38 upperclassmen responded to a set of five narrative prompts of different genres. Using values analysis, the data showed that over half of the values guiding participants’ narratives (53.30%) discussed the many benefits of SEEK and the sources of support youth rely on. Participants used the genres to express the complexities of transitioning to college as freshman, along with a settling in the later years. The findings of this study demonstrate youth perspectives on the ways in which EOPs can significantly contribute to student retention.

Neighborhood Poverty and Quality in the Moving to Opportunity Experiment

Researchers suspect that some of the disparities that exist in such outcomes as health, employment, and education might be attributable to inequality of opportunity as determined by neighborhood environments. We study census data to identify neighborhood characteristics in addition to poverty that might help to explain these disparities. We focus on the Moving to Opportunity housing-relocation experiment and show that because program participants typically moved from one predominately black neighborhood to another, their new low-poverty neighborhoods may have provided little to no change in neighborhood quality. These circumstances are helpful in understanding how results from the Moving to Opportunity program should inform views of neighborhood effects.