A Conversation on the Need for Women to Successfully Manage their Multiple Identity Dimensions in Order to Persist in the Doctoral Process

This conversation focuses on challenges specific to female doctoral students given their multiple dimensions of identity (e.g., wife, mother, daughter, professional, emerging scholar) and the tensions they experience as they intersect these dimensions across the varied stages of the doctoral journey. This discussion is prompted by research indicating many women fail to successfully negotiate these tensions and consequently choose not to begin or cease to persist in a doctoral program. In this session we discuss (a) tensions women face in the doctoral process, (b) a theoretical foundation for female identity, and (c) strategies for successfully intersecting multiple identity dimensions, leading to doctoral persistence.