Grant to study gender gap in collegiate aspirations and success

Submitted by Anita M. Hartmann
Phone: 474-2633
11/18/05

Judith Kleinfeld, professor of psychology and director the Northern Studies Program at UAF College of Liberal Arts, and her research colleague, Maria Reyes, UAF School of Education, have been awarded a $38,000 grant from the Alaska Schools Research Fund to study the gender gap in collegiate aspirations and achievement in Alaska.

According to Kleinfeld, young women in the Arctic are moving forward, while young men, and especially indigenous young men, are being left behind. The college gender gap among Alaska Natives is higher than for any other minority group in the United States. Alaska ranks third in the nation in the size of its college gender gap. Many young men, both indigenous and non-indigenous, are disengaging from school, protesting that they feel "lazy."? The study will begin to explore why so many young women are working with intensity while so many young men are deciding to slide by.

"The gender gap in the Arctic is an extreme example of a problem that is taking root throughout the industrialized world,"? said Kleinfeld. "The gender gap in higher education aspirations and success is a significant social problem with serious implications for economic productivity, civic participation, the creation of families, the happiness of individuals, and the well-being of communities."?

The larger research goals follow the recommendations of the National Science Foundation’s task force charged with setting a research agenda for studying rural adolescents’ transition to adulthood: participatory, longitudinal, comparative and action-oriented.

CONTACT: Judy Kleinfeld, Ph.D. by email at, ffjsk@uaf.edu or by phone at, (907) 474-5266 (work) or (907) 457-8691 (home).