Abstract

Data from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) are used to examine attitudes about opportunity among scientists in (former) East Germany, West Germany, and the U.S. in 1987, 1992, and 1999. Of particular importance are the attitudes of women scientists, given the continued obstacles for women in this domain. The research is informed by the general inequality beliefs framework as well as feminist scholarship on gender and science. The country samples provide an interesting contrast given the different contexts within which science structures have developed. Major research questions focus on the impact of gender and country, as well as the interaction of gender and country, on attitudes about opportunity amongst scientists. Findings suggest that both gender and country have powerful influences on scientists' attitudes. They also reveal the way in which country and gender interact. Scientists from East Germany tend to be the most likely to see the role of structures in opportunity systems and scientists from the U.S. tend to be the most likely to see the role of individual effort and ability in opportunity systems. However, women scientists in these three countries often report attitudes that are inconsistent with their male colleagues. And although country, overall, has a stronger effect than gender, sometimes the gender effect is stronger than the country effect with women from different countries being more similar than men from the same country. Findings suggest that women scientists might ascribe to both structural and individual sources of opportunity. This combination of belief systems is most likely a result of the extra effort required by women scientists in the male domain of science.