Cultural Context in Women’s Career Development and Success with Dr. Nadya Fouad Part 1

In this episode of Psychotherapy & Applied Psychology, Dan is joined by Dr. Nadya Fouad as they discuss women's career development.

Dr. Fouad joins in from the Counseling Psychology division of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin. Join Dan and Dr. Fouad as they discuss women's career development, cultural contexts, and the impact of societal changes on career choices. In Part 1, they delve into the challenges of balancing work and family, the evolution of women's roles in the workforce, the intersectionality of gender, race, and relationship dynamics that adds complexity to women's career development, and so much more!

Keep an eye out for Part 2 next week!

Special Guest:
Dr. Nadya Fouad

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Transcript

0:09

Broadcasting from the most beautiful city in the world, I'm your host Dr. Dan Cox, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of British Columbia. Welcome to episode number nine of Psychotherapy in Applied Psychology. Here we dive deep with the world's leading applied psychology researchers to uncover practical insights, pull back the curtain, and hopefully have some fun along the way in an attempt to bring insights to practitioners, those training to be practitioners, and the applied psychology curious. I want to hear from you. You'll notice in the show notes a link that says, click here to text the show. If you click that, you can send me a text. On my end, I only get the last four digits of your phone number, so you don't have to worry about me giving you a call. Let me know what you think of the show, who I should have on as a guest, or just say hi. In this episode, I'm trying something different. Based on listener feedback, I'm dividing the episode into two parts. Part one will be released this week, and part two will be released next. Personally, I love listening to 90 Minutes of Me, but apparently some people think it's too much, so let me know what you think. On today's show, I am so excited to have this conversation with my excellent guest who's a leader in the area of women's career development. In our conversation about women's career development, we discussed feminism, cultural contexts, STEM disciplines, that is, occupations in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, social justice, the often conflicting demands of work and family, and interventions for children and for adults. We begin this conversation with my guest answering my question about a time early in her career when she wasn't sure if she was going to be able to hack it in the field. Without further ado, I am thrilled to have one of the world's foremost experts in women's career development. She is the Mary and Ted Kellner Endowed Chair of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee. a university distinguished professor, a winner of the Leona Tyler Award, former editor of the Journal of Vocational Behavior, and former editor of the Counseling Psychologist. And believe me when I say that when it comes to her accomplishments, I certainly could have kept talking for another five minutes. Please welcome Dr. Nadja Fouad. In graduate school, it's very natural for someone in vocational psychology to decide whether they're going to go on a track of consulting, I .O. consulting, or to go into an academic career. And my father was an academic, my mother was an academic, all of her siblings were, I don't know, 14 of 16 of them were academic. So it was very much the family. occupation was to be an academic and to be a researcher. My dad was a very distinguished professor, member of the National Academy of Science, engineering. Anyway, what I was struggling with was whether I had enough research questions to fuel an academic career or not. And that was the can I do it moment. Yeah. And then when I had done my dissertation on cross, on international questions, is the strong, are interests the same across cultures? And I wasn't the only one to look at that, but I was, that was an interesting question to me. And my theory was that, that, lawyers would not have the same interests because the foundation of law across countries is very different. Particularly, for example, in Mexico, I was able to collect data from lawyers in Mexico versus the United States. The United States is based on the Aglican legal code, like in England, but the Napoleonic code is foundational in Mexico and France and... you know, many other countries and the tasks of lawyers are very different. So I thought that they would be very, that they would be less similar across cultures than engineering, which is based on, you know, the fundamental mathematics and science that is foundational to engineering. So I, and I was, able to do that research in no small part because my advisor had been central in collecting the data for the 1981 revision of the strong interest inventory. So she had very recent professional engineers, professional lawyers, men and women, and then we were able to get student engineers and student lawyers. So I had professionals and students in two different cultures. And in the end, indeed, engineers are very similar across cultures, much more. But in fact, let's just say 90 % similarity between engineers across cultures, but 70 % similarity in lawyers. And in no small part, because it's a pretty international field anyway. But I came out of graduate school really wanting to continue to do cross national research and couldn't because it just was impossible to get that funded in 1984. But when I pivoted to the domestic ethnic minority differences, racial ethnic minority differences and gender and racial ethnic minority differences, I realized there were lots of questions to be asked them too. So it felt like I can do this. Yeah. So those were my two moments. So what would be your, when you have a young graduate student, it doesn't have to be young, when you have a graduate student who comes to you and says, has the same concern about not being able to come up with enough questions, what do you say to them? Well, what I say to them at the beginning of their graduate work is start to create a file wherever that's gonna be in notes or wherever that's gonna be with every question. When you're reading an article, When you're in a classroom, when you're thinking about a research project, what are questions that are coming to you? Because there's going to be a point where you think, I don't have enough questions. And then in three years, you can go back and look at all of those questions that you had and see what's the theme. Is it a population? Is it a topic? You know, that you will then know that this has been a consistent set of interest questions for interest slash questions. that you can base your dissertation on. That was the same, well, to an extent, the same advice that Tom Krishak gives my old supervisor. And I think he details the story of walking around with, when he was in graduate school, having that notepad, having that book or whatever he had, and he would just write down questions as they came up. Right, right. So how did you get started studying women's, or I don't know if I should say women and girls, women's, or if I should just say women's, career development. Yeah, women, we call it, we say women's career development. Okay, so let's just go with that. Great. Yeah, I think it was the zeitgeist, actually. So I started doing research on the strong in the late eight, late seventies, they had just the strong interest inventory, they had just completed the work on the 1981 revision, but the 1974 revision was I mean, now it sounds silly, but was absolutely a lightning rod. The 1968 and 66, I'm going back a long ways, right? But those two revisions, and they had for years had, so you have to think about the women's movement in the late 60s. We're talking, you know, literally the publication of the women's room. Simone de Beauvoir's second sex, the feminine mystique, all of that, all of that in the consciousness raising groups that we led. I worked at the Minnesota Women's Center. We were, that was the zeitgeist of what were issues for women. The 1966 and 68, and mine may be off a year or two on the publication of those to the men's form. and the women's form and guess what colors they were published in. Blue for men, pink for women, and famously, I'm blanking, I think it might've been Esther Diamond, in an American Counseling Association conference held them both up and said why. And in response to that, there was a decision to merge the two forms. There had been a homemaker scale on the women's form. And literally you can go back and look at articles from the late 60s, early 70s. on using the strong and career counseling and how counselors use the homemaker scale for bright women to get them to consider anything other than a homemaker role. And those early questions were not about what women should do, but whether they should work or not. So it's a zeitgeist of all of what was going on. There was lots of concern. You know, this is... not only national pushes within the counseling field to answer the indictment that counselors had been pushing women into very traditional roles, particularly male counselors were pushing women into very traditional roles. And the concomitant, so now thinking about the kind of macro level economics and the in the country in the late 70s, the recession and the economic reality that starting to have both members of a couple had to work in order to maintain the standard of living to have a house and a car. I mean, my first car in 1980, 1980 was a 17 % interest rate. That's what they were dealing with at that time. And so suddenly women are entering the workforce and the zeitgeist of what are they doing? And suddenly they're having some economic power and they're starting to push on wanting some more say in their marriage and they wanted, they had some more. social power in the marriage and then we started to have more divorces. So it was all loosening up. So women who had entered into a contract of I'm going to get married and I'm going to be taken care of and all I need to worry about with what the trad wives now are doing, you know I'm talking about with that, there's a movement on well this anyway I won't. go into current politics, but there is a movement to have elevate the traditional wife who just wants that very traditional, I wanna be a wife, I wanna take care of the home, I wanna take care of my children kind of thing. But there was the social contract of if I get married, I'll be taken care of and I never have to work again, I never have to deal with trying to work outside the home. And that was... upended, totally upended. And, and I was doing work at the, I was doing counseling at the Minnesota Women's Center and at the Walk -In Counseling Center at the Free Counseling Service in Minnesota, in Minneapolis. And we were dealing with women who were coming in going, you know, he's not going to give me alimony. I don't have, my children are gone. I don't have child support anymore. He's not giving me alimony. What am I going to do? I haven't been in the workforce for 18, 20 years. And so suddenly those questions were really critical. And how do you help women make decisions early on so that they have choices as they go through was a really big motivator for me. So what was the first work that you were doing with women? The first bit of research, what was your? That's a good question. that the early work I was doing was on, I don't think I had questions about girls or women until my first grant in the mid 1980s after I'd come to UWM, University of Wisconsin -Milwaukee. And I had a very small grant from Carnegie. And I was interested in the... career choices. This was a predominantly Latino high middle school that I was doing this work at and it became really clear that there was lots of push for the girls and if you ask them what they wanted to be, they would say I'm at the casa. They would want to be a housewife. And the I started to get interested in. Can you intervene? with middle school girls so they think they have some choices. You know, the Matt, Nancy Betts, that's the other, you know, my heroes were writing about this as well. Nancy Betts and Gail Hackett were writing about this and the work that, the seminal work they did on self -efficacy and math self -efficacy really was instrumental for me too. But how do you intervene so that I didn't have any, I didn't have any. concerns about their choosing to be an amadakasa because that's a very traditional ideal. What it's essentially do, what it's essentially ask for the essential aspiration there is to be a, is to be middle -class, to be able to be a housewife. But what I was concerned about was that they still take math in high school so that they have options when they leave high school. And even here, Even at that time, you couldn't get into the technical college, the community college without high school math. So that's what I was concerned about. And coming away from that work, did you feel like... there were things that could be done to facilitate that self -efficacy, that belief in themselves regarding math? Yeah, yeah. Looking back on that particular project, it was a small grant, but it was, I had the luxury of working with a phenomenal group of teachers in this middle school. And they had, I don't even know if they do this anymore, that kind of programming and you'd probably you kids that young now, but the kind of block programming. So the math teacher, the science teacher, the English teacher and the social studies teacher had block programming and they handed that block programming over to me once a week. And so I had all this time to work with the kids and we would do. Every six weeks we did a different career area and we had we had a. business that was connected to it. So every week, every six weeks, we would rotate information about the career. So now if you're thinking about the sources of self -efficacy, it was all geared around the social cognitive model before Bob and Gail and Steve wrote this seminal article in 1994. But even then the Bandura's sources of self -efficacy, this was all geared around. Bandura's sources of self -efficacy. So we were giving information. We had speakers come in. So there's a verbal persuasion. We were giving them opportunities to actually do that work or at least simulate that work. We took them on a field trip and we had a whole series of speakers. So like on medical, the medical field, we had speakers at every level so that they were not only. And they were not only being exposed to the physician, but the phlebotomist, you know, it's a range of occupational training to do those occupations. And the funny thing about that project was I went to that project as I was also preparing a National Science Foundation grant that was very elaborate with five different companies in the Milwaukee area. And it was like, I don't know, at the time, maybe a $400 ,000 grant. And I went to the middle school because I thought I would do the feeder program to the high school that I was doing this grant at. That had already been sort of the high school had already been chosen. And we were so successful that the students didn't go to that feeder school. In Milwaukee, you can go to a magnet program if you want, a magnet high school, or you go to the attendance area high school. And the attendance area, most of the students didn't go to the attendance area high school. They chose to go to a different high school based on their interests and thinking about where they wanted to go. It was very successful. It was the first project they did, you know? And then... So that project in the high school was very difficult. The teachers grieved, they filed a whatever, a grievance with the union to not have us be in the school. It was very difficult, but it was also again, very interesting in terms of the messages for both boys and girls. And it was a very diverse, racially diverse school, very low SES school, but the messages for girls was really sobering. So the next project I did was probably one of the, we were really looking at the barriers for girls and boys, but we started with girls and at middle school, high school and college. And that was another grant that I had from the National Science Foundation. And I did with a very good colleague here at UWM who was a statistician, but he was very interested in this issue of providing opportunities for girls and Gail Hackett. And so the three of us did that project. You've talked about cultural context already in some of your answers or your comments. I think that in your work, it sort of comes up. bunch. And so I think we should, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about it more explicitly. So my understanding is you've argued that we should pay particular attention to the cultural context in which women's career development occurs. Can you help me understand what you mean by that? Yeah. And it's evolved over the years. Now people are talking about intersectionality, but the, I, I was so, I was very, I started, I don't know how far back to go on this question, but that whole interest in cross national interests also came from interest in cross national counseling. And how does culture, how do fundamentally different cultures have always had some perspective on emotional healing and mental health healing? You just think of curanderos and you think of, you know, spiritual healers and indigenous cultures and I mean every culture has had some way to be to to. have emotional healing and mental health healing as they define it. And there was a lot of work in the 80s on the differences. And this came out of, I'm at the University of Minnesota and there were people at the University of Minnesota, professors at the University of Minnesota who had done cross national psychiatric work. And the ways that different emotional issues get I don't know what the word is I want. Not demonstrated, but acted through what people do, how people act. Schizophrenia looks different across different cultures and you have to be cognizant of how the culture manifests in a... mental illness, I guess is the way, that may be a very broad way to put it. So that's sort of a perspective on how culture influences healing and how mental illness is manifested. So you have to understand that to understand what a treatment plan would look like. And there were people at that time at Minnesota, Paul Pedersen was at Minnesota doing work on how culture influences the role of the counselor, not just the client, but the role of the counselor. So I was very interested in how culture influences the way you perceive messages, the way you act in the therapy session. And of course, Pedersen, not of course, but Pedersen had a triadic model of counseling where there was literally a third person or maybe even a fourth person, the third person being the embodiment of the culture. of the counselor and the fourth person being the body embodiment of the culture of the client and everything is going on. So that when I'm talking about cultural context. In counseling your your culture influences what you pay attention to what the context your your cultural context right what you pay attention to what you think is a problem. what you think is a solution and you have to pay attention to that because you don't want to impose that on your client. So when you put that from the perspective of career counseling, the classic one is, I mean, as a counselor, you should not be imposing your cultural values on what a career is and what a good career is and... how to do a career, all of that. You should not be putting that on your client, but being aware of what your values are and then trying to find out what the client's goals are. So not everybody wants to be a CEO. Not everybody has achievement as a value. And those cultural messages, I think are absolutely critically important. And that's really what I spent most of my career paying attention to. What are the messages that come from culture about what's a good work? What role of work in your lives? What's how to prepare for work? All of those questions, that comes from the cultural context. Over the last 30, 40, 50 years, you can sort of decide the timeframe. in, I think probably it makes sense to stay within the US or North America more broadly, but how has, how do you think or what's your sense of how the cultural context and experience of women's career development has changed over time? And then conversely, how has it stayed the same? I think the questions are still there. What has changed? is when 80 some percent of women are in the workforce. When 45 % of women were in the workforce, should I work? How should I work? What should I wear? How should I work? And so on and so forth. That's changed. So I think it's much less common the question, should I work? But how should I work? is a more common question. And the balancing work and family is still an eternal question. I mean, some of those questions are now different. Like, do I nurse at work? Or do I, you know, some of those questions are different. I have a new grandson, actually. So that's right in my mind. But I think, I think, So turning to research, what the research questions are, if I can do that for a second. But in counseling, some of the questions are still the same. How do you want to do this? And acknowledging and understanding the barriers and the facilitators for how women make those decisions, I think is absolutely key. So those are still, those are, those are. from a counseling perspective, as from a research perspective. I mean, there was research in the 80s about dual career versus dual earner. What role did women play in the family? And there's still lots of questions about, you know, the demands, how both members of a couple navigate the demands of work versus... you know, versus family demands and how they navigate that in the context of, well, looking at the US in the context of very difficult, I mean, no national mandate on childcare. My kids live in Denmark and the resources in Denmark for, you know, the mandated leave, the, parental leave for both partners, right? I mean, that's just unheard of here. Men, if they're lucky, get a week, if they're lucky, right? So how members of a couple navigate that, those are still really interesting questions. And the pandemic raised a whole set of additional questions on. Who's responsible for homeschooling and whose work takes a second backseat if both members of the family have to be home working, working from home and who's responsible for the kids when and who gets interrupted when, you know, all those kinds of questions are still very good questions. You bring up something that personally, my wife and I have talked about this, which is that in a way there was something, there's something easier when one parent is staying at home because the role, the jobs, and you know, that doesn't, and I, whenever we talk about it, I say that that doesn't have to be the woman, but just the fact that you're at home. So it makes like, you're going to be, you're the alpha when it comes to questions about raising the kids. You're the alpha when it comes to questions about the house, the home, doing these sorts of things. And is that like, But when you have two people working, you have to have these conversations, these negotiations. And frankly, it's very depleting, having these conversations rather than it just being clear, you take the car in because this is your role and you make the decision about the kid's bedtime because that's your role. Now it's the shared roles and the complications that go along with that. Yeah. And. and it's constantly negotiated as the kids get older and perhaps as each partner's work demands change. So suddenly in the mid 90s, I have three kids, three boys and they're 10 years apart. So there's a lot of years between them. And my husband was also a professor. We had like a couple non -negotiables. We couldn't teach on the same day. So that if some one child was sick, then the person who wasn't teaching had to be home, right? But then in the mid 90s, I started getting involved in leadership activities within Division 17, Society of Counseling Psychology, and then APA generally, Society of Vocational Psychology, becoming an editor and so on and so forth. All of that entailed travel. There could, and the traditional travel within leadership and psychology is you leave on a Thursday morning and you come back Sunday afternoon. Years of every other week doing that. And my husband, he was willing to do that to be supportive of my career. And I don't think would say that he was. that he sacrificed, but he was doing that for years, where I would just, he would take me to the airport and pick me up on Sunday afternoon. So I think that from a counseling perspective, from a clinical perspective, think about the multiple pressures. And the messages that go, I'm not talking about, you know, what my in -laws said about this, that I was always on the road or what my parents said. They ultimately were pretty supportive, but had some initial, you should be home more. You're leaving all this stuff to your partner. You know, those messages, what a mother should do, what a father should do, what roles. Think of all the messages that come into this. And not, not, and I think the role of the counselor is to help the both, if you, if you have the luxury of seeing both partners, but, or, or one of them saying, which of these do you want to accept? And what are the concept, what are the cultural consequences of not doing what everyone expects you to do? And I think that's a really important question to ask as a therapist. Because if you can help them explore what that is, that can be a real facilitator to making a choice. And I don't have any judgment on should you choose to do what your mother says you should do, because there are cultural consequences of not doing that are too severe. But helping somebody to sort that through without the additional noise, of what's coming from outside. And not to mention that now, at least in the United States, there's lots of people telling women what they should and shouldn't do. And that's certainly more true. That's certainly true from a gendered perspective around women. And that's true of a gendered perspective around men too. Men should be the provider. Men should be, you know, there's very traditional, going back to some of those traditional messages. And yet at a time, when there is a little history of not doing those, of not accepting those messages so that people who are not doing that, not accepting those, not following the traditional path, there's more freedom, more flexibility on that than there used to be. But it's also, now let's talk, you know, the questions that, what happens when you have both women. raising kids, you know, in a lesbian relationship or more of a polyamorous relationship or adding race, you know, African American couple, you know, etc., etc. And then now again, we're talking more intersectionality. So the macroeconomics for African American women are completely different than they are for, you know, for Asian women for Native American women and so on and so forth. So it's a set of really interesting questions and there's lots of work that still needs to be done. That's a wrap on today's conversation with Dr. Najah Fuad, to whom I want to send my sincere appreciation. I thought that it was a fascinating conversation, and please tune in for part two next week. Please don't forget to get in touch by sending me a message. Until next time.