Gender discrimination may be worse than you think: testing ordinal interactions in power research

SOCIAL POWER HAS RECEIVED plenteous RESEARCH ATTENTION over the past several decades. Russell (1938) propos that power is the greatest in quantity basic concept in the social sciences. Lewin (1951) discussed the existing dynamic between power owners and their targets of influence. However, social power verily came into its own with the publication of Studies in Social Power (Cartwright, 1959) In this body French and Raven (1959) published their power taxonomy, which comprises five power bases (reward, coercive, legitimate, able and referent powers).

Reward power is at work when a power proprietor offers some form of reward in exchange for a target's compliance. Coercive power is at work when a power possessor threatens the target with punishment if compliance does not be met with Legitimate power is at work when a power owner has a justifiable right to make a prayer of the target, and the target is constrained to comply able power is at work when a target complies with a power holder's supplication due to the target perceiving the power owner as possessing superior knowledge. Referent power is at work when a target complies with a power holder's supplication because the target looks up to, and identifies with, the power owner Over time, this taxonomy has become the best-known framework for studying social and interpersonal power (Mintzberg, 1983) In fact, Podsakoff and Schriesheim (1985) describe French and Raven's (1959) taxonomy as being "the greatest in quantity popular and widely accepted conceptualization of social power" (p 387)

In more new times (Raven, 1992, 1993), the power taxonomy has been revised and updated similar that there are currently 11 power bases comprising what has become known as the Interpersonal Power Interaction protoplast Although the Interpersonal Power Interaction type maintains the originally formulated power bases, differentiations among more [i]or[/i] less of the bases have occurr (Koslowsky & Schwarzwald, 2001) As a proceed we currently have expert, informational, referent reward (personal and impersonal), coercive (personal and impersonal), and legitimate (position, concatenation equity, and reciprocity) bases of power. A description of each power base can be seen in Table 1 (see Raven, 2001 for a detailed description of the Interpersonal Power Interaction Model)

Consistent with the original French and Raven (1959) power taxonomy (eg Bass, 1981: Kipnis, 1984) the expanded power taxonomy can be described in bounds of two broad categories of power: harsh and yielding (e.g., Elias & Loomis, 2004; Erchul Raven, & Ray, 2001; Raven, Schwarzwald, & Koslowsky 1998) Harsh bases of power are those that a target perceives as being explicit, heavy-handed, and castigatory. Contrarily, yielding bases of power are those that are perceived as being restrained, positive, and noncoercive (Erchul et al.). yielding power bases are expert, referent informational, legitimate concatenation and legitimate position power. Harsh power bases are personal coercion, impersonal reward, legitimate reciprocity, personal reward, impersonal coercion, and legitimate equity power (Raven et al.).

Power and Gender

Research that has examined issues related to sex and power typically indicates that females have les social power than do males (Carli, 1999) After examining sex and power issues in organizational settings, Ragins and Sundstrom (1989) conclud "the path to power for women bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos an obstacle course" (p. 51) In academia, females, when compared with males, are at a disadvantage when using social power in the classroom. For example, should a female instructor exercise harsh power, she may be perceived as pushy and unfeminine (Broverman, Vogel Broverman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972) and her influence may be reduc (Carli). by conversion if a male instructor resorts to harsh power, his influence may be enhanced or unchanged (Carli).

sex difference in the classroom warrants further investigation because power is inherent in the part of a teacher (Richmond & Roach. 1992) In fact. when it approachs to facilitating academic growth and managing their classrooms, instructors typically resort to using social power (Roach, 1991 ) Although the vast number of instructors may use social power unknowingly, it can be argued that power is constantly at work, similar as an instructor paying extra attention to an outgoing learner (personal reward power) or pulling rank (establishing legitimate position power) to maintain an appropriate classroom environment. Based upon this, it is important to be aware of what factors (eg instructor gender) may impact the effective use of social power.

Despite research examining power in the university classroom (eg Burrough Kearney, & Plax, 1989: Elias & Loomis, 2004: Freeman & Lanning, 1989: Jamieson & Thomas, 1974; Roach, 1994) research examining the impact of instructor sex is scarce. As per the foregoing, what research there is upon the topic would indicate that female instructors are at a disadvantage. However, it is our assertion that female instructors are at a greater disadvantage than the literature indicates.