SCIENTIFIC CAREERS - UNIVERSALISM AND PARTICULARISM

Science is an institution with immense inequality in career attainment s. Women and most minorities, as groups, have lower levels of particip ation, position, productivity, and recognition than do white men. Rese arch in the sociology of science has focused on the degree to which di fferent outcomes have resulted from universalistic and from particular istic processes. In this paper we 1) depict the career attainments of women and minorities in science, 2) consider the meaning and measureme nt of universalism compared to particularism, 3) analyze the causes of differential attainment with a view to assessing evidence for violati ons of universalism, 4) propose conditions under which particularism i s likely to occur, and 5) consider methodological problems that affect this research.