A social constructionist account of police culture and its influence on the representation and progression of female officers - A repertory grid analysis in a UK police force

The police organisation receives much media attention regarding its record on Equal Opportunities. Research suggests that the organisational culture i n police organisations plays a major role in impeding the progress of women . Using repertory grid technique the culture of a police force, conceptuali sed at the level of performance value judgements or recipe knowledge was in vestigated. A is argued that rank, rather than gender has the greatest infl uence on the content of performance value judgements and that this is attri butable to the way that hierarchy influences the way in which the grass-roo ts role is constructed. We argue that women's progression is impeded not be cause of dominant constructions of the role per se, but by the way such con structions intersect with broader socio-cultural constructions of women's d omestic roles.