Is Graduate School Worth It? Harassment and Graduate-Student Satisfaction in Political Science

Abstract

This article investigates the dynamics of discrimination in political science PhD programs with a survey of current political science graduate students in the top 50 departments. The study focuses on mentorship, funding, sexual harassment, racism, homophobia, and labor exploitation: 20% of respondents reported labor exploitation, 19% experienced racial discrimination, 9% reported sexual harassment, and 6% experienced homophobia. Discrimination is uneven across individuals; some groups of graduate students experience widespread discrimination, especially racial discrimination, whereas other groups are largely unaware of these issues. We conducted a survey experiment to gauge the impact of misconduct on formal reporting mechanisms and find that hearing about racial discrimination has a chilling effect on reporting. We find that experiencing discrimination harms how satisfied students are in their program. We find that factors linked to student vulnerability, such as international status and funding, are significantly associated with harassment and that reporting discrimination predicts more discrimination.

PhD stipends and program placement success in political science

“…Finally, student pay may proxy for other forms of support that may also improve outcomes, such as mental health counseling, summer employment, or research and conference funding. A recent study of political science PhD students found that research funding, alongside financial compensation, was positively associated with program satisfaction (El Kurd and Hummel 2023).…”