Russian women émigrées in psychology: Informal Jewish networks.

Abstract

This paper uses archival sources and autobiographies to give a fuller account of the lives of three Russian women psychologists, each of whom voluntarily emigrated several years before the Third Reich. As such, their stories contribute to gender history, emigration history, and ethnic history. The characteristics of secondgeneration women in psychology seem to apply to this sample; they accepted applied or secondary positions in psychology or allied fields and came late to tenure-track positions. Some first-generation characteristics fit them also: choosing career over marriage, accepting the "family claim," and living "fractured lives." É migrée history reveals that these women found careers in the United States that could not have happened in the smaller, more restricted higher education networks of Europe. Female friendships and family ties to the Old World sustained them. All struggled with professional networking and had varying success, depending heavily upon the patronage of sympathetic male psychologists. Ethnic history shows that none identified strongly with Judaism, yet all benefited from Jewish mentors and networks of patronage. Evidence of gendered or racial discrimination in hiring practices is sparse, though it surely existed.

Gender, ethnicity, and career trajectories: A comment on Woodward (2010).

“…The difficulty with using ethnicity as an explanatory factor in historical context is that it can mistakenly use the “one-drop rule” and a blood concept of Jewishness or any other ethnic identity. By this criterion, Koffka, whose “own mother Luise Levy was 'of Jewish descent' but became Protestant” (Woodward, 2010, p. 126), is a Jewish historical actor. Hans Eysenck and Arthur Jensen would also be included in this category, as well as Helmut Schmidt, at least two Nazi generals, and Nostradamus.…”

“…As an allegedly permanent characteristic that cannot be shed by conversion, “Jewishness” is then readily available as an explanatory factor in all such cases. In Woodward's analysis, the complexities of Jewish identity are reduced to a simplistic dichotomy of “Just Jews” or “Jewish Jews,” borrowed from Freidenreich (Woodward, 2010, p. 130). The historically situated traditions of Reform Judaism, Orthodoxy, Hasidism, Zionism, Secular Judaism, and ethical culture, as well as the complex dynamics of conversion, identity concealment, intermarriage, and assimilation cannot be captured in this way.…”

“…Woodward (2010) repeatedly used the terms patron and patronage in his discussion of “Jewish networks.” We found this usage to be unusual for describing an academic context (see Nichols, Carter, & Golden, 1985, for an exception). The use of the term patron , with connotations of benefactor , drew our attention away from Woodward's own evidence and acknowledgment that these women were given positions because of their special skills.…”

“…The use of the term patron , with connotations of benefactor , drew our attention away from Woodward's own evidence and acknowledgment that these women were given positions because of their special skills. MacKinnon emphasized how “one would look far and wide in America to find one with as good a training and capacities as Ovsiankina” (Woodward, 2010, p. 115). After noting that Shakow's original interest was in Ovsiankina's skills, Woodward then implied that after her arrival, it was the personal relationship that mattered in subsequent “patronage.” His characterization of the careers of the three women, that after positions on the margins of academia they “parlayed this experience into clinical and experimental careers, as 'creative opportunists' relying on male sponsors” (p. 131), suggests that somehow this was quite a different strategy than pursued by others with academic background and aspirations.…”

Vygotsky in English: What Still Needs to Be Done

“…These somewhat general and vaguely defined levels are covered by studies that can be viewed as providing an effective operationalization of the notion of the interdependency of ideas as informal personal networks of scholars, their friends and relatives, domestic and international peers, and the patrons of science (Adams 2001). A series of recent studies demonstrated the power of informal networks of agents as the social embodiment of the interdependency of ideas and practices in the world of Soviet music (Tomoff 2001), cybernetics and computer science (Gerovitch 2002; Tatarchenko 2010), biology and medicine (Krementsov 2005; Solomon 2006), and German-American psychology (Woodward 2010). …”