The organization of graduate programs has received increasing attention lately within political science. Teaching techniques, course requirements, class size, student representation in departmental decision-making processes have all been Investigated. This paper examines another aspect of graduate education, the effect of departmental structure on the learning process. We do not deal with the substance of a political science education, but rather with various dimensions of political science departments as organizations. Our findings are based on a survey of fourteen political science departments that was conducted in the winter of 1970. Questionnaires were sent to faculty and to graduate students In the selected departments, and both sets of respondents were asked questions about their attitudes, preferences, perceptions of others, and their interaction patterns in the department.

Our Interest is in departments and the Individual responses are used to define departmental variables. In this paper we examine different characteristics of political science departments, not characteristics of individual students or faculty. Although we get some clues as to what we might expect from organizational theory, our approach is frankly exploratory. First we draw on McQultty's elementary linkage analysis to identify basic distinctions among the departments in our study, and second we use rank order correlation techniques to explore how these and other dimensions go together.

The woman who is now entering (or contemplating entry) into the political science profession confronts a field that is biased against her (“political science is no place for a woman”) and which admits her only grudgingly and accords her limited status. The following is a summary of the data now available on the status of women in the profession.

From the survey conducted by the APSA Committee on the Status of Women (1969, 473 departments responding), we have the following information on female participation:

23.2% of undergraduate majors are women

17.5% of graduates enrolled are women

14.7% of Ph.D. candidates are women

8.7% of those receiving the Ph.D. 1960-1968 are women

8.6% of assistant professors are women

6.7% of associate professors are women; and

4.1 % of full professors are women.

Congratulations on your admission and fellowship for graduate work at ………. It should be the beginning of a very promising career and I'll be glad to give you whatever advice I can on the subject.

In answer to your question, there is probably less overt discrimination against women now. Graduate admissions and fellowships look fairly good on the record. And although departments are still lagging in professorial positions and salaries for women, some of them are making an effort to catch up. It shouldn't be too long before most departments have their “quota” of assistant professors. The problem now is with the subtler forms of discrimination — “Phase II” of whatever it is we are involved in. (Phase II, like Phase I, uses sex as a basis for choice, but its arguments are more sophisticated. Phase I says “A woman's place is in the home.” Phase II says “We'd like to hire a woman, but …”)