What's Hard Is Yet to Come: Critical Junctures and Changing Gender Beliefs at the Transition From College to Career

ABSTRACT Drawing on 71 interviews with 20 respondents across four waves before and after their graduation, we explore whether and how the transition from college to career can lead to new experiences with and understandings of gender inequality for elite graduates of color. While all respondents experienced or witnessed gender inequality and recognized it as such, they differed on whether and how these experiences shaped their explanations for gender inequality and their proposed solutions. We outline four potential pathways respondents could take in regard to their gender beliefs: Navigators, Reflectors, Survivors, and Advocates. Most followed the first pathway, describing inequality as an individual problem and prioritizing what they as individuals can do to circumvent it. For a small minority of respondents, their experience of critical junctures catalyzed new, structural understandings of inequality. Shaped by intersectional identities and proximity to privilege, we show how critical junctures are distinctly personal moments that can direct young people toward or away from change efforts. We find that awareness of inequality is insufficient for changing beliefs about inequality and willingness to engage in change efforts, which has important implications for the likelihood of change in the future.