Women’s refusal of racial patriarchy in South African academia
Autor/in:
Raymond, Zaakira; Canham, Hugo
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2022) , S 1–18
Inhalt: This paper explores the career experiences of women academics at three South African universities. To understand the experiences of women academics, we conducted an intersectional interrogation of the politics and practices of belonging in departmental cultures. The sample consisted of thirty women academics whose interviews were analysed through a discursive thematic frame. We found that while all participants experienced gender-based discrimination which hinders academic progression, the barriers experienced by black women academics are compounded by the intersections of race, gender, and motherhood. Patriarchal and racist institutional, disciplinary and departmental cultures served as further challenges to belonging. On the other hand, through counter storytelling and refusal, women created alternative spaces of sociality where suffering co-exists with pleasure, refusal and survival. Ultimately, the paper suggests refusal as a generative theoretical lens to surface the complexity of women academics.
International migration of researchers and gender imbalance in academia—the case of Norway
Autor/in:
Wendt, Kaja; Gunnes, Hebe; Aksnes, Dag W.
Quelle: Scientometrics (Scientometrics), 127 (2022) 12, S 7575–7591
Inhalt: Female representation among students and graduates in higher education is growing internationally. This is a promising trend for achieving gender balance in top positions in academia. But there is still a long way to go, as women accounted for 26 per cent in top positions at European higher education institutions in 2018. In this article, we examine the influence of international recruitment of researchers on the gender balance—or the lack of gender balance—in Norwegian academia. We draw on data from the Norwegian Register of Research personnel, linked with population statistics from Statistics Norway. These data show that 38 per cent of the researchers at Norwegian higher education institutions in 2018 were born abroad. The share of foreign full professors has increased from 16 per cent in 2001 to 27 per cent in 2018, while for postdocs there has been an increase from 31 to 69 per cent. In terms of overall gender composition, a higher percentage of the foreign-born researchers are male compared with the native Norwegians. The incidence of international recruitment differs significantly across academic fields and is particularly prevalent in engineering. This is also the field where the gender balance is most skewed generally. Taking these variables into account, we conclude that international migration is not among the factors contributing to the gender imbalance in Norwegian academia. In fact, international recruitment has contributed positively to the gender balance in Norway in the majority of the fields analysed.
Schlagwörter:academia; full professor; gender inequality; higher education; international academic mobility; Migration; Norway; Norwegen; recruitment; Rekrutierung
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Inhalt: The objective of this study is to present the development of a framework for assessing gender inequality in higher education institutions (HEIs) which reveals how this academic environment is progressing in terms of gender balance. It proposes a multi-dimension-based index comprised by five dimensions—Empowerment, Education, Health, Violence, and Time. The mathematical model used enables the user to assign a weight value to each dimension, customizing the results according to the institution addressed. The paper is based on a post-doctoral research project which analyzed six globally recognized indexes (Gender Inequality Index; Global Gender Gap Index; Women, Business, and Law Index; Gender Equality Index; Social Institutions Global Index; Women Empowerment Principles) to construct a new framework for gender inequality evaluation tailored for HEIs. It used a Laplace–Gauss-based scale. The research included an experiment of concrete application to two instiutions, one in Europe and the other in South America. While the first one had a Gender Equality Plan, the second had not. The analysis was successfully conducted in both institutions. The two institutions presented general results above 60%. These results need to be read in the specific context of each university. The Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions Index (GEHEI) provides a user-friendly way of checking the existence of gender inequality, summarized into a single number but able to be detailed in several levels and to provide insight into progression over time. The handling of the GEHEI tool is also very straightforward. The proposal is designed to be used in different HEIs; it is recommended that researchers customize the weights of the dimensions according to their relevance in the specific organization. This paper provides a new methodological model to measure gender inequality in HEIs based on easy-to-obtain data, distinguishing itself from global indexes by its ease of application and interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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Gender, Power and Higher Education in a Globalised World
Herausgeber/in:
O'Connor, Pat; White, Kate
Quelle: Cham: Springer International Publishing; Imprint Palgrave Macmillan (Springer eBook Collection), 2021, 1.0. 226 S
Inhalt: This book examines persistent gender inequality in higher education, and asks what is preventing change from occurring. The editors and contributors argue that organizational resistance to gender equality is the key explanation; reflected in the endorsement of discourses such as excellence, choice, distorted intersectionality, revitalized biological essentialism and gender neutrality. These discourses implicitly and explicitly depict the status quo as appropriate, reasonable and fair: ultimately impeding efforts and attempts to promote gender equality. Drawing on research from around the world, this book explores the limits and possibilities of challenging these harmful discourses, focusing on the state and universities themselves as levers for change. It stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women’s deceptively ‘small victories’ in the academy
The volume is a must-read for anyone interested in fairness and justice around gender". Professor Patricia Yancey Martin, Florida State University, USA
This book examines persistent gender inequality in higher education, and asks what is preventing change from occurring. The editors and contributors argue that organizational resistance to gender equality is the key explanation; reflected in the endorsement of discourses such as excellence, choice, distorted intersectionality, revitalized biological essentialism and gender neutrality. These discourses implicitly and explicitly depict the status quo as appropriate, reasonable and fair: ultimately impeding attempts to promote gender equality. Drawing on research from around the world, this book explores the limits and possibilities of challenging these misleading discourses, focusing on the state and universities themselves as levers for change. It stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women’s deceptively ‘small victories’ in the academy.
Pat O’Connor is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and Visiting Professor at the Geary Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland. She is a sociologist with a focus on gender equality in higher education institutions: particularly leadership, excellence, micropolitics, gender-based violence, equality related interventions and women’s academic careers. Kate White is Adjunct Associate Professor at Federation University Australia and Director of the Women in Higher Education Management Network. Her research focuses on gender equality and leadership in higher education, women’s academic careers and women in science.
Fra visjon til praksis : En surveyundersøkelse om likestillings- og mangfoldsarbeidet ved forskningsinstitutter, høyskoler og universiteter
Autor/in:
Tica, Sabina
Quelle: Komité for kjønnsbalanse og mangfold i forskning; Oslo, 2021.
Inhalt: The report is a survey-based review (in Norwegian only) of how research institutes, universities and university colleges work to promote gender equality and diversity. It was authored by Sabina Tica and commissioned by the Committee for Gender Balance and Diversity in Research (KIF committee).
The report was presented via webinar. The KIF committee initiated the survey to obtain more data and review the current status of efforts to promote gender balance and diversity in research, for use in its future work.
The KIF committee designed and sent out the survey to a variety of research and higher education institutions. The responses form the empirical basis of the report.
The survey was sent to HR heads at 64 institutions, of whom 48 responded. The sample consists of 18 research institutes, 17 university colleges, 10 universities and 3 unspecified.
Some of the main findings:
The responding institutions dedicated relatively little resources to promoting gender equality and diversity.
The proportion of institutions that had drawn up an institution-wide action plan for gender equality and diversity: universities (80 per cent), university colleges (76.5) and research institutes (38.9).
Gender was the discrimination basis that was included in every institution’s action plan, but disability, ethnicity and sexual harassment were often incorporated as well.
Just 25 per cent of responding institutions with an action plan (7 of 28) had drawn up a department- or faculty-level action plan.
Roughly half of institutions (23 of 45) had a coordinating group for equality and diversity or a gender equality committee.
Expertise in gender equality and diversity is seldom a requirement in management hiring and leadership development at the institutions responding.
Analysis shows that among the respondents, the universities had institutionalized their gender and diversity efforts to a greater extent than the university colleges and research institutes.
No respondents from the universities characterized their efforts on ethnic diversity as ‘good’.
Institutions without an action plan more often assessed their work on ethnic diversity as ‘good’ compared to those with an action plan.
Only 10.2 per cent of respondents felt the pandemic had caused delays in planned efforts to promote gender equality and diversity at their institutions.
Among the institutions responding, the majority felt that international students and researchers were the most vulnerable group during the pandemic, followed by other at-risk groups. Respondents also expressed concern about the pandemic’s impact on women’s working conditions.
Quelle: The gender-sensitive university. A contradiction in terms? Eileen P. Drew (Hrsg.), Siobhán Canavan (Hrsg.), Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. 2021, S 1–15
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis
Dokumenttyp:Sammelwerksbeitrag
What professors do in peer review : Interrogating assessment practices in the recruitment of professors in Sweden
Autor/in:
Mählck, Paula; Kusterer, Hanna Li; Montgomery, Henry
Quelle: Gender Work Organ (Gender, Work & Organization), 54 (2020) 2, 9 S
Inhalt: Sweden is known for its political will to gender equality. Sweden is also a country with a strong tradition of transparency in university recruitments. In this article, the assessment practices in the appointment of full professors in one Swedish university are investigated from an intersectional and postcolonial perspective on gender and place/space. Using a multimethod approach to investigate written evaluations of applicants, recruitment group meeting minutes and interviews with reviewers, the results show that there is great variation in how evaluation criteria are applied and filled with meaning. Moreover, in more than half of the appointment decisions the reviewers disagreed. The interview results show a structural bias operating towards researchers applying from non‐Western university contexts. At an aggregated level, national applicants have 3.88 times greater chance to be proposed for a position and national women applicants are the most likely to be proposed for the position.
Schlagwörter:Berufungsverfahren; Gender; intersectionality; intersektionale Perspektive; Intersektionalität; Peer-Review; Schweden; Sweden
CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Geschlechterverhältnis, Hochschulen, Berufungsverfahren
Caring during COVID‐19 : A gendered analysis of Australian university responses to managing remote working and caring responsibilities
Autor/in:
Nash, Meredith; Churchill, Brendan
Quelle: Gender, Work & Organization, 27 (2020) 5, S 833–846
Inhalt: OVID‐19 is dramatically reconfiguring paid work and care. Emerging evidence in the global media suggests that academic women with caring responsibilities are being proportionately impacted. This article fills a key knowledge gap by examining how Australian universities are supporting academics to manage remote work and caring during the COVID‐19 pandemic. We conducted a desktop analysis of public information about remote working and care from 41 Australian universities and compared them to the world’s top 10 ranked universities. Findings suggest that during the pandemic, the Australian higher education sector positions decisions about caring leave and participation in the paid labour force as ‘private’ matters in which employees (mainly women) design their own ‘solutions’ when compared with international institutional counterparts. We argue that COVID‐19 provides another context in which universities have evaded their responsibility to ensure women’s full participation in the labour force.
Dirty Body Politics: Habitus, Gendered Embodiment, and the Resistance to Women's Agency in Transforming South African Higher Education
Autor/in:
Idahosa, Grace Ese‐osa
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), 27 (2020) 6, S 988–1003
Inhalt: In discussing the difficulty with transformation, research notes that women and Blacks are excluded and marginalised by the cultures and practices within universities in South Africa. While the literature highlights the invisibility of these minorities in universities, with their bodies only becoming visible as tokens, or when representing minority issues, it is silent on how this plays out in interchanges in the transformation process, the embodiment of gender, and the resistance to women's agency within the field of higher education transformation. Adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological lens and Bourdieu's concept of field and habitus, this study examines ten academics' experiences of having agency to effect transformation. In particular, it explores women's narratives of body‐centered attacks in expressions of resistance to their transformation strategies, revealing the normalisation of the White, male body. This normalisation obscures the gendered processes of transformation and the bodily resistance to women's agency, revealed in tugging, pulling, shutting doors and having metaphorical knives pulled from their backs. The study argues that this not only prevents women from exercising their agency, but also ensures the reproduction of oppressive relations within the university and should be directly addressed in the struggle for transformation.
Schlagwörter:body; Bourdieu; Feldtheorie; Gender; Gewalt; Habitus; higher education; Hochschule; Körper; minority; Organisationswandel; people of color; racism; Rassismus; resistance; sexism; Sexismus; South Africa; Südafrika; Transformation; violence; Widerstand
CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis
Understanding Intersecting Gender Inequities in Academic Scienfitic Research Career Progression in sub-Saharan Africa
Autor/in:
Liani, Millicent L.; Nyamongo, Isaac K.; Tolhurst, Rachel
Quelle: GST (International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology), 12 (2020) 2, S 262–288
Inhalt: The slow progression and under-representation of women in senior scientific career positions is a well-known and persistent global problem, especially among university-based academics, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). To inform action for change, we need to go beyond numerical evidence of inequalities to understanding the underlying social, cultural and institutional drivers and processes producing gender inequities in science careers. This requires a theoretically rigorous gender analysis framework that is relevant to SSA and sufficiently accounts for variations among both women and men. Since no such framework is available, we conducted a literature review of emerging theories and empirical evidence on the dimensions of and reasons for the prevailing gender inequities in higher education institutions in SSA. Based on this, we propose an integrated conceptual framework, identify available empirical findings to support it and develop a preliminary explanation of observed inequities. Our findings demonstrate that women’s (lack of) progression in academic/scientific research careers is shaped by intersections between gender roles and social power relations of gender within the family, wider society and academic institutions themselves. We argue that this integrated model provides implications for theory, practice at institutional and policy level, and future research.
Schlagwörter:academic career; Afrika; akademische Karriere; gender analysis; gender inequality; Geschlechterungleichheit; higher education institution; Hochschule; intersectionality; Intersektionalität; literature review; sub-Sahran Africa
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis