A “Chillier” Climate for Multiply Marginalized STEM Faculty Impedes Research Collaboration
Autor/in:
Griffith, Eric E.; Mickey, Ethel L.; Dasgupta, Nilanjana
Quelle: Sex Roles (Sex Roles), 86 (2022) , S 233–248
Inhalt: Research collaboration is key to faculty career success in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Yet little research has considered how faculty from multiply marginalized identity groups experience collaboration compared to colleagues from majority groups. The present study fills that gap by examining similarities and differences in collaboration experiences of faculty across multiple marginalized groups, and the role of department climate in those experiences. A survey of STEM faculty at a large public research university found that faculty from underrepresented groups – in terms of gender, race, and sexual orientation – had more negative experiences with department-level research collaborations. Moreover, faculty with multiply marginalized identities had worse collaboration experiences than others with a single marginalized identity or none. They also perceived their department climate to be less inclusive, equitable, and transparent; and felt their opinions were less valued in their department than colleagues from majority groups. Negative department climate, in turn, mediated and predicted less hospitable experiences with department-level research collaborations. These data suggest that multiply marginalized faculty, across different identity groups, share some common experiences of a “chilly” department climate relative to their peers from majority groups that impede opportunities for scientific collaboration, a key ingredient for faculty success. These findings have policy implications for retention of diverse faculty in university STEM departments.
Gendering excellence through research productivity indicators
Autor/in:
Nygaard, Lynn P.; Piro, Fredrik N.; Aksnes, Dag W.
Quelle: Gender and Education, (2022) , S 1–15
Inhalt: As the importance of ‘excellence’ increases in higher education, so too does the importance of indicators to measure research productivity. We examine how such indicators might disproportionately benefit men by analysing extent to which the separate components of the Norwegian Publication Indicator (NPI), a bibliometric model used to distribute performance-based funding to research institutions, might amplify existing gender gaps in productivity. Drawing from Norwegian bibliometric data for 43,500 individuals, we find that each element of the indicator (weighting based on publication type, publication channel, and international collaboration, as well as fractionalization of co-authorship) has a small, but cumulative effect resulting in women on average receiving 10 per cent fewer publication points than men per publication. In other words, we see a gender gap that is not only caused by a difference in the level of production but is also amplified by the value ascribed to each publication.
Inhalt: We study the presence and the extent of gender differences in reference letters for graduate students in economics and how these may affect the start of young researchers' careers. To these ends, we build a novel rich dataset covering ten cohorts of academic job market applicants to two top institutions hiring on the international market. We collect information from the application packages and conduct text analysis of reference letters using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques in order to measure gender differences in the style and content of the letters. We then combine the resulting measures with information on the applicants’ subsequent labor market outcomes as extrapolated from the main online repositories. Our results reveal that male and female candidates receive different support from their sponsors and are described in systematically different terms. While female advisors talk more about personal characteristics, only male advisors do so at a different extent for male and female candidates. Such differences in how candidates are talked about affect subsequent career outcomes and explain a non-negligible part (5 to 8% approximately) of the observed gender gaps.
Gender Bias in Peer Review panels : "The Elephant in the Room"
Autor/in:
Schiffbänker, Helene; Besselaar, Peter van den; Holzinger, Florian; Mom, Charlie; Vinkenburg, Claartje
Quelle: Inequalities and the Paradigm of Excellence in Academia. Fiona Jenkins (Hrsg.), Barbara Hoenig (Hrsg.); Susanne M. Weber (Hrsg.), Andrea Wolfram (Hrsg.), London: Routledge. 2022
Inhalt: Research councils claim to select excellent grant proposals in order to advance science. At the same time, grant success rates often differ between male and female applicants. In this chapter we address the question of why this is the case. Are male researchers more excellent than female researchers, or does the grant selection process suffer from gender bias? We answer this question using the European Research Council Starting Grant as a case, and focus within that on the life sciences. First, we investigate whether application success relates to gender, after controlling for excellence indicators: scientific productivity, impact, earlier grants, and the quality of the collaboration network. Using ordinal regression, we show that this is the case and that gender bias does indeed play a role in grant selection. Second, we build on interview data with panellists to uncover what lies behind gender bias. We find that general problems in peer review play a role, such as how to define and measure excellence. In addition, the panel composition affects female success rates. Finally, indications for gender stereotyping and gendered evaluation practices were identified.
Schlagwörter:ERC; excellence; Forschungsförderung; gender bias; grant application; Interview; life sciences; Panel; Peer Review; quantitative Analyse; research funding
CEWS Kategorie:Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Zugänge, Barrieren und Potentiale für die internationale Mobilität von Wissenschaftlerinnen : Eine Untersuchung im Auftrag der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung
Autor/in:
Löther, Andrea; Freund, Frederike; Lipinsky, Anke
Quelle: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften; Köln (cews.publik, 26), 2022.
Inhalt: Die Studie untersucht die Gründe für die geringe Frauenbeteiligung in Programmen der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung (ein Drittel im Jahr 2018) und gibt Handlungsimpulse, wie die Stiftung mehr exzellente Wissenschaftlerinnen für das Humboldt-Netzwerk gewinnen kann. Für die Potenzialanalyse untersuchten internationale Expert*innen für 14 Schlüsselländer die Repräsentanz von Wissenschaftlerinnen und geschlechtsspezifische Qualifikations- und Karrierestrukturen, insbesondere in Hinblick auf internationale Mobilität. In den untersuchten Ländern zeigen sich bei der Beteiligung von Frauen im Wissenschaftssystem ähnliche Muster der horizontalen und vertikalen Segregation, jedoch mit spezifischen Ausprägungen in einzelnen Ländern. Die Defizitanalyse für drei Programme fokussiert auf die Themen Zugang zu den Programmen und Durchführung des Forschungsaufenthaltes. Verschiedene Referenzdaten zeigen, dass das Potenzial an internationalen Wissenschaftlerinnen, die für einen Forschungsaufenthalt in Deutschland gewonnen werden könnten, nicht ausgeschöpft wird. Für den Zugang zu den Programmen analysiert die Studie Zugänge zu Netzwerken und Kontakten vor der Bewerbung und homosoziale Muster der Zusammenarbeit zwischen Gastgebenden und internationalen Wissenschaftler*innen. Beim Forschungsaufenthalt stehen die Nutzung familienpolitischer Leistungen und Dual-Career im Vordergrund. Als Kontextfaktoren werden die Gleichstellungspolitik der Stiftung und der Exzellenzbegriff untersucht. Abschließend werden Ansatzpunkte aufgezeigt, um mehr internationale Wissenschaftlerinnen für einen Forschungsaufenthalt in Deutschland zu gewinnen.... weniger
Schlagwörter:Antragserfolg; dual career couple; Exzellenz; Forschungsförderung; Geschlechtergerechtigkeit; Gleichstellungspolitik; internationale akademische Mobilität; Mobilität; Wissenschaftler*in
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Chancengleichheit in Wissenschaft und Forschung : 26. Fortschreibung des Datenmaterials (2020/2021) zu Frauen in Hochschulen und außerhochschulischen Forschungseinrichtungen
Autor/in:
Gemeinsame Wissenschaftskonferenz (GWK)
Quelle: Bonn (Materialien der GWK, 65), 2022.
Schlagwörter:Berufung; Frauenanteil; Führungsposition; Habilitation; Hochschulleitung; Hochschulrat; Juniorprofessur; Post-doc; Promotion; Statistik
CEWS Kategorie:Außerhochschulische Forschung, Statistik und statistische Daten, Hochschulen, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Are we failing female and racialized academics? A Canadian national survey examining the impacts of the COVID‐19 pandemic on tenure and tenure‐track faculty
Autor/in:
Davis, Jennifer C.; Li, Eric Ping Hung; Butterfield, Mary Stewart; DiLabio, Gino A.; Sangunthanam, Nithi; Marcolin, Barbara
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: The novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused the abrupt curtailment of on-campus research activities that amplified impacts experienced by female and racialized faculty. In this mixed-method study, we systematically and strategically unpack the impact of the shift of academic work environments to remote settings on tenured and tenure-track faculty in Canada. Our quantitative analysis demonstrated that female and racialized faculty experienced higher levels of stress, social isolation and lower well-being. Fewer women faculty felt support for health and wellness. Our qualitative data highlighted substantial gender inequities reported by female faculty such as increased caregiving burden that affected their research productivity. The most pronounced impacts were felt among pre-tenured female faculty. The present study urges university administration to take further action to support female and racialized faculty through substantial organizational change and reform. Given the disproportionate toll that female and racialized faculty experienced, we suggest a novel approach that include three dimensions of change: (1) establishing quantitative metrics to assess and evaluate pandemic-induced impact on research productivity, health and well-being, (2) coordinating collaborative responses with faculty unions across the nation to mitigate systemic inequities, and (3) strategically implementing a storytelling approach to amplify the experiences of marginalized populations such as women or racialized faculty and include those experiences as part of recommendations for change.
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID-19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID-19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID-19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term.
Schlagwörter:academic career; COVID-19; faculty; Gender; Hochschule; intersectionality; Intersektionalität; Lehrevaluation; neoliberal university; neoliberale Hochschule; people of color; race; tenure; USA; wissenschaftliche Karriere
CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis
Care in times of the pandemic: Rethinking meanings of work in the university
Autor/in:
Altan‐Olcay, Özlem; Bergeron, Suzanne
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: In this paper, we challenge the meanings of work that marginalize academic activities associated with care and contribute to inequitable gender divisions of academic labor. We argue that the pandemic crisis and the revision of the meaning of “essential work” that accompanied it has served as a catalyst for such concerns to get a hearing. But while there has been significant attention paid to domestic care demands and their impact on academic labor, there is less focus on the caretaking work we do in the university even though the gender unequal distribution of teaching, mentoring and service work has also intensified in the pandemic. We argue that this is in part due to the institutional discourses and practices that continue to devalue many components of everyday academic labor. In order to challenge these limits, we extend ideas from Feminist political economy (FPE) to university settings in order to reframe academic labor and revalue care as an essential part of it. We offer two suggestions, connected to FPE methodologies, for gathering and reconceptualizing data on academic work to push the project forward. We conclude with the argument that this project of revaluing caring labor is essential for achieving goals of equity, faculty well-being, and the sustainability of universities.
Quelle: Discip Interdscip Sci Educ Res (Disciplinary and Interdisciplinary Science Education Research), 4 (2022) 1
Inhalt: Increasing access, representation, and retention of underrepresented groups is essential across academia. Invited speaker seminars are common practice in academic science departments and serve to disseminate research, establish connections and collaborations, advance faculty careers, and connect trainees to mentors outside of departmental faculty. Thus, lack of representation among seminar speakers can affect both faculty and trainee professional development. This study characterizes gender demographics of seminar speakers across science departments at an R1 institution for the years 2015–2019, using pronoun usage as a proxy for gender identity. We found that most faculty and invited speakers were male, and few were female or nonbinary. The percentage of female and nonbinary invited speakers increased from 2015–2019 along with the percentage of female and nonbinary host faculty. Overall, male faculty hosted fewer female and nonbinary speakers than their female and nonbinary faculty colleagues. This study provides evidence for a correlation between faculty identity and the scientists they host at their department and motivates further studies investigating this relationship at other R1 institutions and institution types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]