A Women-Only Leadership Development Program : Facilitating Access to Authority for Women in Swedish Higher Education?
Autor/in:
Peterson, Helen
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 5, 137 S
Inhalt: This article explores a national women-only leadership development program in Swedish higher education, the so-called IDAS program (an acronym for Identity, Development, Advancement, Support). IDAS encouraged and supported women academics to pursue leadership/administrative careers in higher education and was a unique intervention, aiming to increase the number of women Rectors. By drawing on interviews with some of the women who participated in the IDAS program and subsequently became Rectors, the article provides a valuable case study over best practices to increase women senior leaders in higher education. Notwithstanding the success of the leadership program, the article also deals with resistance and criticism linked to equal opportunity initiatives such as this. The article analyzes the criticism voiced by the women interviewed and suggests that it can be understood in relation to different conceptions of gender and gender (in)equality.
How Job Sharing Can Lead to More Women Achieving Senior Leadership Roles in Higher Education : A UK Study
Autor/in:
Watton, Emma; Stables, Sarah; Kempster, Steve
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 7, 209 S
Inhalt: This article explores the opportunity that job sharing offers as a way of encouraging more women into senior management roles in the higher education sector. There is a scarcity of female leadership representation in the higher education context, in particular a lack of female leadership pipeline. The article examines the underlying influences that limit the representation of women in leadership roles. To address these contextual limitations the process of job sharing is offered as a possible solution for harnessing the skills and talents of women in leadership positions in higher education and enabling the development of a leadership pipeline. To illustrate how such job sharing could occur the article provides a detailed vignette of a job share between two senior women leaders within a single UK university context and the positive impact this had on the organisation, the individuals and their leadership development. This article seeks to make a contribution by exploring how leadership job sharing can occur and sets out some recommendations for the adoption, negotiation and establishment of job share structures in the future.
Schlagwörter:Frauen in Führungspositionen; Führungsposition; Gleichstellungsmaßnahmen; Großbritannien; Hochschule; job sharing; UK
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis
Myriad potential for mentoring : Understanding the process of transformational change through a gender equality intervention
Autor/in:
Leenders, Joke; Bleijenbergh, Inge L.; van den Brink, Marieke C.L.
Quelle: Gender Work Organ (Gender, Work & Organization), 4 (2019) 2, 139 S
Inhalt: This article contributes to understanding transformational change towards gender equality by examining the transformational change potential of a mentoring programme for women, a type of gender equality intervention both criticized and praised for its ability to bring about change. Drawing upon an empirical case study of a mentoring programme for women academics in a Dutch university, we explore three dimensions of transformational change: organizational members (i) discussing and reflecting upon gendered organizational norms and work practices; (ii) creating new narratives; and (iii) experimenting with new work practices. Our findings indicate five specific conditions that enable transformational change: cross‐mentoring, questioning what is taken for granted, repeating participation and individual stories, facilitating peer support networks and addressing and equipping all participants as change agents. We suggest that these conditions should be taken into account when (re)designing effective organizational gender equality interventions.
Women in Higher Education Management : Agents for Cultural and Structural Change?
Autor/in:
Wroblewski, Angela
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 6, 172 S
Inhalt: This article examines whether and under which conditions a rising participation of women in higher education management contributes to cultural and structural change in science and research. In Austria, the introduction of a statutory quota regulation for university decision-making bodies like the rectorate, the senate, or the university council brought about a rapid and substantial increase in the share of female rectors and vice rectors. However, there are also gender-specific differences among rectorate members: women are significantly younger than men when they take up a rectorate position and switch less frequently from a professorship to such a position. This situation and the gender expertise of the rectors and vice rectors themselves contribute to the potential for change. Explicit gender equality goals and the establishment of gender competence as a qualification criterion for all rectors and vice rectors would be needed to make use of the potential of women in the rectorate to be agents for cultural and structural change.
Mobility, Gender and Career Development in Higher Education : Results of a Multi-Country Survey of African Academic Scientists
Autor/in:
Prozesky, Heidi; Beaudry, Catherine
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 6, 188 S
Inhalt: Empirical knowledge of the mobility of African scientists, and women scientists in particular, holds an important key to achieving future success in the science systems of the continent. In this article, we report on an analysis of a subset of data from a multi-country survey, in order to address a lack of evidence on the geographic mobility of academic scientists in Africa, and how it relates to gender and career development. First, we compared women and men from 41 African countries in terms of their educational and work-related mobility, as well as their intention to be mobile. We further investigated these gendered patterns of mobility in terms domestic responsibilities, as well as the career-related variables of research output, international collaboration, and receipt of funding. Our focus then narrowed to only those women scientists who had recently been mobile, to provide insights on the benefits mobility offered them. The results are interpreted within a theoretical framework centered on patriarchy. Our findings lead us to challenge some conventional wisdoms, as well as recommend priorities for future research aimed at understanding, both theoretically and empirically, the mobility of women in the science systems of Africa, and the role it may play in their development as academic leaders in African higher education institutions.
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 6, 168 S
Inhalt: Women are under-represented in leadership roles in United Kingdom Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Existing scholarship focuses on institutional barriers, which include cognitive bias and entrenched homosocial cultures, rather than external factors such as the use of executive search firms (ESFs) in recruitment and selection. Recent research indicates that the use of ESFs is increasing for senior HEI appointments. This analysis offers insights on these firms’ involvement from a gender equality perspective, based on the results from a study that used a ‘virtuous circle’ approach to research and knowledge exchange. The requirement for HEIs to pay ‘due regard’ to equality considerations under the Public Sector Equality Duty provides a framework for analysis. This paper provides new insights on the dynamics within recruitment processes when ESFs are involved and on how a legislative approach can leverage better equality outcomes
Schlagwörter:Führungsposition; Gleichstellungspolitik; Gleichstellungsrecht; Großbritannien; Hochschule; Professorin; Professur; recruitment; Rekrutierung; UK
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Gleichstellungspolitik, Hochschulen
Success against the odds : The Effect of Mentoing on the Careers of Senior Black and Minority Ethnic Academics in the UK
Autor/in:
Bhopal, Kalwant
Quelle: British Journal of Educational Studies, 14 (2019) 4, S 1–17
Inhalt: This article explores the effect of mentoring on the career progression of Black and minority ethnic (BME) academics in senior roles in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). It draws on 37 interviews with BME academics working in HEIs in the UK and argues that whilst universities present a strong rhetoric of equality and diversity; this is not necessarily followed by specific policies and procedures which ensure a serious commitment to an equality agenda.
Schlagwörter:Diversität; impact; Intersektionalität; Mentoring; Networking; Netzwerk; people of color; Rassismus; UK; Unterstützungsmaßnahmen
CEWS Kategorie:Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Gleichstellungspolitik, Hochschulen
The Glass Door of Academia : Unveiling New Gendered Bias in Academic Recruitment
Autor/in:
Picardi, Ilenia
Quelle: Soc. Sci. (Social Sciences), 8 (2019) 5, 160 S
Inhalt: Gender statistics and studies on gendering mechanisms have been developing over recent years on two parallel tracks. This research reveals the need to rethink the standard indicators used in European comparative analyses to identify (1) gender-related mechanisms responsible for the production and reproduction processes of gender asymmetries, (2) their specificities in different local contexts, and (3) the profound transformations that have characterized the academies and the research system in Europe in recent years. The paper analyses the data on the composition of Italian academia provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, universities and research from a gender perspective. The introduction of the glass door index, specifically designed to measure gendering processes taking place in the recruitment stages in Italian academia, discloses new forms of gender segregation in Italian universities after the last academic reform (Law 240/2010), despite the emphasis placed on the neutral and meritocratic criteria of the new recruitment and career progression rules
Excellent and gender equal? : Academic motherhood and ‘gender blindness' in Norwegian academia
Autor/in:
Thun, Cecilie
Quelle: Gender Work Organ (Gender, Work & Organization), 27 (2019) 2, S 166–180
Inhalt: This article explores Norwegian female academics' experiences with academic motherhood in an organizational perspective. A main finding is that academia as an organization is greedy, uncertain, and has ‘blind spots' that reveal gender bias related to gender and parental status, especially mothers. By analysing the link between gendered organization of work and the legitimatizing of gender inequality, the article reveals ‘gender blindness' in the academic organization concerning gender and parental status. The article concludes that changes in academia — in line with academic capitalism — may indicate that the Norwegian model of work–life balance is under pressure. This article suggests that the organizational conditions for academic motherhood are important factors in order to understand the persistence of gender inequality.