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.
Quelle: HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung e. V. (HIS-HE); InterVal GmbH; Hannover; Berlin, 2022.
Inhalt: Die Arbeitsverhältnisse für wissenschaftlich Beschäftigte an Hochschulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen haben sich in den vergangenen Jahren leicht verbessert. Große Veränderungen hat der 2016 geschlossene „Vertrag für gute Beschäftigungsbedingungen“ zwischen Land und Hochschulen allerdings nicht hervorgebracht. Das geht aus einer aktuellen Evaluation der Regelung durch das HIS-Institut für Hochschulentwicklung e. V. (HIS-HE) und der InterVal GmbH hervor.
Demnach stieg an Universitäten der Anteil der wissenschaftlichen Beschäftigten auf Dauerstellen zwischen 2015 und 2020 von elf Prozent auf 13 Prozent. An den Hochschulen für Angewandte Wissenschaften (HAWs) liegt der Anteil der Dauerbeschäftigten dagegen unverändert bei 38 Prozent.
Bei den befristet Angestellten habe die durchschnittliche Vertragslaufzeit von wissenschaftlich Beschäftigten an HAWs zuletzt zwischen 18 bis 18,5 Monaten gelegen und sich über die Jahre kaum verändert. An Universitäten sei die mittlere Laufzeit hingegen von fast 17 Monaten auf nahezu 22 Monate stetig gestiegen. Der Anteil der einjährigen Verträge sei zwar rückläufig. Mit rund fünf Prozent seien aber Verträge mit einer Laufzeit von über drei Jahren nach wie vor eine Seltenheit. Jeder fünfte befristete Vertrag laufe kürzer als ein Jahr.
(Quelle: DHV)
Inhalt: International mobility in academia can enhance the human and social capital of researchers and consequently their scientific outcome. However, there is still a very limited understanding of the different mobility patterns among scholars with various socio-demographic characteristics. By studying these differences, we can detect inequalities in access to scholarly networks across borders, which can cause disparities in scientific advancement. The aim of this study is twofold. First, we investigate to what extent individuals’ factors (e.g., country, career stage, and field of research) associate with the mobility of male and female researchers. Second, we explore the relationship between mobility and scientific activity and impact. For this purpose, we used a bibliometric approach to track the mobility of authors. To compare the researchers’ scientific outcomes, we considered the number of publications and received citations as indicators, as well as the number of unique co-authors in all their publications. We also analysed the co-authorship network of researchers and compared centrality measures of “mobile” and “nonmobile” researchers. Results show that researchers from North America and Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly female ones, have the lowest, respectively, highest tendency towards international mobility. Having international co-authors increases the probability of international movement. Our findings uncover gender inequality in international mobility across scientific fields and countries. Across genders, researchers in the Physical sciences have the most and in the Social sciences the least rate of mobility. We observed more mobility for Social scientists at the advanced career stage, while researchers in other fields prefer to move at earlier career stages. Also, we found a positive correlation between mobility and scientific outcomes, but no apparent difference between females and males. Indeed, researchers who have started mobility at the advanced career stages had a better scientific outcome. Comparing the centrality of mobile and non-mobile researchers in the co-authorship networks reveals a higher social capital advantage for mobile researchers.
Internationale Mobilität im akademischen Bereich kann das Human- und Sozialkapital von Forschenden und folglich ihre wissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse verbessern. Allerdings ist das Verständnis für die unterschiedlichen Mobilitätsmuster von Wissenschaftler*innen mit verschiedenen soziodemografischen Merkmalen noch sehr begrenzt. Durch die Untersuchung dieser Unterschiede können die Autor*innen Ungleichheiten beim Zugang zu wissenschaftlichen Netzwerken über Grenzen hinweg aufdecken, die zu Ungleichheiten beim wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt führen können. Mit dieser Studie werden zwei Ziele verfolgt. Erstens untersuchen die Autor*innen, inwieweit individuelle Faktoren (z. B. Land, Karrierestufe und Forschungsgebiet) mit der Mobilität von Forscherinnen und Forschern zusammenhängen. Zweitens untersuchen sie den Zusammenhang zwischen Mobilität und wissenschaftlicher Tätigkeit und Wirkung.
Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Forschende aus Nordamerika und Afrika südlich der Sahara, insbesondere Frauen, die geringste bzw. höchste Tendenz zur internationalen Mobilität aufweisen. Die Wahrscheinlichkeit der internationalen Mobilität steigt, wenn man internationale Ko-Autor*innen hat.
Bei den Geschlechtern haben Forschende in den Naturwissenschaften die höchste und in den Sozialwissenschaften die niedrigste Mobilitätsrate.
Schlagwörter:bibliometric analysis; Bibliometrie; Gender; international academic mobility; internationale akademische Mobilität; Mobilität; Region; scopus
CEWS Kategorie:Europa und Internationales, Wissenschaft als Beruf
Gender Inequality in Research Productivity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Autor/in:
Cui, Ruomeng; Ding, Hao; Zhu, Feng
Quelle: Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, 24 (2022) 2, S 691–1260
Inhalt: Problem definition: We study the disproportionate impact of the lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak on female and male academic research productivity in social science.
Academic/practical relevance: The lockdown has caused substantial disruptions to academic activities, requiring people to work from home. How this disruption affects productivity and the related gender equity is an important operations and societal question.
Methodology: We collect data from the largest open-access preprint repository for social science on 41,858 research preprints in 18 disciplines produced by 76,832 authors across 25 countries over a span of two years. We use a difference-in-differences approach leveraging the exogenous pandemic shock.
Results: Our results indicate that, in the 10 weeks after the lockdown in the United States, although total research productivity increased by 35%, female academics’ productivity dropped by 13.2% relative to that of male academics. We also show that this intensified productivity gap is more pronounced for assistant professors and for academics in top-ranked universities and is found in six other countries.
Managerial implications: Our work points out the fairness issue in productivity caused by the lockdown, a finding that universities will find helpful when evaluating faculty productivity. It also helps organizations realize the potential unintended consequences that can arise from telecommuting.
Schlagwörter:COVID-19; Gender; inequality; productivity; research
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
“The ethos expected from a management professor forces us to act straight”: Heterosexist harassment against gay professors in Brazil
Autor/in:
Freitas Oleto, Alice de; Palhares, José Vitor
Quelle: Gend Work Organ (Gender, Work and Organization), (2022)
Inhalt: This study aims to analyze how gay Brazilian professors experience heterosexist harassment and the implications of this type of violence for the interpersonal relationships of these professors and for the teaching-learning process in the academic environment. To this end, we conducted an exploratory study with a qualitative approach. The data were collected through an online survey using the Google Forms platform based on cases reported by 13 gay Brazilian professors working in a technological or higher education institution at the time of the harassment. Our data suggest that most respondents suffered heterosexist harassment in the workplace with violence being more explicit when the professor is more effeminate. Furthermore, we found that the naturalization of games considered harmless and homophobic jokes in the workplace can compromise the fight against heterosexist harassment in organizations. As a result, respondents report behavioral and workplace changes to fit into social norms and to be socially accepted, physical and psychological problems, professional and interpersonal relationships, adversely affecting educational experiences.
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