Inhalt: Women leaders are frequently treated as one class – a homogenised group with essentialised skills and competencies in binary relationship to male leaders. We explore how feminist ways of knowing gender and leadership, and circulations of affects, shape women’s diverse leadership practices and identities within the neoliberal, and neuroliberal academy in Finland – a Nordic country with a sophisticated gender equality policy architecture. We debate the (re)production of social and material inequalities through epistemic injustice by exploring what possibilities are emerging from the assemblages and relational potential of policy interventions, global speaking back to patriarchal power, the revisioning of gender, and the inclusion of women in higher education leadership. Theoretically, the study intersects feminist affect notions, neoliberalism, neuroliberalism, and epistemic inclusion/injustice. We conducted 10 interviews with middle-classed women university leaders in five universities. They described how, in the absence of possibilities to facilitate major structural changes, they applied their feminist knowledge and invested affective labour in the mediation of neoliberal and neuroliberal cultures. The politics of representation – counting more women into neoliberal universities, as one class, is not, we conclude, a counter-normative force. We need to consider how to apply feminist knowledge for leading post-gender universities and imagining alternative futurities.

Schlagwörter:Feminist knowledge; Finland; Führungsposition; Hochschule; Neoliberalismus; soziale Klasse

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Hochschulen, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2020.1855567

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: Recent scholarship on universities explores how academics’ families and partners restrict their careers and how academic labour limits these relationships, both in highly gendered ways. Such research less often considers how people’s close relations might unevenly support them in continuously relocating; dedicating unpaid time to ‘career development’; or taking on or influencing them to remain in short-term, poorly paid precarious roles. This paper explores precariously employed post-PhDs in Australia, investigating their gendered careers and personal lives. Drawing on interviews at three public universities, it shows how women with children and partners in particular raise concerns over how their relationships and work interact. Here, certain kinds of workers – men and single women, unencumbered by family responsibilities and restrictions on travel, and with access to financial resources – appear better able to navigate moves to more secure work. This paper argues that support from close relations is productive and restrictive for precarious academics’ careers.

Schlagwörter:academia career; akademische Karriere; Australia; Australien; familäre Verpflichtungen; Familie; family; gender inequality; Geschlechterungleichheit; Partnerbeziehung; Partnerschaft; partnership; prekäre Beschäftigung; Vereinbarkeit; work-life balance

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Europa und Internationales, Vereinbarkeit Familie-Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2021.1902482

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: This paper explores the experiences of eight Muslim women academics (MWA) within a range of sciences and humanities disciplines. The data draws from my doctoral study which examined the experiences of men and women Muslim academics at UK universities. Findings from in-depth interviews with participants highlight the intersectionality of religio-gendered identities as central to their experiences. Being hijabed in academia triggered gendered-Islamophobic micro-aggressions, whose potential impact on the participants was buffered by their resilience, positive outlook, and belief. Further, they capitalized on their visible faith to demystify negative perceptions about Muslims and to advance their career-through utilizing the diversity logic within academia, while recognizing its tokenistic nature. Despite facing challenges, the participants share certain qualities that facilitate success, with agency being the uppermost quality.

Schlagwörter:academics; akademische Karriere; Großbritannien; Intersektionalität; Islam; microaggressions; Muslim; muslim woman; Rassismus; UK

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Diversity, Europa und Internationales, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2021.1893664

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: We apply event history analysis to analyze career and publication data of virtually all political scientists in German university departments, showing that each published refereed journal article increases a political scientist's chance for tenure by 9 percent, while other publications affect the odds for tenure only marginally and in some cases even negatively. Each received award and third party funding increases the odds for tenure by respectively 41 and 26 percent, while international experience, social capital and children hardly have a strong influence. Surprisingly, having degrees from a German university of excellence strongly decreases the odds for tenure. Women with similar credentials have at least 20 percent higher odds to get tenure than men. Our data therefore suggests that the lower factual hiring rates of women are better explained by a leaky pipeline, e.g. women leaving academia, rather than because women are not hired even when they are as productive as men. The article contributes to a better understanding of the role of meritocratic and non-meritocratic factors in achieving highly competitive job positions. Ein paar Auszüge: SSCI Publikationen sind besonders wichtig. Ähnliche Signalwirkungen haben Drittmittelprojekte und wissenschaftliche Auszeichnungen. Frauen mit gleichen Charakteristika wie Männer haben keine schlechteren Chancen, berufen zu werden. Danach interessierte uns, warum einige Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler produktiver sind.

Schlagwörter:German higher education system; Hiring Decision; meritocracy; political science; Politikwissenschaft; Professor*in; publication; Publikation; Rekrutierung; soziales Kapital

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: Using a unique panel dataset of virtually all German academic political scientists, we show that researchers become much more productive due to the accumulation of human capital and third party funding. We also show however, that while universities of excellence have more productive researchers, individuals who go there do not become more productive. Finally, we show how women publish only 9 percent less than men with the same level of prior publication experience, but are about 26 percent less productive over their entire career, as early productivity leads to later productivity, so that women increasingly fall behind. These results cannot be explained through the influence of childbearing. Rather, they support the ‘theory of limited differences’, which argues that small differences in early productivity accumulate to large differences over entire careers, as early success encourages later success. Apart from generally showing why political scientists publish more or less, we specifically identify accumulative advantage as the principal reason why women increasingly fall behind men over the course of their careers. Hier zeigen wir, dass Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler an Exzellenzuniversitäten produktiver sind („Bestenauslese“). Doch dieselbe Wissenschaftlerin / Wissenschaftler wird nicht produktiver, weil man dort hin geht. Die wichtigsten Prädiktoren späterer Produktivität sind vorherige Produktivität und Drittmitteleinwerbungen. Dass Frauen weniger publizieren, können wir nicht darauf zurückführen, dass sie seltener auf höhere Karrierestufen kommen („leaky pipeline“), sondern vielmehr auf geringere Publikationserfahrung zu Beginn ihrer akademischen Laufbahn. Frauen publizieren also anfangs weniger, und da frühe Publikationserfahrung zu mehr Produktivität führt, wird der Abstand zu Männern im Verlaufe einer Karriere immer größer. Dies wiederum kann man nicht damit erklären, dass Kinder die Produktivität von Frauen stärker senken als von Männern.

Schlagwörter:academic career; Bestenauswahl; Drittmittel; Exzellenzinitiative; Forschungsförderung; funding; German higher education system; Geschlechterunterschied; human capital; Humankapital; political science; Produktivität; publication; Publikationsverhalten; wissenschaftliche Karriere

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11192-021-04175...

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: The transition of early career researchers into academic posts is understood to be a crucial career step and marks a point at which representation of women declines significantly. The research adopts a participatory qualitative research methodology through career narrative interviews and group discussions with women engineers recently appointed into academic posts. It was found that academic careers are ‘hoped for’, but not described as a straightforward option in terms of either securing tenure or future career development. The collective career paths outlined were rarely linear and featured key moments of crisis and self-doubt, culminating in ‘tentative’ career identity formation in the face of gendered career structures. There is evidence of a pre-emptive and continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of an academic career that begins years before embarking on a PhD. The distinctive contribution of the study is the consideration of gendered early processes of forming an academic identity and ongoing collective experiences of becoming an academic.

Schlagwörter:akademische Karriere; early career researchers; Gender; Ingenieurwissenschaft; soziale Konstruktion; transition; Übergangsphase; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2020.1865523

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: “Public speaking is an important skill for career prospects and for leadership positions, but many people tend to avoid it. We run a field experiment to analyze whether in an incentivized setting men and women show differences in their willingness to speak in public. The experiment involved more than 500 undergraduates who could gain two points to add to the final grade of their exam by presenting solutions to a set problem orally. Students were randomly assigned to give a presentation to the instructor only or in front of a large audience (a class of 100 or more). We find that while women are more willing to do a face-to-face presentation, they are considerably less likely to give a public presentation. We show that female aversion to public speaking does not depend on differences in ability or other psychological attitudes. Such an aversion seems considerably less marked for daughters of working women. The aversion to public speaking cannot be interpreted as strategic avoidance deriving from women anticipating their poor performance in this specific task. From survey data we also show that neither increasing the gains deriving from public speaking nor allowing participants more time to prepare lessens the gender gap.”

Schlagwörter:female; gender difference; leadership; public speaking; soft skill

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2021.102001

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: Women's underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) impedes progress in solving Africa's complex development problems. As in other regions, women's participation in STEM drops progressively moving up the education and career ladder, with women currently constituting 30% of Africa's STEM researchers. This study elucidates gender-based differences in PhD performance using new survey data from 227 alumni of STEM PhD programs in 17 African countries. We find that, compared to their male counterparts, sampled women had about one less paper accepted for publication during their doctoral studies and took about half a year longer to finish their PhD training. Negative binomial regression models provide insights on the observed differences in women's and men's PhD performance. Results indicate that the correlates of publication productivity and time to PhD completion are very similar for women and men, but some gender-based differences are observed. For publication output, we find that good supervision had a stronger impact for men than women; and getting married during the PhD reduced women's publication productivity but increased that of men. Becoming a parent during the PhD training was a key reason that women took longer to complete the PhD, according to our results. Findings suggest that having a female supervisor, attending an institution with gender policies in place, and pursuing the PhD in a department where sexual harassment by faculty was perceived as uncommon were enabling factors for women's timely completion of their doctoral studies. Two priority interventions emerge from this study: (1) family-friendly policies and facilities that are supportive of women's roles as wives and mothers and (2) fostering broader linkages and networks for women in STEM, including ensuring mentoring and supervisory support that is tailored to their specific needs and circumstances.

Schlagwörter:Africa; Afrika; Elternschaft; engineering; Geschlechterunterschied; Ingenieurwissenschaft; MINT; Naturwissenschaften; parenthood; Promotion; Promovierende; quantitative Analyse; quantitative analysis; sexual harassment policy; STEM

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Bildung und Erziehung, Europa und Internationales, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: The relationship between the international mobility of academic researchers and social capital is complex. On the one hand, the literature suggests that social capital facilitates the international mobility of academics which, in turn, promotes the accumulation of international social capital, enhances research productivity, and advances careers. On the other hand, international mobility can isolate researchers from the national social capital in their origin countries. In this paper, I present the results of 42 interviews in Canada and Germany to examine how academics in both countries have experienced the connection between international mobility and social capital. In addition to revealing the complexity of this connection, the results show that social capital facilitates international mobility and that mobility sometimes creates social capital. However, mobility can also lead to the loss of national social capital that negatively affects early-career researchers in particular.

Schlagwörter:academic career; Canada; Deutschland; early career researcher; Feldtheorie; international academic mobility; Interview; Kanada; Mobilität; scientific career; social capital; soziales Kapital; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Europa und Internationales, Wissenschaft als Beruf

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11024-020-09401-w

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz

Inhalt: Drawing on data collected in a cross-disciplinary survey of early-career academics (ECAs) in New Zealand, this article explores the factors influencing ECA conference attendance. Our conceptual framework uses conference attendance as the dependent variable and measures gender, ethnicity, family responsibilities and workload. Three key features affect conference attendance: "demographic characteristics" (background features and prior experiences that affect an academic's willingness and ability to attend), "accessibility" (constraints to attending, such as financing, family responsibilities, institutional support or teaching commitments) and "purpose" (the value placed on attending conferences by the individual, the institution, or the discipline). In particular, we identify differences for women, Indigenous people, and those born overseas with respect to their ability to navigate and their inclination to attend national and international conferences.

Schlagwörter:conference culture; early career researcher; ethnic minority; gender inequality; Konferenz; Neuseeland; wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs

CEWS Kategorie:Berufsbiographie und Karriere, Diversity, Wissenschaft als Beruf, Geschlechterverhältnis

Verfügbarkeit:https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09540253.2019.1633464

Dokumenttyp:Zeitschriftenaufsatz