Following growing academic interest and activism targeting gender bias in university curricula, we present the first analysis of female exclusion in a complete IR curriculum, across degree levels and disciplinary subfields. Previous empirical research on gender bias in the teaching materials of IR has been limited in scope, i.e. restricted to PhD curricula, non-random sampling, small sample sizes, or predominately US-focused. By contrast, this study uses an original dataset of 43 recent syllabi comprising the entire IR curriculum at the London School of Economics to investigate the gender gap in the discipline's teaching materials. We find evidence of bias that reproduces patterns of female exclusion: 79.2% of texts on reading lists are authored exclusively by men, reflecting neither the representation of women in the professional discipline nor in the published discipline. We find that level of study, subfield, and course convener gender and seniority matter. First, female author inclusion improves as the level of study progresses from undergraduate to PhD. This suggests the rigid persistence of a "traditional IR canon" at the earliest disciplinary stage. Second, the International Organisations/Law subfield is more gender-inclusive than Security or Regional Studies, while contributions from Gender/Feminist Studies are dominated by female authorship. These patterns are suggestive of gender-stereotyping within subfields. Third, female-authored readings are assigned less frequently by male and/or more senior course conveners. Tackling gender bias in the taught discipline must therefore involve a careful consideration of the linkages between knowledge production and dissemination, institutional hiring and promotion, and pedagogical practices.
Altmetrics are an emerging form of bibliometric measurement that capture the online dimension of scholarly exchange. Against the backdrop of both a higher education landscape increasingly focused on quantifying research productivity and impact, as well as literature emphasising the need to address gender bias in the discipline, we consider whether and how altmetrics (re)produce gendered dynamics in political science. Using a novel dataset on the Altmetric Attention Scores (AAS) of political science research, we investigate two questions: Do AAS vary by gender? And how do AAS relate to gendered social media dynamics? We find that AAS reproduce gendered dynamics found in disciplinary publication and citation practices. For example, journal articles authored exclusively by female scholars score 27% lower on average than exclusively male-authored outputs. However, men are also more likely to write articles with an AAS of zero. These patterns are shaped by the presence of high-scoring male “superstars” whose research attracts much online attention. Complementing existing scholarship, we show that the AAS closely overlaps with virality dynamics on Twitter. We suggest that these gendered dynamics may be hidden behind the seemingly neutral, technical character of altmetrics, which is worrisome where they are used to evaluate scholarship.
In these volumes, which are capable of standing independently of each other but are best used together, Liesbet Hooghe and Gary Marks
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