Abstract:In 2001, the US National Science Foundation inaugurated the ADVANCE Institutional Transformation program with the primary objective of increasing the participation and advancement of women at American Universities in all science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines. Although ADVANCE has been received very well, its effects have been uneven among institutions receiving the ADVANCE grant. In this paper, we reflect on the NSF’s goals for ADVANCE and initiatives ADVANCE schools undertake to increa… Show more
“…Striedinger () argues that it is not co‐optation but a strategic advantage to use the ‘master's tools’ while turning them to other ends. Similarly, Morimoto and Zajicek () argue that ADVANCE indeed is a powerful tool for gender equity efforts, though they assert that: [d]ismantling the academic house, however, entails dismantling a structure that ties excellence to a system of rewards for scientific productivity grounded in competition, individual achievement, and the disembodied ‘ideal worker’ who, historically, is male. (p. 143)…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Striedinger (2017) argues that it is not co-optation but a strategic advantage to use the 'master's tools' while turning them to other ends. Similarly, Morimoto and Zajicek (2014) argue that ADVANCE indeed is a powerful tool for gender equity efforts, though they assert that:…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Universities, however, have their own change agendas, focused on the 'high stakes race for innovation, excellence, and grant dollars' to compete globally (Morimoto & Zajicek, 2014), prioritizing 'reforms' in a managerial and marketized direction, so substantive gains in gender justice demand vigilance and struggle (Kreissl et al, 2015;Teelken & Deem, 2013). Selecting among the tools available in academic capitalist organizations, gender equality advocates seek to be both pragmatic in identifying effective strategies and critical of antidemocratic governance (Morimoto & Zajicek, 2014;Striedinger, 2017). Although gender political outcomes for higher education in the United States need more research, the overall impact of managerialism on gender equality efforts has been judged negative to neutral so far in European and Australian institutions (Teelken & Deem, 2013).…”
Section: Feminist Institutionalism and The Managerial Universitymentioning
Universities are sites of both elite knowledge production and reproduction of intersecting gendered inequalities. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) ‘Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers’ (ADVANCE) programme uses universities’ role as self‐reflective knowledge producers to design changes promoting gender equality. This knowledge is shaped by the institutional context of its production: NSF as a funder of scientific research; US universities as participants in highly competitive markets; managerialism as a condition of modern higher education systems; and separation of basic from applied research in the hierarchy of science. The tensions and underlying power dimensions of these contexts reveal local challenges that ADVANCE interventions navigate and the broader politics shaping what and how ADVANCE discovers. Yet, as a learning‐oriented intervention, ADVANCE changes over time to create and incorporate more gendered knowledge about inequalities, to legitimize feminist understandings of organizations, and to challenge the division between fundamental and applied knowledge.
“…Striedinger () argues that it is not co‐optation but a strategic advantage to use the ‘master's tools’ while turning them to other ends. Similarly, Morimoto and Zajicek () argue that ADVANCE indeed is a powerful tool for gender equity efforts, though they assert that: [d]ismantling the academic house, however, entails dismantling a structure that ties excellence to a system of rewards for scientific productivity grounded in competition, individual achievement, and the disembodied ‘ideal worker’ who, historically, is male. (p. 143)…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Striedinger (2017) argues that it is not co-optation but a strategic advantage to use the 'master's tools' while turning them to other ends. Similarly, Morimoto and Zajicek (2014) argue that ADVANCE indeed is a powerful tool for gender equity efforts, though they assert that:…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Universities, however, have their own change agendas, focused on the 'high stakes race for innovation, excellence, and grant dollars' to compete globally (Morimoto & Zajicek, 2014), prioritizing 'reforms' in a managerial and marketized direction, so substantive gains in gender justice demand vigilance and struggle (Kreissl et al, 2015;Teelken & Deem, 2013). Selecting among the tools available in academic capitalist organizations, gender equality advocates seek to be both pragmatic in identifying effective strategies and critical of antidemocratic governance (Morimoto & Zajicek, 2014;Striedinger, 2017). Although gender political outcomes for higher education in the United States need more research, the overall impact of managerialism on gender equality efforts has been judged negative to neutral so far in European and Australian institutions (Teelken & Deem, 2013).…”
Section: Feminist Institutionalism and The Managerial Universitymentioning
Universities are sites of both elite knowledge production and reproduction of intersecting gendered inequalities. The US National Science Foundation (NSF) ‘Increasing the Participation and Advancement of Women in Academic Science and Engineering Careers’ (ADVANCE) programme uses universities’ role as self‐reflective knowledge producers to design changes promoting gender equality. This knowledge is shaped by the institutional context of its production: NSF as a funder of scientific research; US universities as participants in highly competitive markets; managerialism as a condition of modern higher education systems; and separation of basic from applied research in the hierarchy of science. The tensions and underlying power dimensions of these contexts reveal local challenges that ADVANCE interventions navigate and the broader politics shaping what and how ADVANCE discovers. Yet, as a learning‐oriented intervention, ADVANCE changes over time to create and incorporate more gendered knowledge about inequalities, to legitimize feminist understandings of organizations, and to challenge the division between fundamental and applied knowledge.
“…There is a growing literature on the implementation and outcomes of ADVANCE IT programmes (Stewart, LaVaque-Manty, and Malley 2004;Rosser and Chameau 2006;Bilimoria, Joy, and Liang 2008) and analysis of the goals, challenges, and possibility for success among feminist scholars (Bird 2011;Morimoto and Zajicek 2012;Morimoto et al 2013). Most of this literature begins from the premise, as we do here, that higher education organisations are gendered, with organisational practices, structures, and cultures that favour men and devalue women in critical ways (Acker 1990(Acker , 2006Dean, Bracken, and Allen 2009).…”
Organisational efforts to alter gender asymmetries are relatively rare, yet they are taking place in a number of universities. In the USA, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, ADVANCE programmes implement a number of interventions to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty. This study focused on one common intervention, faculty peer networks, and the role they play in gender equity reform. Longitudinal and cross-sectional qualitative data indicate that such peer networks function as catalysts for women's career agency, and challenge gendered organisational practices. Two key features of the peer networks, their structure and internal dynamics, facilitate these outcomes. At the same time, peer networks are limited by design in promoting structural change and must be implemented in concert with other forms of policy and structural change to be effective mechanisms for gender equity reform.
“…Gender budgeting activities, which are highly work intensive, can be understood as diverting gender equality agents’ energies away from other activities, while at the same time strengthening – being a “handmaiden” to (Fraser 2013 ) – the extension of managerial control through detailed auditing practices. Another example of gender equality work in universities that is subject to feminist criticism (Morimoto and Zajicek 2014 ) is individual career support for female academics. Activities such as grant schemes, career trainings and mentoring programs for women comprised a large portion of gender equality programs in Austrian universities.…”
Section: Strengthening Interaction Between Feminist Movements and Inimentioning
The concept of co-optation offers vocabulary to discuss how concerns and demands of feminist movements are transformed on their way to, and within, mainstream organizations and policymaking. However, applications of this concept can have problematic implications, failing to grasp the complexity of social change efforts and contributing to divisions, rather than alliances, between different groups that work and fight for gender equality. This article argues that conceptual tools from organizational institutionalism can help to avoid these pitfalls by capturing the ambivalence of organizational change initiatives, and allowing us to identify not only counterintentional effects, but also subtle and unexpected opportunities of organizational gender equality work. I illustrate my arguments with empirical examples from research on gender equality work in Austrian universities.
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