Gender Equality in Academia: Intentions and Consequences

Powell, Stina

doi:10.18848/1447-9532/cgp/v18i01/19-35

Cited by 16 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…The present-day scientific profession is permeated by structural sexism (Homan 2019), reflecting centuries of intersectional (dis)advantage. Transformation will not happen by leveraging equality as a management tool to drive growth or efficiency but by seeing the fight for equality in science as a political struggle against long-entrenched power structures that are well served by the meritocratic paradigm and assessment culture (Powell 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Patterns of Unmet Resource Need among Academic Researchers

Steffy

2021

Socius

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An expansive body of literature has documented how academia acts as a gendered organization, characterized by disadvantage at multiple levels. Because of data limitations, we know surprisingly little about whether and how access to the resources needed to carry out high-quality research may be gendered. This study begins to fill this gap using a newly available survey of researchers in three disciplines across five European countries. Across a wide range of resources, findings point to marked gender disparities. Women are more likely than men to say that they do not have the resources they need to do their research well and that having them would make a big difference in their work. These findings are robust to controls including academic seniority, suggesting that structural sexism contributes to resource disparities in science. Even after overcoming obstacles en route to research positions in competitive fields, women in science remain systematically disadvantaged.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Patterns of Unmet Resource Need among Academic Researchers

Steffy

2021

Socius

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“…All universities circumvent well-defined “hard,” time-bound measures and targets by using language that reflects the internalization of presumed gender-neutral ideas of meritocracy. By stating that quotas are contradictory to meritocracy, a notion that carries masculine associations (Powell 2018), all time-bound measures are constructed as “radical” and unfit within an academic environment. However, scientific evidence or further justification is not offered for these claims.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, motivational theory suggests that group goal-setting is as important as individual goal-setting, and that deadlines improve the effectiveness of goals (Lunenburg 2011). Although the literature on affirmative action shows that it has an effect on increasing numbers of the underrepresented sex, the long-term effects are not always known (Powell 2018). On the flip side of such transparent measures is that these might not address the complexities of intersectional identities (such as race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or disability that inform each other, creating unique experiences of discrimination).…”

Section: A Theoretical Model Of Gender Equality Initiativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Failure of Gender Equality Initiatives in Academia: Exploring Defensive Institutional Work in Flemish Universities

et al. 2020

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Although a large number of studies have explored the main causes of gender inequality in academia, less attention has been given to the processes underlying the failure of gender equality initiatives to enhance gender representation, especially at the professorial level. We offer a critical discourse analysis of recently promulgated gender policy documents of the five Flemish universities, and demonstrate that defensive institutional work is a fundamental process underlying resistance to gender equality in the academic profession. That is, powerful organizational actors resist gender change by (un)intentionally deploying a combination of discursive strategies that legitimate what we describe as non–time-bound gender equality initiatives: The expected outcomes are undetermined in time, and they delegitimate concrete, time-bound measures that define specific outcomes against well-defined deadlines. By explicitly bringing a temporal dimension into our analysis, we argue that defensive institutional work deflects questions regarding what ought to be achieved when, and contributes to the slow pace of gender change in academia.

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“…Vi fant altså at tilretteleggelsen for og oppmuntringen til lokal kunnskaping innebar holdningsendringer. Tidligere forskning har vaert tvilende til betydningen av økt kunnskap for å stimulere til handling (Powell 2018;Winchester, Lorenzo, Browning og Chesterman 2006). Ved å legge vekt på lokal kunnskaping der økt kunnskap om forskning på kjønnsbalanse ble kombinert med å innhente kunnskap om situasjonen på eget institutt, bidro man til at deltakerne ble mer engasjert til konkrete handlinger.…”

Section: Analyse: Holdningsendringer Og Utvikling Av Inklusjonsaktørerunclassified

Kjønnsbalanse gjennom aksjonsforskning og lokal kunnskaping

Sørensen¹,

Lagesen²,

Sørensen³

et al. 2019

TFK

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This paper argues that local making of knowledge about gender balance dynamics is needed to motivate for concrete action and develop inclusion actors. Gender balance in academia has been a political and scholarly topic since the 1970s. Nevertheless, change is slow. Research aiming to explain the lack of women in academia has mainly understood this in terms of general features of research and higher education. However, there are large variations between departments at the same faculties, not easily explained in this way. Therefore, we carried out an action research project with a focus on departments to study what may be achieved at this level. Through analysis of data generated by the project, with 12 participating departments at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, we discuss what motivates and limits head of departments and other departmental actors in improving the gender balance among faculty. Three main features are critical for local achievements and for developing inclusion actors conscious of and engaged in gender balance: (1) Competence, tools and motivation for local making of knowledge about gender balance and action alternatives, (2) access to scholarly knowledge to legitimise and embed action, and (3) resources to implement relevant measures.

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Gender Equality in Academia: Intentions and Consequences

Cited by 16 publications

References 0 publications

Gendered Patterns of Unmet Resource Need among Academic Researchers

Gendered Patterns of Unmet Resource Need among Academic Researchers

The Failure of Gender Equality Initiatives in Academia: Exploring Defensive Institutional Work in Flemish Universities

Kjønnsbalanse gjennom aksjonsforskning og lokal kunnskaping

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