This article developed from collaboration between the authors in late 2008 when Kate was a visiting researcher at the University of Limerick, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. At the same time the authors were collaborating in an eight-country study of the Women in Higher Education Management (WHEM) Network that was published in the UK and US in 2011 as Gender, Power and Management: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Higher Education (eds. Barbara Bagilhole and Kate White). Building on those collaborations, we have continued to analyse the Irish and Australian data and presented papers at conferences in Gothenburg (2010) and at Amsterdam, Ottawa and Melbourne (2011). The Irish/Australian comparison is particularly apposite in view of the use of Australian higher educational policy and practice as an exemplar by the Irish government. Continue reading “Similarities and differences in collegiality / managerialism in Irish and Australian universities”
Girls, Graduate Jobs and the Gender Chasm
Reports from across the world last week were claiming that we are no longer facing a gender gap but rather a gender chasm. Drawing on a new ‘gender gap’report these articles claim that even though a number of countries see more young women going to university than young men, it is men who tend to end up faring better in employment (rising to higher levels of seniority and earning more than their female counterparts). Continue reading “Girls, Graduate Jobs and the Gender Chasm”
Accessions: Researching, Designing Higher Education
My piece ‘Accessions: Researching, Designing Higher Education’ in Gender and Education (23:6) reports on the experiences, effects and (dis)engagements in working alongside designers – as part of a research-design team – to foster a more ‘public sociology’. These are questions, conceptual and methodological, that I have been interested in for some time: this piece, as with other work, asks who becomes the proper subject for (non)academic attention? Questions are raised about the place of a ‘public sociology’ as part of a ‘city publics’ and ‘engaged university’ where understanding local disseminations and disparities is important in considering where different users, interviewees and indeed researchers are coming from. It asks where are we coming from? Why does this matter and how can this be operationalised as a politicised practice (rather than personalized, individualized pain); Where are we going as the direction of Higher Education stalls and changes? When we ‘travel’ in academia do we only credentialise ourselves, becoming more distant from the very audiences, users, and publics which enable our mobility? ‘Accessions’ alludes to academic hierarchies, elitism and ‘becoming’ in and out of the university setting, and continues a concern reflected in a forthcoming Sociological Research Online piece: ‘Placing Research: ‘City Publics’ and the ‘Public Sociologist’ (2011, with Michelle Addison) and a current European Societies piece ‘International and Widening Participation Students’ Experience of Higher Education, UK’ (2011, with Tracy Scurry). Continue reading “Accessions: Researching, Designing Higher Education”
The e-word now at the heart of English (higher) education
The Third Gender and Education Association Policy Report (July 2011) Continue reading “The e-word now at the heart of English (higher) education”
‘Study reveals extent of the Oxbridge divide’: Whatever happened to gender equality?
It is most remarkable that neither the Sutton Trust nor the media have noticed changing forms of inequality in access to elite universities over the last 30 years. Whilst it is true that access to Oxbridge remains highly privileged as the recent Guardian article suggests, there is a major change that has been overlooked. 2 of the 5 schools mentioned in your report have co-educational sixth forms, and a third is a girls’ school. Only two schools are single sex boys’ schools (Eton and St Pauls). Relatively equal numbers of boys and girls now access higher education, including Oxbridge and indeed girls slightly outperform boys in degree results overall. It is strange indeed that changing forms of gender equality in education are not celebrated in the rush to try to get poor or disadvantaged students into the elite universities. This is being encouraged in last week’s white paper: HE: putting students at the heart of the system. What a pity attention is not focused on trying to change the culture of the political elites who still maintain their male privilege, and continue to exclude not only the poor and disadvantaged but their middle class sisters in the higher echelons, despite their academic achievements.
Miriam David, GEA Executive
Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action
‘Clinton is proving that feminist foreign policy is possible – and works’ so headlines an article in the Guardian in which Madeleine Bunting argues that Hilary Clinton is building her political foreign policy on a solid 1970s feminist mantra that ‘Transformation in the role of women is that last great impediment to universal progress.’ Clinton has proclaimed that ‘the rights of women and girls are now core to US foreign policy’ and Bunting draws attention to the 450 mentions of this ‘signature issue’ in the first five months of Clinton’s office. Clinton argues that ‘the empowerment, protect and protection of women and girls is vital to the long-term security of the US’. In a telling remark Bunting asks, imagine any politician saying something similar in the UK now. It is, indeed, unimaginable! Continue reading “Is feminism in the UK experiencing a double dip? Call for Action”
Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality
A report by GEA’s Policy Officer Miriam David, with Jessica Ringrose and Victoria Showunmi
October- December 2010
Continue reading “Browne Report + the White Paper = A Murky Outlook for Educational Equality”
Cutting Women Out of Education?
The 10th of November 2010: I and 50,000 school, college and university students and staff gathered in central London to protest against the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government’s proposed cuts to education and rise in tuition fees up to £9000 per year. This placard – Don’t Cut Women out of Education – was left under the feet of the demonstrators, washed up by a tide of protest: one of a vast range of slogans on show, from the ironically knowing to the straightforwardly angry. But its message stands. Those who stand to lose out from the government’s plans are, overwhelmingly, those who already lose out. Continue reading “Cutting Women Out of Education?”
‘Rage of the Girl Rioters’?
Everyday there seems to be yet more depressing news for education in the UK. Yesterday saw more rushed ideological notions of bringing soldiers into the classrooms, destroying teacher education within Higher Education, and reconfiguring the national curriculum yet again.
Schoolchildren and students were also active in walking out of lessons, taking to the streets and occupying campuses. These actions are in response to massive hikes in tuition fees in Higher Education, and the abolishment of the Educational Maintenance Allowance in Further Education. Curiously, an article in the the Daily Mail has focused on the gendering of these protests, highlighting the actions of rioting girls. Perhaps we are seeing a new wave of youth and female led activism? I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts