Gender equality and higher education

By Marielk. Today, on 8th of March – International Women’s Day, is perhaps a good time to re-examine the current situation of women in higher education. With decades of focus on emancipation and womens rights in large parts of the Western world – where do we stand on this issue?
Women in higher education and research has received some attention during recent year in Europe. Perhaps the most widely debated recent case is the “Science, its a girl thing!” campaign from the European Commission that received widespread criticisms and arguably did not really further the gender equality agenda, but rather re-emphasized existing stereotypes. A number of initiatives have been emerged in recent years related to women in research, and the topic has also received attention on European level, where the 2nd Gender Summit was held in the end of November. The question of glass ceilings and speculations around the reasons why women are still underrepresented are still debated (see for instance a guest entry by dr Joanne Pyke on the Hedda blog examining the Australian case), however, recent research by Allison K. Shaw and Daniel E. Stanton  suggest that when analyzing the data over 30 years in the USA, the trend is that the role of gender is diminishing and the issue points lie in the choice of undergraduate field and application rates to tenured jobs There is further research that has suggested that it is not so much discrimination but aspects related to family life that would lead to less women applying for tenure positions. Read more...