This book examines higher education institutions that exemplify gendered success whether in terms of the presence of women in senior positions or attempts to change a gendered organisational culture. It reflects a global perspective, drawing on case studies from eleven countries: Australia, Austria, Ireland, India, New Zealand , Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. In each country an organisation has been selected that demonstrate best practice in terms of gendered outcomes or processes. Gendered Success in Higher Education highlights both the importance and the limitations of indicators such as the proportion of women in senior positions. It proposes a new gender agenda, identifies the factors that need to be included in a model of gendered change, and provides important insights into the nature of gendered change globally and how it can be achieved.
The story of the American university in the past half century is about the rise of women in participation as students, faculty members, college athletes, and in subsequently changing the overall university culture for the better. Now almost sixty percent of the overall college student population in America is female, and still growing. By the year 2000, women surpassed men worldwide in attendance at higher education institutions. At the same time, after years of a disproportionate dominant male professoriate, female faculty members are now becoming the majority of university professors. While top university presidents are still largely male, women have achieved real gains in the overall administrative ranks and trustee positions. In all areas of the university disparities still exist in terms of compensation and balance in key areas of the academy, but the overall positive trend is clear. Few to this date have recognized and chronicled this extraordinary change in college education—one of society’s fundamental and influential institutions. For universities the test for the future is to make the changes needed in broad areas within higher education from financial aid to curriculum, student activities, and overall campus culture in order to better foster a newly empowered majority of women students.
Grounded in scholarship but written for busy institutional leaders, Building Gender Equity in the Academy is a handbook of actionable strategies for faculty and administrators working to improve the inclusion and visibility of women and others who are marginalized in the sciences and in academe more broadly.
CHOICE 2015 Outstanding Academic TitleWhat do women academics classify as challenging, inequitable, or “hostile” work environments and experiences? How do these vary by women’s race/ethnicity, rank, sexual orientation, or other social locations?How do academic cultures and organizational structures work independently and in tandem to foster or challenge such work climates?What actions can institutions and individuals–independently and collectively–take toward equity in the academy?Despite tremendous progress toward gender equality and equity in institutions of higher education, deep patterns of discrimination against women in the academy persist. From the “chilly climate” to the “old boys’ club,” women academics must navigate structures and cultures that continue to marginalize, penalize, and undermine their success.This book is a “tool kit” for advancing greater gender equality and equity in higher education. It presents the latest research on issues of concern to them, and to anyone interested in a more equitable academy. It documents the challenging, sometimes hostile experiences of women academics through feminist analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, including narratives from women of different races and ethnicities across disciplines, ranks, and university types. The contributors’ research draws upon the experiences of women academics including those with under-examined identities such as lesbian, feminist, married or unmarried, and contingent faculty. And, it offers new perspectives on persistent issues such as family policies, pay and promotion inequalities, and disproportionate service burdens. The editors provide case studies of women who have encountered antagonistic workplaces, and offer action steps, best practices, and more than 100 online resources for individuals navigating similar situations. Beyond women in academe, this book is for their allies and for administrators interested in changing the climates, cultures, and policies that allow gender inequality to exist on their campuses, and to researchers/scholars investigating these phenomena. It aims to disrupt complacency amongst those who claim that things are “better” or “good enough” and to provide readers with strategies and resources to counter barriers created by culture, climate, or institutional structures.
This volume investigates the dissonance between the supposed advantage held by educated women and their continued lack of economic and political power. Niemi explains the developments of the so-called "female advantage" and "boy crisis" in American higher education, setting them alongside socioeconomic and racial developments in women’s and men’s lives throughout the last 40 years. Exploring the relationship between higher education credentials and their utility in creating political, economic, and social success, Degrees of Difference identifies ways in which gender and academic achievement contribute to women’s and men’s power to shape their lives. This important book brings new light to the issues of power, gender identities, and the role of American higher education in creating gender equity.
While powerful gender inequalities remain in American society, women have made substantial gains and now largely surpass men in one crucial arena: education. Women now outperform men academically at all levels of school, and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school. What accounts for this enormous reversal in the gender education gap? In The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools, Thomas DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann provide a detailed and accessible account of women’s educational advantage and suggest new strategies to improve schooling outcomes for both boys and girls. The Rise of Women opens with a masterful overview of the broader societal changes that accompanied the change in gender trends in higher education. The rise of egalitarian gender norms and a growing demand for college-educated workers allowed more women to enroll in colleges and universities nationwide. As this shift occurred, women quickly reversed the historical male advantage in education. By 2010, young women in their mid-twenties surpassed their male counterparts in earning college degrees by more than eight percentage points. The authors, however, reveal an important exception: While women have achieved parity in fields such as medicine and the law, they lag far behind men in engineering and physical science degrees. To explain these trends, The Rise of Women charts the performance of boys and girls over the course of their schooling. At each stage in the education process, they consider the gender-specific impact of factors such as families, schools, peers, race and class. Important differences emerge as early as kindergarten, where girls show higher levels of essential learning skills such as persistence and self-control. Girls also derive more intrinsic gratification from performing well on a day-to-day basis, a crucial advantage in the learning process. By contrast, boys must often navigate a conflict between their emerging masculine identity and a strong attachment to school. Families and peers play a crucial role at this juncture. The authors show the gender gap in educational attainment between children in the same families tends to be lower when the father is present and more highly educated. A strong academic climate, both among friends and at home, also tends to erode stereotypes that disconnect academic prowess and a healthy, masculine identity. Similarly, high schools with strong science curricula reduce the power of gender stereotypes concerning science and technology and encourage girls to major in scientific fields. As the value of a highly skilled workforce continues to grow, The Rise of Women argues that understanding the source and extent of the gender gap in higher education is essential to improving our schools and the economy. With its rigorous data and clear recommendations, this volume illuminates new ground for future education policies and research.
Young people are told that college is a place where they will “find themselves” by engaging with diversity and making friendships that will last a lifetime. This vision of an inclusive, diverse social experience is a fundamental part of the image colleges sell potential students. But what really happens when students arrive on campus and enter this new social world? The Cost of Inclusion delves into this rich moment to explore the ways students seek out a sense of belonging and the sacrifices they make to fit in. Blake R. Silver spent a year immersed in student life at a large public university. He trained with the Cardio Club, hung out with the Learning Community, and hosted service events with the Volunteer Collective. Through these day-to-day interactions, he witnessed how students sought belonging and built their social worlds on campus. Over time, Silver realized that these students only achieved inclusion at significant cost. To fit in among new peers, they clung to or were pushed into raced and gendered cultural assumptions about behavior, becoming “the cool guy,” “the nice girl,” “the funny one,” “the leader,” “the intellectual,” or “the mom of the group.” Instead of developing dynamic identities, they crafted and adhered to a cookie-cutter self, one that was rigid and two-dimensional. Silver found that these students were ill-prepared for the challenges of a diverse college campus, and that they had little guidance from their university on how to navigate the trials of social engagement or the pressures to conform. While colleges are focused on increasing the diversity of their enrolled student body, Silver’s findings show that they need to take a hard look at how they are failing to support inclusion once students arrive on campus.
This open access book offers pioneering insights and practical methods for promoting diversity and inclusion in higher education classrooms and curricula. It highlights the growing importance of international education programs in Asia and the value of understanding student diversity in a changing, evermore interconnected world. The book explores diversity across physical, psychological and cogitative traits, socio-economic backgrounds, value systems, traditions and emerging identities, as well as diverse expectations around teaching, grading, and assessment. Chapters detail significant trends in active learning pedagogy, writing programs, language acquisition, and implications for teaching in the liberal arts, adult learners, girls and women, and Confucian heritage communities. A quality, relevant, 21st Century education should address multifaceted and intersecting forms of diversity to equip students for deep life-long learning inside and outside the classroom. This timely volume provides a unique toolkit for educators, policy-makers, and professional development experts.
This compelling and stimulating book explores the gendered social history of students in modern Britain. From the privileged youth of Brideshead Revisited, to the scruffs at 'Scumbag University' in The Young Ones, representations of the university undergraduate have been decidedly male. But since the 1970s the proportion of women students in universities in the UK has continued to rise so that female undergraduates now outnumber their male counterparts. Drawing upon wide-ranging original research including documentary and archival sources, newsfilm, press coverage of student life and life histories of men and women who graduated before the Second World War, this text provides rich insights into changes in student identity and experience over the past century. The book examines : men's and women's differing expectations of higher education the sacrifices that families made to send young people to college the effect of equality legislation demography changing patterns of marriage and the impact of the 'sexual revolution' on female students the cultural life of students and the role that gender has played in shaping them. For students of gender studies, cultural studies and history, this book will have meaningful impact on their degree course studies.
