Author: Susan Annette Chandler

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

The problem of under representation of women in senior ranks of academia persists. The literature posits that at the heart of the issue are masculinist-gendered organizations that remain covertly inhospitable to women, families, and flexible career paths. After 40 years of examination and activism, academic women have not managed to shift the balance of power. This study asks what we can learn about career negotiation from senior academic adminsistrators who work in places of power. In the first phase of the study, a phenomenonological approach was used to interview six academic adminsitartors(three men and three women) about : how their careers unfolded; their experience of negotiating for personal benefit; how they identified career opportunities; how they defined career success; what leadership traits were valued by their organization; what they saw as the rewards and drawbacks of adminsitration; if they had experienced or witnessed gender bias; how they understood organizational power; how they balanced their public and private lives; and, how they saw the problem of under representation being resolved. In the second phase of the study, the experience of an administrative career was viewed through the lens of academic women who were either moving towards or away from such an option. Three theiretical frames were used to elucidate the research data : 1.Feminist standpoint theory; 2. Charles taylor's three-axis expansion; and, 3. Foucault's theory of organizational power. Key findings from the study indicated that although the female adminsitrators differed from their male colleagues in their experience of work/life balance and personal negotiation, in other regards they were remarkably similar. In fact, the female administrators felt that the problem of under representation was largely resolved by virtue of the large number of women entering the academy, and that other more pressing issues,such as how boys are faring in the system, should occupy academic discourse. While the adminsitartive view that gender equity issues are largely resolved, the literature indicates otherwise.