Our study concerns gender equality in Higher Education (HE) and career opportunities for academics within the HE education system. We propose that equality is generated in a dynamic and situated process, interacting with opportunities and individual choices. This is a continuation of earlier studies, where we showed that conditions of academic equality vary with discipline (Silander 2005). In a bibliography of research on gender equality in HE (Kyndel, Lindberg & Riis 2003) we showed that only some 30 items in 160 publications were based on clear theoretical grounds and empirical data. We understood a need to put theory in order (Silander 2008 ), as: Interiorisation Exteriorisation Norm-governed (1) (3) self-selection Discrimination (2) (4) (1) Women choose not to pursue academic career (individual level) (3) Women take greater responsibility for home and family (individual level) (2) Women are discriminated in HE (organisation level) (4) The policies of HE work against and are discriminatory towards women (system level) The self-selection explanations in Field 1 mean that the underrepresentation of female academics in HE is a result of individual choices but the explanations are to be found in academia, interiorisation. A small recruitment base explains a low percentage of women in high positions. According to this pipeline metaphor, when more women enter the system more will also leave (Schiebinger 1999). Low percentages of women are regarded as a historical legacy and scientific explanations are about women choosing not to pursue a career in HE. Field 2 comprises explanations having to do with discrimination in HE. Common metaphors are “the glass ceiling” (Morrison et al. 1987), subtle discrimination (Husu 2001) and “a chilly climate”. The homosociality explanation belongs here (Kanter 1977) as does contractual discrimination (ETAN 2000). Some of the reasoning claims the discrimination is brutal and deliberate, while others stress the fact that discrimination is an internalised part of the workplace culture. Haake’s study of the recruitment processes to postgraduate programmes falls within Field 2. Field 3 holds explanations dealing with the idea that women’s self-selection processes are generated from social norms. The explanations are placed outside HE, exteriorisation, and women in academic careers are assumed to continue to have the main responsibility for the family. Kyvik & Teigen (1994) claim that parenthood affects women’s publishing negatively. However the explanations are contradictory in terms of the impact of the family situation on women’s and men’s career developments in HE (Cole & Zuckerman 1991). Men’s behaviour is seldom problematised. In Field 4 we find explanations claiming that the policies of HE create conditions that are discriminatory. Studies in this area are virtually non-existent although Ståhle (1997) touches on the issue when he states that the strong expansion of HE during the post-war period brought with it circumstances where every generation of academics is always bigger than the one before. We ourselves find ourselves in Field 4 when we discuss how academic career opportunities behave asymmetrically throughout the departments and subject fields (Silander 2005). The most common non-scientific explanations of why the sexes are in different places in society are in Field 3; scientific studies are rare. The largest number of scientific studies is in Field 2, but even here personal opinions were sometimes mixed with research results. The number of studies falling within Field 1 is moderate, in Field 4 very small. Many researchers overly interpret their empirical data in relation to applied theories and “one-variable studies” (e.g. Chrapkowska & Wold 2004) sometimes allege they explain the entire social phenomenon of gender equality. No studies of individual expectations and choices or of structural relationships can single-handledly explain such a complex phenomenon. Many different hypotheses must be tested.

Research survey and a qualification of position for an ongoing research projekt.

The overriding purpose of this project is to increase knowledge about gender equality in academia and the career opportunities available to women and men with graduate degrees from various disciplines within Higher Education as well as on other positions within society for which they are educated.