The Swedish Council for Working Life and Social Research finances the research project “Gender Equality and the Academy: When Desires and Choice Face Hindrance, Opportunities and Resistance”. The general purpose of the project is to increase knowledge about gender equality in academia and the career opportunities available to women and men with graduate degrees. This is a continuation of earlier projects showing that gender equality circumstances vary with discipline (Lindberg, Riis & Silander, 2005; Silander, 2005). In the study “Gender and the Starting Point of the Academic Career”, an investigation is carried out of the selection process to the Swedish postgraduate programmes, and of the values and the gender equality work in these programmes. Six disciplines are in focus, two of them male-dominated, two mixed and two female-dominated, with regard to the women/men proportion in the teaching staff. The study includes two parts, one interview-study presented at the ECER2008 conference in Gothenburg (Haake, 2008) and a survey (to be presented here). The past ten years rather significant changes have been made regarding the regulations of the Swedish postgraduate education. The aim has been to eliminate arbitrariness and to equalize conditions of different faculties/schools and disciplines. New recommendations and admission procedures may, however, have provoked actions of resistance and defence of traditions. One aim of the study is to elucidate (1) how different academic disciplines implement the changes in the selection process, and (2) the values regarding postgraduate ideals and gender equality. The theoretical framework for the study is based on Bernstein’s (1983; 2003) theory of rules of classification and framing, and Bourdieu’s (1996; 1999) theories about the core values of academic disciplines and how they affect views and practices on gender. Universities are seen as places of struggle where conditions, criteria and hierarchies are decided (Bourdieu, 1996) and disciplinary identity is constructed in relation to the context at hand. Theories of culturally situated practice explain this identity work as a context-specific identity development process (Haake, 2004). The core values of a certain discipline form its culture. Culture is taken to mean taken-for-granted values, attitudes and behaviours put into practice by a group of people in a specific context (Becher & Trowler, 2001).

The data collection of part two takes place as a survey of all research assistants, senior lecturers, associate professors and full professors in the six selected disciplines. Included are all departments at Swedish universities offering postgraduate educations within each one of the six disciplines. In the analysis we look for (1) the type of criteria valued by the respective discipline in its selection of new doctoral students (2) how academic freedom and discipline borders are experienced and valued (3) perceived qualities of the ideal doctoral student (4) perceived qualities of the successful thesis, and (5) what scientific quality stands for. Furthermore, we look for explanations of (6) similarities and differences in gender balance/imbalance, and (7) gender equality actions and how they are carried out in practice.

The results from the interview study, part one, revealed gendered cultures within the disciplines studied, and these were, in turn, nested under the faculty/school. Old and traditional disciplines (male-dominated and mixed disciplines) vs. new and challenging ones (female-dominated disciplines) is a variable which seems to explain some differences in routines and values concerning doctoral education. In the male-dominated disciplines, freedom and personal choice, regulations and routines around the admission procedures of doctoral students and shared criteria for ranking the applicants, is not as common and highly-valued as they are in the other categories of disciplines. The ongoing survey can contribute to our understanding of the gendered patterns shown in the interview study. By September 2009 I will be ready to present the results from the survey for the first time.