Higher Education in Europe and Female Research

Author(s):

Anna Maria PiussiRemei Arnaus i Morral

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

22 SES 02 D, Gender issues in Higher Education

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-28

11:15-12:45

Room:

HG, HS 45

Chair:

Mari Karm

Contribution

The research (coordinators Remei Arnaus and Anna Maria Piussi), supported by the Instituto Nacional de la Mujer (España) involves five European universities (Barcelona, Girona, Zaragoza, Màlaga, Verona) and two recognised independent centres (DUODA, Centre de recerca de dones, University of Barcelona; DIOTIMA, female philosophical community, University of Verona). It originated from a paradox, registered as a subjective experience by many women who work, study and teach at the university in different areas of the world, including Europe: there are increasing numbers of women in our universities as students, researchers, teachers and administrative staff, but the university as institution has failed to transform itself and remains characterised by male models of research, thought, management and work organisation. In Europe the national and transnational policies have promoted women’s inclusion in higher education, but have not taken into account their difference, thereby neutralising the gender difference in a universalistic male-dominated paradigm. Even the insertion of Women’s/gender Studies has failed to act as a lever for redefining the relationship between the genders in producing and transmitting culture. The paradox has grown more acute with the establishment of a company-style model of higher education, under the crushing weight of the utilitarian imperatives of the neoliberal market, to which the Bologna Process also refers. The Knowledge Economy/Society, despite exploiting the ability to establish relationships, linguistic and cognitive skills and professional styles of women, underrate their transformational contribution to a society that is fairer and truly inclusive, because respecful of differences. In other words, they fail to recognise what women, with their freedom, bring to the world which is different, more civil and vital for all. By expecting women to become increasingly similar to men, a historic opportunity is being lost to make educational systems truly educational and to make our society humanely richer and more peaceful. Starting out from a theoretical female perspective elaborated in the course of more than twenty years in France, Italy and Spain, and known in other European (e.g. Germany) and extra-European (USA) countries, namely the thinking and pedagogy of sexual difference, the intention of the research is to highlight the original, free voice of women, who, as students, teachers, researchers, and university administrators, narrate their university experience, their strategies of life and their study and work practices, putting into words desires and aspirations different from those of men and offering a new university measure of value, necessary for all.

Method

The program comprised: 1) analysis of the international literature on changes in the university related to female growth; 2) qualitative empirical research aimed at rethinking educational policies on the basis of epistemic evidence. Construction of the data was done by a) dialogue-type interviews of a number of female university staff, differing as regards scientific area and academic posts; and b) an innovative method, consisting in itinerant seminars – involving approximately one hundred women and men – on the research focus, in a free and at the same time rigorous exchange of ideas, starting from their own experience. These seminars, two of which already held in Barcelona and Verona, will continue in other universities. In this way, a “research community” was created, based on an experiential-transformational investigation method, coherent with a theoretical approach that regards the subjects not as passive objects of investigation, but as stakeholders actively participating in the research.

Expected Outcomes

The research demonstrate the insufficiency of analyses of university quality based on quantitative evidence, recurrent both at European and national level. The results confirm the need for investigating the subjective quality and understanding the experience of the various stakeholders and the sense they attribute to their roles and activities. The research has a political value in prompting subjects to start from their own experience so as to interpret and rethink the university and transform it from the inside (self-reform) in the light of existing good practices, without passively submitting to the flow change from above. The research makes it possible to understand the sense that the women involved attribute to their own role as university members, their desires and the obstacles encountered, and should highlight the transformational potential of an approach that accords centrality to the rich experience of being a woman or man in university teaching, investigation and management.

References

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Author Information

Anna Maria Piussi

University of Verona-Italy

Dept. of Educational Sciences

Verona

104

Remei Arnaus i Morral

Universitat de Barcelona

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