ECER 2022 Paper

A growing European literature explores how diverse female academics navigate the systemic and intersecting disadvantages and privileges they encounter in their careers (Baker, 2010; Bourabain, 2021; Lipton, 2020; Luidvika and Bengü, 2021; Silander et al, 2021). Academics enact gendered forms of agency in disciplines differently according to their intersecting identities and with different contextual opportunities to produce, reproduce, exacerbate, challenge, and perhaps even overturn, some of the usual forms of gendered inequality (Angervall, 2020).  For example, disciplinary environments have different numbers of men, women, black and minority ethnic staff and students, LGBTQI+ staff and those with disabilities (Abbas, 2019; (Bourabain, 2021; Britton, 2017). In the social sciences and humanities where this paper is focused, intersecting gendered inequalities have insufficiently changed even though environments are somewhat transformed (Ahmed, 2021; Bhopal, 2020; Vaquez-Cupeiro and Elston, 2006).   For example, Ahmed (2021) demonstrates that complaints processes in UK universities are themselves barriers to preventing such behaviours such as bullying and harassment.   

We explore how intersecting gendering takes place through experience and career decision making, in relation to 10 women and 4 men, illustrating the role of gendered forms of agency, over 10 years of participants careers, as conceptualized through a feminist interpretation of Margaret Archer's (2003, 2007, 2012) framework.  Our framework suggests that in navigating the 'objective structural or cultural powers' that shape our lives and in making plans that can influence our social outcomes, our different contexts and the types of decision making undertaken, affect individuals’ careers and whether they contribute to moving the academic environment towards greater levels of equity (Archer, 2007, p.21; Archer 2012).   Making decisions and exercising agency, produce new intersecting genderings and make new possibilities.

The four types reflexivity underpinning decision making are considered important in relation to natal and career experiences. The first three are considered by Archer as coherent strategies or approaches: a) communicative reflexivity which arises from continuity of background and decisions are made in consultation with one or two intimate others whose needs and perspectives are valued and trusted; b) autonomous reflexivity, characterised by a break with background and decisions are carried out and resolved in the heads of the individual themselves and orientated towards getting on in their careers; c) meta-reflexivity is also related to disassociation with natal background but is driven by ideals, values and commitments to a project. The fourth form, fractured reflexivity is seen as a form of breaking of the capacity for the necessary reflexivity, and there are a complex set of outcomes and consequences. Fracturing can be a temporary state or for a sustained period of people’s lives.

We give examples of how all of these forms of reflexivity have gendered aspects which have shaped academics experiences and careers during the turbulent times between 2010, when UK government withdrew block funding from the social sciences and humanities and our participants began their careers (a competitive and marketised environment), onward through and towards the post-pandemic in 2021-2022 when the last interviews were conducted. We illustrate how these four different styles of reflexivity are important to this gendered analysis the context of higher education and how the notion of a   transforming ‘a logic of opportunity’ is useful for understanding academic careers (Archer, 2012). 

The study participants were 14 academics (10 women and 4 men) who werer based in social sciences and humanities in the UK, beginning their careers at a time when these disciplines had just become fully funded through fees in two universities: one elite university and one low-status university. The two types of universities were differently impacted by the new fees policy and the academics within them also had varying experiences according to where they were situated. They have shared with us accounts of their lives and career trajectories over a period of 10-11 years between 2011-2022. This includes a period covering the recent COVID pandemic. The empirical data was generated firstly through an interview with each participant, around a life-grid which explored key aspects of participants lives and education from childhood, in order that participants decision making within academia could be contextualized within an understanding of a longer life tractory (Abbas et al, 2014). In the first interview, the life grid was followed by a longer interview about the experience of their career to date. The interview lasted around an hour. Then over the period participants were interviewed every 2-3 years (timespans depending on availability and life ciricumstances). We have the complete set of 4 interviews with 12 of the participants and 3 interviews with the remaining 2. The academics were (with one exception) in the first 3 years of their first permanent post. One was initially on a temporary contract. lt. One was initally on a temproary contract. Interviews were shaped by questions that allowed us to explore different aspects of their lives, to explore their overall preoccupations, experiences and their reflections on successes, failures, constraints, and changes influenced by agency. A descriptive coding framework was generated from the interviews and life-grids. Thematic coding of data was generated from the data and a synopsis of their overall lives has been developed for each participant and shared with them. Corrections have been made where this has been asked for. This combination of narrative analysis and thematic analysis forms the basis of this paper.

The analysis for this paper will be completed by the conference. The data is generated and coded. The outcome of our analysis will be an account of the degree to which the literature on gendered decision-making is added to by our analysis and the ways in which it throws new light on entrenched problems in the context of the shifting and more diverse terrain of higher education will be discussed.

Ahmed, S. (2021 (Complaint! Durham: Duke University Press. Angervall, Petra, and Dennis Beach. "Dividing Academic Work: Gender and Academic Career at Swedish Universities." Gender and Education 32.3 (2020): 347-62. Web. Baker, Maureen. "Choices or Constraints? Family Responsibilities, Gender and Academic Careers." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 41.1 (2010): 1. Web. Bhopal, Kalwant. "SUCCESS AGAINST THE ODDS: THE EFFECT OF MENTORING ON THE CAREERS OF SENIOR BLACK AND MINORITY ETHNIC ACADEMICS IN THE UK." British Journal of Educational Studies 68.1 (2020): 79-95. Web. Bourabain, D. (2021) 'Everyday sexism and racism in the ivory tower: The experiences of early career researchers on the intersection of gender and ethnicity in the academic workplace', Gender, Work & Organization, 28(1), pp. 248-268. Britton, D. M. (2017) 'BEYOND THE CHILLY CLIMATE: The Salience of Gender in Women's Academic Careers', Gender & society, 31(1), pp. 5-27. Lipton, Briony. Academic Women in Neoliberal Times. 1st Ed. 2020. ed. Cham: Springer International : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education. Web. Leisyte, Liudvika. "Changing Academic Roles and Shifting Gender Inequalities: A Case Analysis of the Influence of the Teaching-Research Nexus on the Academic Career Prospects of Female Academics in the Netherlands." Journal of Workplace Rights 17.3/4 (2013): 467-91. Web. Silander, Charlotte, Ulrika Haake, Leif Lindberg, and Ulla Riis. "Nordic Research on Gender Equality in Academic Careers: A Literature Review." European Journal of Higher Education (2021): 1-26. Web. Vázquez-Cupeiro, Susana, and Mary Ann Elston. "Gender and Academic Career Trajectories in Spain: From Gendered Passion to Consecration in a Sistema Endogámico?" Employee Relations 28.6 (2006): 588-603. Web.