Generating greater gender justice for diverse students, academics and professional staff is currently stated as a priority for higher education institutions and this is encouraged by many national governments and international policymakers (e.g. European Institute for Gender Equity, 2022; OECD, 2023). Paradoxically, universities are both places where knowledge and theories about justice are taught and developed but also spaces in which inequities are reproduced and even exacerbated daily (McLean et al, 2019). However, initiatives aimed at generating equities for students, academics and others have been a longstanding and burgeoning trend in universities' but inequalities of genders, sexualities, ethnicities, (dis)abilities, and more remain intransigent (Ahmed, 2021; Bhopal, 2016; Blackmore, 2022; Dolmage, 2018). It is striking that intersecting gender inequalities are a global phenomenon across universities. Whilst there is variation in the specific types of inequalities, what they look like and how they play out in national contexts, there are vertical inequalities (with different genders being focused in particular disciplines being the most well-understood) and horizontal inequalities (with males prevalent in taking up higher status and more influential positions) across the international higher education sector (EIGE, 2022). Even those disciplines most enmeshed in building knowledge that explains inequities, such as the social sciences and humanities, have the same inequities embedded within their research, teaching and administration: within universities and in their professional associations and conferences (Biggs et al 2018)). Consequently, there are questions about how those of us who work in universities can remain hopeful and try to generate more just relationships and practices from within the unequal academy.
The four papers presented in this session present research that is making significant efforts to generate changes toward greater equity. They focus on intersecting gender inequalities. The first presentation relates to a project called Women Can, which is taking place at the University of Bath, UK. It is funded by UKRI (national research funding) and it focuses on how promotion practices might be changed to address a lack of women taking up leadership positions in universities. The second, third and fourth papers are linked by a UNESCO Global Chair Project, led by the University of Newcastle Australia and are partly funded (in the University of Bath, UK and Cairo University Egypt) by the British Council. All focus on attempting to promote equity in STEM by generating research findings exploring how staff in Engineering and STEM faculties see current equity practices and then working with colleagues in these faculties to turn these findings into materials that can be used in pedagogical work with faculty members to co-construct knowledge and practices for their contexts. Each university team works independently on their project but they are related and we learn and work together to build understanding and practices. The projects are theoretically framed with critical and transformative theories and they use pedagogical methodologies and critical pedagogical approaches as fit their contexts (Burke et al, 2016; Burke and Lumb (2018).
