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22 April, 2014 Absent Talent: Womens Participation in Higher Education Leadership and Research Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and.

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Presentation on theme: "22 April, 2014 Absent Talent: Womens Participation in Higher Education Leadership and Research Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and."— Presentation transcript:

1 22 April, 2014 Absent Talent: Womens Participation in Higher Education Leadership and Research Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer

2 22 April, 2014 Snapshot Statistics: Women Vice-Chancellors Aust EU HKIndia JP MalKuw Swe Tur UK 18% 13% 0% 3%2.3% 15% 2% 43% 7%14%

3 22 April, 2014 Some Provocations The global academy prides itself on innovation and hypermodernism (Morley, 2011). The archaism of male-dominated leadership remains. Does fair participation in the knowledge economy overlap with gendered social hierarchies (Walby, 2011)? Female undergraduate enrolment in HE has risen almost twice as fast as that of men over the last 4 decades (UNESCO, 2012). Is this translating into enhanced career opportunities for women in academia?

4 22 April, 2014 Missing Senior Women Are women desiring, dismissing or being disqualified from academic leadership? Who self-identifies/ is identified by existing power elites, as having leadership legitimacy? Is leader identity still constituted through gendered power relations? Do cultural scripts for leaders coalesce or collide with normative gender performances? How does gender continue to escape organisational logic/rationalities?

5 22 April, 2014 Consequences of Absence of Leadership Diversity Employment/ Opportunity Structures Democratic Deficit Distributive injustice/ Structural Prejudice. Depressed career opportunities. Misrecognition of leadership potential/ wasted talent. Service Delivery Knowledge Distortions, Cognitive/ Epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) Reproduction of Institutional Norms and Practices. Margins/ Mainstream hegemonies, with women, minority staff seen as Organisational Other.

6 22 April, 2014 Impeding Diversity in Senior Leadership Are certain groups, styles, talents and potential mis-recognised/ perceived as too risky? (Fitzgerald, 2011). Do dominant groups continue to appoint in own image/ clone themselves? (Gronn & Lacey, 2006). Is leadership still synonymous with structural positions and traditional types and displays of masculinity (Davies & Thomas, 2002). Are informal practices e.g. networks, head-hunters searches reproducing privilege? (Watson, 2008). Does decision-making lack transparency/ accountability? (Rees, 2011).

7 22 April, 2014 Gendered Narratives of the Ideal Leader Maleness = resource (productivity, competitiveness, hierarchy, strategy, authority) (Hearn, 2009). Femaleness = negative equity (other)/ difference /spoiled identity (Fitzgerald, 2011). Practices/norms/performances reflect the life situations/ interests of men? (Billing, 2011).

8 22 April, 2014 Focus on East Asia

9 22 April, 2014 Fastest Growing Higher Education Sector in the World Gross undergraduate enrolment ratio of men increased from 11% in 1970 to 26% in 2009. The ratio for women in the same period tripled from 8% to 28%, now exceeding male participation.

10 22 April, 2014 Quality not Equality Hong Kong 8 universities 3 in Global Top 50 No Female vice-chancellor Japan 86 (national) universities 3 in Global Top 50 2 Female vice-chancellors (1 women-only)

11 22 April, 2014 Collecting New Evidence: British Council Global Education Dialogue Workshops in Hong Kong and Tokyo 47 Workshop Participants (China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, UK, Vietnam). 13 Questionnaire Respondents (Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand) 9 Panel discussants (Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, UK) 4 papers (the Philippines, Malaysia Japan x2) The rationale, attractions/ deterrents, enablers, impediments for women entering senior leadership.

12 22 April, 2014 Why Diversify Leadership? Extending the Leadership Repertoire We do need different kinds of voices, different kinds of leadership to be accepted ( Japanese discussant). Widening the Talent Pool for Sustainability We have to draw on the whole talent pool to have sustainability. We have to... bring different ways of knowing and different ways of interpreting language and interpreting discourse to the table will provide us with many opportunities to fully understand problems and achieve greater sustainable solutions (UK discussant). Global Solutions The society wont be able to survive in globalization (Japanese respondent). Modernisation To be the leader in higher education is something to show everyone that the world is now changing (Thai respondent).

13 22 April, 2014 Identity Simply as a Demographic Variable? Representation: Not always transformative New constituencies expected to assimilate and conform to normative practices Not all women are gender sensitive Do women continue to lack capital (economic, political, social and symbolic) to redefine the requirements of the field (Corsun & Costen, 2001)?

14 22 April, 2014 What Makes Senior Leadership Attractive to Women? Social and Organisational Responsibility Desire to diversify leadership/ make it more representative of the wider population. Opportunity to modernise, influence, transform the academy. Personal Rewards Achievement/ career progress/ financial gain. Flexible working arrangements.

15 22 April, 2014 Why is Senior Leadership Unattractive to Women? The expanding, audited, neo-liberalised, competitive, performance-driven, globalised academy. Male-dominated culture. Oppositional relationship between leadership and scholarship. Affective load e.g. managing occupational stress, conflict, anxiety, morale, disappointment, resistance, pessimism and recalcitrance (Acker, 2012). Co-existing and contradictory identifications. The signifier woman reduces the authority of the signifier leader. Greedy organisations. Navigating between professional and domestic responsibilities.

16 22 April, 2014 Glass Cliffs, Poisoned Chalices: Metaphors of Danger, Precariousness and Instability Perception that senior leadership positions will prevent research and teaching in their discipline; perception of negative political environment; fear of the glass cliff – there are many examples of women achieving senior leadership only to find it a poisoned chalice – i.e. the role becomes available when conditions are such that there is no chance of success (Australian respondent).

17 22 April, 2014 What Enables Women to Enter Leadership?

18 22 April, 2014 Recognition Support Training/ Development/ Capacity-Building Mentorship, Advice and Sponsorship Policy contexts Legislative frameworks Effective advocacy Leadership identities and capacities = forged in relation to how women are seen and invested in by others.

19 22 April, 2014 Decoding the Rules of the Game (Morley, 2013) Build the research credentials, experience, confidence and acknowledgement to achieve appointment to leadership roles requires sustained focus within a particular discipline over many years. It also requires the capacity to play politics, be aligned with the right people, get publications in the right journals and win research grants…knowing how to play the promotions process and be recognised as being of merit (Australian respondent).

20 22 April, 2014 What Impedes Women from Entering Leadership?

21 22 April, 2014 Cultural Climate/Hidden Curriculum Womens aspirations/ career orientations depressed by: Mis-recognition Unsympathetic classification of womens skills, knowledge and potential Hostility, discrimination, toxic social relations Favouring of men My university is an inbreeding society. And I received academic harassment and could not get professorship at then university and moved a new university and finally received professorship there. It took so long years in comparison with other male teachers (Japanese respondent).

22 22 April, 2014 Socio-Cultural Norms: The Educated Woman as the Third Sex Happiness = traditional choices/norms Unhappiness = de-traditionalisation (Ahmed, 2010) Leadership/ HE = transgression Social and affective consequences. A saying that people can be classified into three categories: male, female, and female PhD (Chinese respondent). Even now, young women dont want to go to the University of Tokyo because their parents say that if you go to the University of Tokyo you wont be able to get married, you wont be able to be happy (Japanese discussant).

23 22 April, 2014 Gendered Division of Labour Incompatibility of womens caring responsibilities with the temporalities and rhythms of academia (Cheung & Halpern, 2010). A woman in Japan has to take care of her children, as well as both her parents, and sometimes even her husband's parents, besides the domestic duties on daily life. They do not have enough time to concentrate on doing research. And the percentage female university teachers in Japan who do not marry is 47.5 per cent (Japanese respondent).

24 22 April, 2014 Sex Role Spillover Women tasked with inward-facing responsibilities e.g. teaching and student support. Male counterparts more external-facing e.g. international networks and research. A rather bitter memory of a line manager (of the opposite sex) beating me out of an opportunity for funding assistance. The line manager was constantly travelling and on leave and having taken on studies was constantly away on study leave too. This gave me no space to focus on expanding my career and when opportunities arose, I was talked out of applying and no importance was placed on professional development for fear that there will be a gap and no one to man the fort so to speak (Malaysian respondent).

25 22 April, 2014 Summary of Research Findings The under-representation of women leaders in higher education is a form of distributive, cognitive and epistemic injustice. Lack of diversity is an indicator of archaism in a hypermodernising sector. Diversity is important for sustainability in a globalised knowledge economy. Potent socio-cultural messages still exist about what is gender appropriate. Women are entering middle management, but are not being identified, supported and developed to become the most senior leaders in universities. Women are often located on career pathways that do not lead to senior positions. Time for action for change.

26 22 April, 2014 Manifesto for Change: Accountability, Transparency, Development and Data Equality as Quality - equality should be made a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in quality audits, with data to be returned on percentage and location of women professors and leaders, percentage and location of undergraduate and postgraduate students and gender pay equality. Gender equity achievements should be included in international recognition and reputation for universities in league tables. Research Grants - funders should monitor the percentage of applications and awards made to women and to actively promote more women as principal investigators. The applications procedures should be reviewed to incorporate a more inclusive and diverse philosophy of achievement. Gender implications and impact should also be included in assessment criteria. Journals - Editorial Boards, and the appointment of editors, need more transparent selection processes, and policies on gender equality e.g. to keep the gender balance in contributions under review. Data - a global database on women and leadership in higher education should be established. Development - more investment needs to be made in mentorship and leadership development programmes for women and gender needs to be included in existing leadership development programmes. Mainstreaming - work cultures should be reviewed to ensure that diversity is mainstreamed into all organisational practices and procedures.

27 22 April, 2014 Follow Up? Morley, L. (2013) International Trends in Womens Leadership in Higher Education In, T. Gore, and M. Stiasny (eds) Going Global. London, Emerald Press. Morley, L. (2013) "The Rules of the Game: Women and the Leaderist Turn in Higher Education " Gender and Education. 25(1):116-131. CHEER http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/


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