Investigating the Glass Ceiling in Italian Academia. Women’s Strategies and Barriers to Career Advancement

Maddalena Cannito; Manuela Naldini; Arianna Santero

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/17592

Authors

Maddalena Cannito Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9979-8080

Maddalena Cannito holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Change. She is Post-doctoral Researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa (Italy). Her research interests are in the field of masculinities studies, gender studies and sociology of the family, declined in three macro areas. The first deals with the social construction of masculinity, fatherhood and gender roles in welfare, public and private work environments and within the family. The second has to do with national, local and corporate policies for family, parenting and work-life balance. The third deals with male violence against women and territorial networking to address it.
Manuela Naldini Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3433-7598

Manuela Naldini is Full Professor of Sociology of the Family at the University of Turin and Fellow of the Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy). She has coordinated several national and international research projects on topics related to family changes, comparative studies of welfare states, gender studies, work-family reconciliation issues, migrant families and, more recently, gendering academia. Currently she is the P.I. of the Gendering Academia project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Research as Project of National Interest (PRIN).
Arianna Santero Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0165-2567

Arianna Santero, PhD, is a Researcher in Sociology at the University of Turin. Her research expertise lies in the field of gender and intergenerational relations, family practices, education and migration processes, social policies, longitudinal qualitative methods and mixed methods. She has participated in international and national research projects on changing families, work-life balance, inequalities and welfare.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/17592

Keywords:

Glass ceiling, Career advancement, Leadership positions, Italian academia, Academic work

Abstract

The underrepresentation of women in academia at the top levels, the so-called “glass ceiling phenomenon”, is still an issue also in Italian universities. Women, in fact, remain significantly underrepresented especially in full professorships and leadership positions, with only slightly changes over the years. Using 46 semi-structured interviews with 31 female associate professors and 15 female members of the departmental governance working in 4 Italian universities, the article explores this phenomenon looking at two aspects. On one side, it explores the barriers to access to full professorships and managerial positions in Italian academy, in particular the motherhood penalty, the gendered allocations of activities and the gendered construction of leadership. On the other, the essay looks at the individual strategies implemented by women to overcome or to cope with them. The analysis shows the interdependence between structural and cultural barriers and the alleged individual self-selective strategies of women.

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Investigating the Glass Ceiling in Italian Academia. Women’s Strategies and Barriers to Career Advancement

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