Addressing Gender Inequality in National Academic Contexts. An Introduction to the Symposium “Don’t Fix Women, Fix Academia?”

Ester Cois; Manuela Naldini; Cristina Solera

doi:10.6092/issn.1971-8853/18373

Authors

Ester Cois Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Cagliari https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7272-5682

Ester Cois, PhD in Comparative Social Research, is Researcher and Assistant Professor in Sociology of Environment and Territory at the University of Cagliari, where is Rector’s Delegate for Gender Equality and coordinator of the Interdisciplinary Center for Research and Gender Studies (CEING). From 2018 to 2022 she was engaged in the international UE-Horizon 2020 Project SUPERA - Supporting the Promotion of Equality in Research and Academia, and currently she’s the Italian referent of the Erasmus+ project SMILE - Social Meaning Impact through LLL Universities in Europe, in the Women in Leadership thematic area, and member of the Working Group TIER - Towards an Inclusive Evaluation of Research within the International Universities Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA). Her research interests focus on the topic of gender and age inequalities in the use of public space, and gender and generational dynamics in the labor market (with a specific focus in Higher Education sector) and in family choices.
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).
Cristina Solera Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Turin https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8233-6338

Cristina Solera is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Turin and Fellow of the Collegio Carlo Alberto (Italy). Mainly through a life course and comparative perspective, her research focusses on the effect of education and class on women’s labour market participation and fertility, on care-work reconciliation practices and policies, on gendered divisions of unpaid work and new models of fatherhood, on gender inequalities in the labour market. She has taken part to various national and international projects and networks, such as Network of Excellence Equalsoc (funded by the European Union’s Sixth Framework Programme) and Barriers Towards Eu Citizenship (funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme). She is currently engaged in the National Relevant Project Gendering Academia (funded by Italian Ministry of University and Research) about causes and consequences of gender inequalities in academic careers. She is the PI of an Horizon 2020 within "Science with and for Society" called MINDtheGEPs (www.mindthegeps.eu).

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.1971-8853/18373

Keywords:

Gender inequalities, Academia, gender structure, academic careers, inclusive policies

Abstract

Despite the progress made in recent years, achieving gender equality in academia is still a major challenge. In general, studies have revealed that women progress more slowly up the academic ladder, that they tend not to attain essential leadership roles, and that they earn less than men in comparable posts. Using the framework of gender as a social structure in order to capture the interplay between the cultural and the structural dimensions at the micro, meso and macro levels, this essay aims to introduce a debate on how gender inequalities are produced, reproduced and combatted in academic organisations located in different countries (Spain, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, and USA), and with different experiences of external policy levers and internal networks and alliances that lead to different combinations of fixing numbers, knowledge or institutions from a gender equity perspective.

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Addressing Gender Inequality in National Academic Contexts. An Introduction to the Symposium “Don’t Fix Women, Fix Academia?”

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