Overview
- Asks why gender inequality persists in the higher education system.
- Outlines the manifestations of organizational resistance to gender inequality.
- Dismantles excellence, choice, essentialist and other misleading discourses to explore how far universities can be agents for change.
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education (GED)
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About this book
This book examines persistent gender inequality in higher education, and asks what is preventing change from occurring. The editors and contributors argue that organizational resistance to gender equality is the key explanation; reflected in the endorsement of discourses such as excellence, choice, distorted intersectionality, revitalized biological essentialism and gender neutrality. These discourses implicitly and explicitly depict the status quo as appropriate, reasonable and fair: ultimately impeding efforts and attempts to promote gender equality. Drawing on research from around the world, this book explores the limits and possibilities of challenging these harmful discourses, focusing on the state and universities themselves as levers for change. It stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women’s deceptively ‘small victories’ in the academy.
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Keywords
Table of contents (9 chapters)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Pat O’Connor is Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Limerick, Ireland, and Visiting Professor at the Geary Institute, University College Dublin, Ireland. She is a sociologist with a focus on gender equality in higher education institutions: particularly leadership, excellence, micropolitics, gender-based violence, equality related interventions and women’s academic careers.
Kate White is Adjunct Associate Professor at Federation University Australia and Director of the Women in Higher Education Management Network. Her research focuses on gender equality and leadership in higher education, women’s academic careers and women in science.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Gender, Power and Higher Education in a Globalised World
Editors: Pat O'Connor, Kate White
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in Gender and Education
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69687-0
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Education, Education (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69686-3Published: 25 August 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69689-4Published: 26 August 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-69687-0Published: 24 August 2021
Series ISSN: 2524-6445
Series E-ISSN: 2524-6453
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 226
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Gender and Education, Gender Studies, Business Strategy/Leadership, Gender Studies, Higher Education, Administration, Organization and Leadership