ATN-WEXDEV 2003 RESEARCH CONFERENCE
"Re-searching Research Agendas: Women, Research and Publication in Higher Education"
Overview and Summary of Conference Sessions
The conference began with an International Colloquium: "Supporting Women into Management in Higher Education" convened by Dr Colleen Chesterman ATN-WEXDEV National Director. Colloquium means speaking together and the session was designed to focus on significant research findings and how to confront barriers and challenges for equity in leadership within higher education
Jen de Vries (University of Western Australia) presented on research spearheaded by Dr Joan Eveline, on the impact of a pro-gender equity female Vice-Chancellor, Professor Fay Gale. Themes that emerged were gender and leadership, the notion of culture, the greedy institution and workload issues, the politics of advantage, the elastic concept of academic merit (promotion and tenure processes), identity and power issues. It will be published as 'The Ivory Basement' in 2004 by UWA Press.
Photo: Professor Sharon Bell, Professor Sheryl Bond and Dr Colleen Chesterman
Dr Anne Ross-Smith (University of Technology, Sydney) a collaborator with Dr Colleen Chesterman and Dr Margaret Peters, described a Women and Management Cultures project, based on 255 interviews with senior male and female managers across public sector, private sector and 81 in higher education.) The project looked what supported and sustained women who had been in senior management and whether their presence changed the cultures of management of organisations. Interviews in higher education showed that many women were reticent about applying for senior level positions and responded to encouragement and mentoring from senior colleagues. Other issues included values, the concept of critical mass, collaboration and collegiality, conflicting demands.
Linley Lord (Curtin University of Technology, Perth) described research looking at the experience in leadership roles (defined as those that have staff and budget responsibilities) of academic women in Australian universities. At early stages of the analysis, a key finding was the sheer amount of work that women are doing. Other issues were the values that women bring to the work that they do, work and family, the issue of balance, women with children, trying to find a balance and 'accidental careers'.
Other speakers highlighted the subjects of the papers they were presenting. Professor Sheryl Bond (Queens University, Canada) described a research program, begun in 1995 in Canada, to explore why there were so few women in senior positions in higher education. Latest data in Canada shows higher education remained a single sex profession, with at the most 24% women in any category. Sheryl indicated that she was interested in collaborative research and was looking for partners. Jane Onsongo (Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Kenya) reported on a survey she did in 2002 on the factors affecting women's participation in university management. Kenya has 10 universities and there was only 1 woman vice-chancellor and a few women deputy vice-chancellors. Dr Barbara Bagilhole (Loughborough University, UK) and Dr Kate White (Victoria University of Technology, Melbourne) reported on their conviction that universities are created by men for men and that male hegemony was perpetuated. Professor Jenny Neale (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) reported on recent research looking at women in leadership in business and politics and also had spent 4 years working on the student experience as gendered. Professor Sharon Bell (Griffith) indicated that her interest was how we conceptualised leadership. She had embarked on a series of ethnographic studies of universities, looking at micro-organisational situations and how the culture of audit drove the value system of organisations. Dr Iftikar Hassan (Fatima Jinna Women's University in Pakistan) shared the findings of a research project completed in 1996, a cross-cultural study of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Laos, looking at why some women succeeded; it found that most had husbands and fathers who were supportive and mothers as role models.
Following the colloquium on women and management in higher education, the conference opening featured a challenging presentation by Hanifa Deen, urging women to 're-invent' themselves and not to be constrained by rigid societal expectations.
Four keynote speakers outlined the critical issues of the conference. Colleen Chesterman described the major issues facing women as researchers - late entry to academia, conflicting demands, concentrations in fields with limited access to major funds and less access to powerful networks. Julianne Cheek raised the important question of how government policy was directing and controlling research priorities, limiting research freedom. Lesley Johnson reflected on her own career, stressing the pleasures to be drawn from time devoted to research. Lawyer Stephanie Faulkner outlined the issues in intellectual property.
As well 50 papers and posters were presented in 17 sessions and it was emphasised in the many summaries of the sessions and e-mails of thanks that the 3 papers given in each session often resonated powerfully with each other.
One critical theme was the impact of gender on women in management. Bond (Canada) reported on evidence from 1700 academic administrators, which revealed that while both men and women reported stress-related illnesses, the incidence was higher for women, in particular single women who were more likely to have focused on careers. Bagilhole (UK) and White attacked continuing male hegemony in senior management, relating to the disjuncture between formal processes for promotion and appointment and informal processes. They argued that male domination perpetuated mediocrity, without an assessment of needed skills. Palermo broadened the focus to discuss research into the private sector, which showed that women's marginality in management related to the deep social rules and value systems of organisations.
In particular, presenters argued, women were excluded from the rituals of research culture; progress involved both questioning the growth of an 'audit' culture and resisting replication of existing male defined research strategies (Bell). A major UTS research project had shown that women faced problems because of family responsibilities, competing agendas and poor support systems; champions at senior level were needed (Wilson). A poster looked at issues in women's completing research degrees (Birch).
Photo: Conference organiser Barbara Groombridge (2nd from left) with keynote speakers
Professor LesleyJohnson, Professor Julianne Cheek, Dr Colleen Chesterman and
Stephanie Faulkner
Some women suffered additional discrimination. An Australia-wide survey of research assistants, predominantly women, presented a bleak picture of short-term contracts, exploitation and insecurity (Hobson et al).
Speakers highlighted the competing values between research and teaching, particularly in disciplines such as nursing (Henderson, Orb). Women often took on extra service and teaching roles at the expense of their research (Groombridge). Women Associate Professors had gained promotion but did not believe that they had got the balance between teaching and research right (Neale NZ).
Yet women's participation and leadership were urgently needed to drive research towards greater integration and 'quirky risk' in opposition to dominant global corporatism (Day).
Presenters from overseas highlighted issues similar to those experienced in Australia, but gave examples of more severe problems and higher levels of discrimination. In South Africa the 'transformation' agenda to remove vestiges of apartheid had a radical impact on higher education and research, as technikons had to upgrade research activity (Pretorius). 'Black' universities had no research culture; research into publication rates as between women from non-white racial backgrounds showed that women from Indian and coloured backgrounds were more successful than black women (Maurtin-Cairncross). In India, women had to struggle against gender role stereotyping such as responsibility for family that constrained women's capacity to build research careers (Gupta, Kishtwaria). In Papua New Guinea women were also affected by adverse cultural expectations; as well as researching they must function as agents of change (Sepoe). In Kenya research had only recently emerged as basis for promotion and women academics faced blatant discrimination such as being passed over for promotion even if their research was more directly relevant to the position (Onsongo). In Pakistan although the number of higher education institutions had expanded, women's participation was not growing proportionately (Khalil). Within a supposed commitment to gender equity, real problems still existed eg in rural villages and women had to struggle to succeed, despite some strong role models who had struggled against intense discrimination (Hassan). In Indonesia a survey of recent graduates had highlighted increasing levels of unemployment requiring the establishment of careers assistance at universities (Sitepu, Limbong).
Photo: Delegates from Pakistan, Indonesia and India
Papers on gendered disciplines and non-traditional fields looked at continuing discrimination against women in law (Kilpatrick), religious studies (Engbretson), geophysics (Smith) and professional music (Bennett). Discrimination could be embedded: for example women in economics specialised in social issues, such as health economics, not high profile global studies (S. Hopkins); and science and engineering pedagogy excluded women, seen as outside a community of practice (Wood, Canada).
There were a number of positive examples of successful interventions. Women professionals from teaching and nursing in Southern Queensland formed a writing support group (George et al). Writing retreats had proved successful in New Zealand (Grant) and writing networks Sydney University (Higgs), although publication remained a challenge requiring support and mentoring (Kulisa, Cooper). Establishing a non-traditional research centre at a rural university was valuable (Whiteford). Mentoring and coaching schemes had proved popular at UNSW (McLean et al) and at Curtin (Worden, Groombridge). Curtin had also introduced a range of strategies for raising the profile of research for women, including small seeding grants and networking meetings (Osborne et al). Some papers described successful practical programs of developing research in female-dominated disciplines such as medical radiation (Scutter) or dietietics (Snell).
Collaborative research relationships had after some difficulties provided great strength to women academics working across divisions (Scott et al). This had particular benefits when collaborative teams involved clinicians and academics (Wynaden). Collaboration and innovation became particularly important in emerging fields of art and technology (Wolmark,UK, Gates-Stuart). But cross-discplinary qualitative research required major management with clashes of philosophy and methods (Higgs 2).
Particular styles of research produced problems. Research into 'sensitive' areas such as health had an impact on the researchers which was often not taken into account (Dickson-Swift). Action research and research into teaching methods was not valued or published (Fyfe, Rennie). Feminist research and publication by providing safe spaces for discussion had limited impact on the male-stream eg in management analysis (Ross-Smith). But feminist research also provided opportunities for pleasure and passion, which should be reflected in its techniques (L. Hopkins).
Research ethics and techniques were also questioned and university policies were described as too narrow and limiting exploratory research. The contradictions between formal research protocols and broad-based, inclusive research methodologies suggested that contemporary social research struggled with the role of the research participant and diminished researchers' ability to accurately hear and represent a diversity of voices and stories (Eversole). Great sensitivity was needed in research in indigenous communities (March). Programs and research for rural women needed to involve and empower those women (Dunn). International postgraduate students often faced rigid expectations, social, cultural and gendered, from the supervisors (Brook). Gender, in multilayered identities, reflected diversity and written text must be interrogated from these perspectives (Pasqualini). And a poster demonstrated ways of maintaining a healthy balance (Woolmer).
Summarising papers such as these in one line is unreasonable. Interested readers can find the abstracts, under the surnames listed above, on http://lsn.curtin.edu.au/leadership/atn-resconf/index.html or via the wexdev home-page.
Barbara Groombridge and Vera Mackie have edited refereed papers from the 2003 ATN WEXDEV Conference on Women and Research at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. This is a rich collection with papers on gender and research productivity from Canada, Kenya, Papua New Guinea and South Africa, as well as Australia