Problematising Excellence as a Legitimating Discourse

O’Connor, Pat; Barnard, Sarah

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-69687-0_3

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Male dominance is seen in men’s over-representation as researchers, project leaders, and decision-makers, as ‘gatekeepers’ shaping research agendas and allocating resources (Husu, 2004). Male informal networks and opaque recruitment processes facilitate men’s advancement, while biases blight supposedly objective evaluations of merit (Nielson, 2021; O’Connor and Barnard, 2021). Gender-blind policies and practices also disregard women’s socialization, biology, and the sexual division of labour, contributing to family un-friendly work-arrangements that hinder women’s advancement (Alonso and Diz, 2022).…”

Section: Resistance To Agenda-setting Gm In University Research: a Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming academic research? Resistances to gender mainstreaming implementation in universities

Tildesley

2023

European Journal of Women's Studies

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Resistance hinders the potential of gender equality strategies to modify institutional arrangements and challenge the status quo. Applying the integrationist or agenda-setting distinction of approaches to gender mainstreaming and drawing on feminist institutionalism and gender policy implementation theory, this article analyses resistances that undermine a more transformative agenda-setting approach to gender mainstreaming in university research settings. The analysis of qualitative data from a selection of three Catalan universities reveals implicit institutional resistance and individual opposition from research managers that contribute to integrationist approaches to gender mainstreaming and the ineffective implementation of actions that aim to achieve distinct gender equality in research goals. Despite the favourable policy context and rhetorical commitments in university gender equality plans and in research managers’ discourse, norms of meritocracy underlie resistance to actions that imply greater structural and cultural change, including research managers who lack knowledge of gender mainstreaming and participate minimally in implementation. Entrenched norms around research autonomy and the non-prioritization of gender inform more explicit resistance to actions that aim for a more gender-aware science, to incorporate the gender dimension into all research and to promote gender research, where progress is particularly slow.

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Section: Resistance To Agenda-setting Gm In University Research: a Th...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transforming academic research? Resistances to gender mainstreaming implementation in universities

Tildesley

2023

European Journal of Women's Studies

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“…Evidence problematizing the excellence discourse has begun to appear in the past 10 years in the Netherlands, Denmark, the UK, Ireland, etc. (Ferretti et al 2018;Nielsen 2016;O'Connor and Barnard 2021;O'Connor and O'Hagan 2016;Van den Brink andBenschop 2012a, 2012b). Thus, for example it has been shown that in Aarhus in Denmark as well as in the Netherlands, professorial chairs were frequently not publicly advertised, with an applicant being identified by acclamation as 'excellent'.…”

Section: Legitimating Discoursesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is gendered power irrelevant in higher educational institutions? Understanding the persistence of gender inequality

O’Connor

2023

Interdisciplinary Science Reviews

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For the past 30 years, many researchers have highlighted the gendering of higher educational institutions. However, many organizations in the broadly defined Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) area in the EU have varying degrees of interest, or academic staff available, in the gender equality area with many being largely unaware of this literature. This article draws provocatively on existing concepts to 'make sense' of the persistence of gender inequality. Such concepts include gendered organizational power, which is frequently taken-for-granted and is reflected at structural and cultural levels. The concept of legitimating discourses (including excellence, choice, women's 'nature' and organizational gender neutrality) helps to explain why gender inequality is not perceived. Other manifestations of institutional resistance to gender inequality provide insights into why it is not tackled effectively. The article recognizes that gendered change does occur and uses the metaphor of bonsai-ing to highlight attempts to limit the impact of such changes. Finally, it identifies some key issues that need to be tackled.

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“…One of the key characteristics of managerialism is a focus on key performance indicators, particularly research metrics, on the assumption that these are objective and gender-neutral (Felt, 2016; Morley, 2016). This meritocratic myth is still the taken-for-granted norm in STEM although it has begun to be challenged (Van Den Brink and Benschop, 2012; O’Connor and Barnard, 2021).…”

Section: Neoliberalism Academic Citizenship Organisational Patriarcha...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These relationships are particularly important in STEM because of its time-consuming devalued laboratory work; the typically longer periods of temporary contracts as postdocs there and the greater stress on collective outputs. With relationships continue to be more widely valued in some higher educational systems (such as Spain: Cruz-Castro and Sanz-Mendez, 2010; Vázquez-Cupeiro and Elston 2006) and although officially denigrated they continue to exist in other countries (Montes Lopez and O’Connor, 2019; O’Connor and Barnard, 2021; Nielsen, 2016). However (with the possible exception of sponsorship) these relationships have tended to fall into official disrepute in the face of neoliberalism's endorsement of what purport to be objective key performance indicators in a meritocratic discourse involving excellence as the basis for recruitment/promotion.…”

Section: Neoliberalism Academic Citizenship Organisational Patriarcha...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Probationary citizenship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in an Irish university: A disrupted patriarchal bargain?

O’Connor

2022

Irish Journal of Sociology

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The model for the creation of knowledge in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) involves the near total career dependence by probationary citizens on senior academics. In this article such probationary citizens include those at the early career stage, mainly but not exclusively post-doctoral researchers (postdocs). Traditionally, the implicit assumption was that senior academics would facilitate their access to a permanent position in return for a time limited period of exploitation as part of an organisational patriarchal bargain. This article is concerned with exploring how these probationary citizens came to access temporary positions, their experience of them and their perception of their future. Drawing on qualitative data from 13 probationary citizens, men and women, on two to five-year contracts in an Irish case study university, it shows that regardless of how they accessed probationary citizenship, their future was uncertain with no guarantee of a permanent academic position. The article raises questions about the valorisation of the highly dependent relationships between probationary citizens and permanent STEM academics as the main model for the creation of knowledge in STEM.

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Problematising Excellence as a Legitimating Discourse

Cited by 17 publications

References 48 publications

Transforming academic research? Resistances to gender mainstreaming implementation in universities

Transforming academic research? Resistances to gender mainstreaming implementation in universities

Is gendered power irrelevant in higher educational institutions? Understanding the persistence of gender inequality

Probationary citizenship in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in an Irish university: A disrupted patriarchal bargain?

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