The COVID-19 Pandemic, Academia, Gender, and Beyond: A Review

Abstract

This article aims to engage critically with the scholarly narratives and the emerging literature on the gender impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in academia. It outlines the key contours and themes in these scholarly discourses and conceptions, acknowledging their richness, depth and strengths especially given the short timespan within which they have developed since 2020. The article then suggests broadening and historicising the critique advanced by the literature further. In doing so, the hierarchies and vulnerabilities exposed in the academic domain by the pandemic are positioned within a holistic understanding of crisis-ridden characteristics of social relations under capitalism.

Organising the labour of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic in Canadian universities

“…One study found that, amongst Irish university students, there was a 'significantly lower perceived online readiness in the more experienced "during COVID" cohort compared to "pre-COVID" cohort' , with the sudden immersion in an entirely digital learning environment being an influential factor (Power et al, 2022: 1). While online readiness is not specific to online learning, Dönmez (2022) highlights how the pandemic exacerbated already unequal gendered patterns and dynamics in academic productivity, academic work/household divide and work-life balance.…”