‘Keeping your eye on the prize’: gender equality programmes in enterprise universities

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Abstract

This paper explores the material impact of major transformations in the Australian academic field upon a group of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse academic women leaders1 who, because of their varying degrees of seniority, were positioned as key ’change agen(ts)’ in their diverse locales (Yeatman 1995: 203). It examines two key questions. Firstly, despite long term policies of equity and diversity, how are such women leaders positioned in a field in which to be an academic leader/manager still requires that one both ’masculinises and whitens’? (Williams 1991 cited in Reay 2004: 31). Secondly, given the small amount of research upon such women and the largely unexamined assumption underpinning educational studies which posits white and middle-class as the naturalized subject location of leadership (Fitzgerald 2003, Wilkinson 2005), what learnings can we draw from these women’s experiences in relation to gender equality programmes in universities?
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationGender Equality Programmes in Higher Education
Subtitle of host publicationInternational Perspectives
EditorsSabine Grenz, Beate Kortendiek, Marianne Kriszio, Andrea Löther
Place of PublicationWiesbaden Germany
PublisherVS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften
Pages101-118
Number of pages18
Edition1st
ISBN (Electronic)9783531912189
ISBN (Print)9783531161419
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008
Externally publishedYes

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