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In 1983 a group of women based in Sydney published a monograph, Why So Few?. Using quantitative and qualitative data, they compared the experiences and perceptions of men and women in three universities in Sydney as well as what was then the New South Wales Institute of Technology. The study provided a detailed analysis of the extent and character of women's participation in these four institutions. Among the issues explored was the question of whether there were gender differences in the productivity of staff in the area of research. In pursuing this question, Bettina Cass, the author of this particular section of the monograph, noted that a survey conducted in the late 1970s by the Federation of Australian Universities' Staff Associations (FAUSA) had found that only approximately 50 per cent of academic staff were involved in research. She also reported that no differences were found in this new study between the research outputs of male and female staff, if the position and rank of staff were held constant.
Four significant changes have occurred since the publication of Why So Few? relevant to the issue of women and research productivity in universities. The policy environment for women has been transformed with the introduction of the Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act in 1986. A number of major shifts have occurred in the way in which feminists conceptualise issues of women's participation in organisations such as universities. Higher education institutions like the New South Wales Institute of Technology have become universities with the establishment of the Unified National System in 1988 (in this instance, the University of Technology, Sydney, one of the universities investigated in this particular study). And all universities now place a far greater emphasis on the research productivity of their staff, in response particularly to the changes in university funding which occurred with the introduction of the Unified National System.
The last two of these changes are examined, at least in part, in other sections of the report. In this chapter, previous studies of women academics, particularly in relation to issues concerning their participation in research, will be the major focus. Some discussion of the different conceptual frameworks now circulating within feminism relevant to such studies will also be provided in this context. The issues raised by this literature will be explored in relation to the changing research environment in the Australian higher education system and the specific position of women in post-1987 universities.
Three broadly different approaches can be identified to the position of women academics in universities. These can be summarised as focusing on:
These approaches will be discussed in the following sections of this chapter. But before this literature is reviewed, a brief account of some recent studies on research productivity will provide certain insights into the environment in which the issue of women's productivity has arisen.
A number of issues have emerged over the last decade or so in relation to the productivity of academics as researchers. The first is concerned with how to measure such productivity. This focus reflects the changes to university funding since the late 1980s, but also the increasing calls to improve the efficiency and public accountability of universities. Though questions about the appropriateness of using performance indicators in higher education have been raised in various contexts (for example, Mackay 1994; Wells 1995), they have acquired particular importance in the area of research where a certain proportion of universities' operating grants (the Research Quantum) is now dependent on their performance on both 'input' measures - quantity and type of funds received - and 'output' measures - publications and other types of outcomes.
Julie Wells (1995) has raised a number of issues about the use of performance indicators and their implications for female staff. In the area of research, she points out that the current emphasis on quantity of funds disadvantages those disciplines in which women tend to be concentrated, such as the humanities, which are less likely to attract or require large grants. Similarly, she suggests that current weightings used to determine the relative importance of various output measures emphasise the international refereed journal article, thereby reflecting a scientific model that disadvantages women who are under-represented as a group in the scientific disciplines.
A second issue that has received some attention in relation to research productivity in universities is the extent to which all academics are involved in research. As indicated above, the 1977 Report produced by FAUSA suggested that the number of university academics involved in research at that time was relatively small. Although there have been some changes in this pattern, recent studies suggest that many academics continue to be far from productive researchers. Paul Ramsden quotes a number of investigations of British and North American universities to indicate that this phenomena is by no means exclusive to Australia. 'There is no clear evidence', he suggests, 'that Australian academics are more or less productive than their overseas counterparts' (Ramsden 1994: 209). Though he acknowledges difficulties with how productivity is measured, Ramsden (1994: 209) notes a consistent conclusion in both the Australian and overseas literature on research output that 'most publications are produced by a small number of academics and that many faculties produce little or nothing'. Using data from a 1989 survey of eighteen Australian higher education institutions, eight of which were pre-1987 universities, Ramsden found that 14 per cent of staff in this latter group of institutions produced 50 per cent of the total output of publications, 50 per cent had produced 87 per cent of this output, and 12 per cent of staff reported they had published nothing in the previous five year period (Ramsden 1994: 218). In the post-1987 universities, this pattern, not surprisingly, was even more marked.
Finally, studies of research productivity have focused on the factors influencing academics' commitment and level of activity in this area. In part, these particular issues have arisen as university administrators and policy makers have sought to establish what has been referred to as a 'research culture' either in the post-1987 universities or in the non-traditional areas for universities such as nursing. But they have also emerged in the context of increasing emphasis on performance-based funding. Characteristics of individuals have been studied (such as age, rank and gender); attitudinal factors investigated (such as commitment to teaching and research); and environmental factors have been examined.
Recent studies appear to confirm the findings of the report, Why so Few?, that gender does not appear to be correlated with research productivity if rank, age and discipline are retained as constant. However, it is important to note in this context the continuing pattern of women's employment as academics. As the report, Limited Access (Castleman 1995), makes clear, women tend to lag behind men in their rates of permanency and seniority in academic employment and this pattern is repeated even in institutions and disciplines where women are well represented. In other words, by holding the age, rank and discipline constant, to examine possible gender differences in research productivity, it is merely demonstrated that there is no necessary or natural correlation between gender and level of research activity.
A major focus of investigation in the area of attitudinal factors has been the question of the relationship between commitment to teaching and research. Ramsden and Moses (1992) argue that teaching effectiveness and scholarly productivity are negatively correlated, particularly in relation to undergraduate teaching. Using pre-1987 universities, technological institutions and a small sample from College of Advanced Educations, no causal relationship could be found overall in their study between the quality of teaching and level of involvement in research. However, they noted a slight positive association between their teaching and research measures for the CAE sub-sample in their study. The smallness of the sample in this instance did not enable them to draw any conclusions about this finding. The issue of whether there are gender differences in the extent to which commitment to or effectiveness in teaching and research are linked was not explored in this study and does not appear to have been examined in any other similar investigations.
Ramsden (1994) reports finding that both structural factors and personal variables appear to combine to determine levels of research productivity among academics. The main personal factors he points to are:
These variables predispose the individual towards higher rates of research activity and publication, but, he suggests, perceptions about the extent to which cooperative management structures, participative governance and collaborative leadership operate in their particular department or academic unit also appear to determine whether individuals are productive. Ramsden's study, as noted above, focused on eighteen higher education institutions, of which eight were pre-1987 universities. He notes that although 'these universities and their staff are on average more productive, the most productive research units and staff are not invariably located in these institutions' (Ramsden 1994: 223-224).
Fiona Wood (1990) conducted a more narrowly focused investigation of research productivity in one Australian university. Her study supports many of the conclusions of Ramsden. However, two additional points are of interest for this project. She argues that the personal characteristics that are important in accounting for the difference in research productivity among staff include 'ability, creativity, motivation, self-discipline and ambition'; single-mindedness, a certain ruthlessness about pursuing research to the exclusion of other responsibilities, she suggests, seems to be important in a context where academics feel they have heavy teaching loads or considerable demands on their time (Wood 1990: 94-5). She also draws attention to major variations between different disciplines in research productivity and the 'hidden productivity' of staff in areas where their activities are not recognised as research, particularly in the areas of the Performing Arts (Wood 1990: 95)
Contemporary feminist analyses of the position of women in major organisations are quick to criticise studies which focus purely on the characteristics of women and the factors that might be preventing them from full participation in those institutions. It is argued that instead of focusing on 'the problem of women', far more attention needs to be paid to 'the politics of privilege' (Ramsay 1995) in which male characteristics and life patterns are made the norm, thereby marginalising the activities, experiences and characteristics of women.
This argument is an important one. Thus, it is not sufficient to investigate whether certain characteristics of women as a population might prevent their full participation in the research activities and mission of a university. Such an analysis needs to be undertaken with an awareness of the importance of other issues. Questions need to be asked, for example, about what counts as research, how the institution organises and values different aspects of an academic's work, and how certain norms operate about appropriate approaches to research and an academic career which appear more applicable to the life patterns and ways of operating in the world of men. As the Women in Science, Engineering and Technology Advisory Group (1995: 15) noted, more attention needs to be given to correcting institutional and structural impediments to women's participation, as well as changing attitudes and behaviours of men, boys, women and girls.
At the same time, however, arguments about certain norms being male rather than female, need to be treated with caution. These arguments can themselves become normative, claiming that particular characteristics, ways of operating in the world, and so on, are necessarily female (or male). There may be common patterns of life among women (or men) and certain distinctive ways in which women are constituted as women (female identities) by institutions like universities, but these do not necessarily become how all women operate or understand themselves. The following discussion of the literature on women's participation in research will be undertaken with these issues in mind. As will become clear; they are intertwined.
Characteristics of Women as a Group
An issue frequently canvassed about possible differences between men and women in relation to research productivity is whether women demonstrate a greater interest in teaching. In the light of the research by Ramsden and Moses (1992) quoted above, any such orientation would suggest a possible associated lack of orientation to research. However, Bettina Cass cast doubt on such a claim over ten years ago in her chapter in Why so Few?. She pointed out that women at that time were clustered in the lower ranks of the profession with higher teaching loads than their senior male counterparts. Instead of looking for motivation or psychological explanations, she argued, we need to look at the structured contradiction between research and teaching built into the academic profession. If it is true that women tend to be more oriented to teaching than research, she suggests, they are more likely to be so of necessity-because of the nature of the work allocated to them-than because of any gendered characteristics.
A similar argument can be made in the mid-1990s. Ingrid Moses (1995) claims that it is one of the 'myths in higher education ... that women are better teachers because they care more about students; that therefore they devote more time teaching and therefore do less research'. She suggests that it is the visibility of women in teaching-oriented institutions, rather than research universities and in the lower levels of academe where teaching loads are traditionally heavy, that has lead to this myth, rather than any differences in men and women themselves.
The report, Limited Access (Castleman et al. 1995), has pointed to the under-representation of female academics in senior and continuing positions. The authors of this report argue that this continued pattern of employment in Australian universities can not be explained by women's lack of qualifications and hence, in the current academic market, research record. In terms of appointments, Castleman et al. point to studies that suggest that men are likely to be employed at lecturer level with the same qualifications as women appointed at associate lecturer level. In the area of promotions, women as a group do appear to publish less than men, but promotion, they suggest, 'is frequently unrelated to an applicant's publication rate' (Castleman et al., 1995: 16).
Eade et al. (1995: 209) point to the correlations between women's research performance and factors such as teaching load and type and level of appointment. They also noted the significance of women's career paths and their domestic responsibilities in having an impact on their level of research activity. Bettina Cass (1983) summarised the issues here as they appeared at that time. She noted that suitably qualified women in academe appeared to have to face the possibility of the 'forced' choice of domesticity and parenthood in ways that men did not. For men, their families constituted a domestic support system that facilitated an achievement-oriented, competitive, geographically mobile career-system. Further, Cass argued, the academic career has built into it a set of assumptions and processes concerned with continuity, competition and productivity, set to a time-scale in which reputations should be made and secured early. Job discontinuity or winding career paths due to domestic reasons are inappropriate in this world of the 'clockwork' academic career. She concludes, however, that from a minority of the respondents in this study, there was some evidence of increased reciprocity in the domestic relations of male and female academic staff that might suggest the possibility of change in the future (Cass et al. 1983: 150-1).
With the introduction of affirmative action programs after 1986, universities in Australia have set out to scrutinise assumptions about appropriate career paths to address some of the concerns raised by Cass. Arguments developed about the politics of merit by Clare Burton (1988) and others have played an important role in this move. These issues will be discussed in the following section. No clear evidence exists today of the extent to which domestic responsibilities impact on women's participation in the academic labour market, and in particular, on their involvement in research. Castleman et al. (1995: 16-17) suggest in their survey of research on this issue that problems might still occur with attitudinal or systemic discrimination against employees with family responsibilities. They quote Grimes' (1990) study that suggests that higher education employers regard women as particularly suited to part-time and temporary employment, regardless of their actual or intended domestic arrangements. They further suggest that many academic women may forgo the experience of motherhood in order to succeed in a university career, a point also raised by Cass.
Eade et al. (1995) in their study of one post-1987 university, have suggested a range of other personal characteristics of women that may influence their research productivity in such institutions. Though the majority of women studied in their project expressed interest in and even excitement about research, they demonstrated a lack of confidence about their research skills and ability to undertake a significant program research. This lack of confidence was also extended to concerns about the legitimacy of their research: they displayed uncertainties about whether their work and the problems they were addressing would be taken seriously (Eade et al. 1995: 210-212).
These findings are particularly significant in the context of studies such as Wood (1990) described above which suggest that a certain ruthless singlemindedness characterises the productive researcher. Uncertainty about one's capacity and legitimacy in undertaking research are not likely to be associated with a singleminded approach. The other issue that arises here, of course, is whether such a capacity to be ruthless about one's own research is a gendered characteristic, more likely to be found among male academics than female academics.
Soliman (1995) also suggests lack of confidence is an issue for the research productivity of women. Reviewing overseas literature, in particular, she argues that women are more likely to attribute their research productivity to personal relationships - to good colleagues and a supportive spouse or family and a good institutional environment. Men, on the other hand, attribute their success to having institutional resources such as time and funds, student assistance and to their own curiosity and ambition. She proposes the establishment of networks to provide greater support for women in academe.
Poiner and Temple (1990) also canvas the possibility of cross-faculty networks in their discussion of the importance and the dangers of mentoring for research productivity. They acknowledge that mentor relationships appear to have been important to male academic careers in ways that had not been scrutinised before the introduction of affirmative action programs. However, they point to problems such as the lack of sufficient senior women to act as mentors as well as the way in which this relationship is potentially vulnerable to exploitation. Networks and groups, Poiner and Temple suggest, may be one way of circumscribing some of these issues.
O'Leary and Mitchell (1990), in their discussion of programs supporting women researchers in the USA, similarly express caution about establishing mentor relationships for women, but nevertheless advocate their use in conjunction with networking strategies for women. They point to studies that indicate that women who had good collegial networks were more productive than those that were less well connected. Such women tended to work in mainstream areas of specialisation, making attaining visibility and access to such networks apparently easier. Although the evidence they canvas on mentoring and networking is complex and at times possibly contradictory, O'Leary and Mitchell conclude that networking and mentoring provide women who feel isolated or even alienated in academe with potential avenues for integration. However, they stress that such relationships need to be built on reciprocity to be effective.
Finally, in terms of the issues that can at least in part be identified as associated with the characteristics of women as a group, the significance of the extent to which women are concentrated in certain disciplines in universities needs to be addressed. In her discussion of performance indicators, noted above, Julie Wells (1995) points to the dominance of scientific models research outcomes and the way this discriminates against women. They are under-represented in scientific disciplines and represented in greater numbers in humanities disciplines, for example. The latter occupy a traditional place in universities today but display different norms about the sort of research outcomes that are valued and considered appropriate. But of further concern is the emergence of a number of 'new disciplines' in recent years in which women tend to dominate; for example, nursing and, new to the university context at least, the creative arts. It is to be expected that the struggle for legitimacy of these areas impacts on the capacity of the female staff to feel confident in their own research skills, at the same time as the largely feminised nature particularly of nursing no doubt impacts in turn on that struggle for legitimacy. Research into these issues is currently very limited.
Jill Blackmore (1992) has recently drawn attention to the importance of measuring the progress of women in institutions of higher education through more complex measures than simply their proportional representation in positions of power and prestige. Such a focus conceptualises the 'problem' as a consequence of the choices women make, or of what they lack-their 'neediness' as Kay Ferres (1995) puts it. The Affirmative Action legislation of 1986 sought to shift the equal opportunity agenda for women away from this kind of framework to focus on the structural barriers to women's full participation in institutions like universities. The arguments of Blackmore, Ferres and others suggest that this move to reshape the equal opportunity agenda has not been entirely successful.
Clare Burton's (1988) work on redefining merit has been particularly important in the university context in drawing attention to the structural barriers to women's full participation in this setting and she continues to remind universities of the issues she identified at that time in her contemporary work on the culture of these institutions (Burton 1995). In 1988, Burton pointed to the implicit and unexamined assumptions that lay behind notions of merit. She suggested that a person's job history is often used as an indicator of ability and yet the norm employed reflects a gendered pattern of life and experience that worked against women. Sex stereotypes about differences between the abilities of men and women, she also noted, intervene at times in selection and reward processes. The success of women in these circumstances is attributed to their hard work; the success of men to their ability. Such arguments have been extended today to talk of the 'politics of merit', suggesting that particular attributes or ways of operating that tend to be associated with men are implicitly valued. This, Burton (1995) argues, can at times stem simply from a preference for 'what has come before', a conservatism in organisational culture.
These arguments are clearly pertinent to the issue of women and research. In particular, they point to the importance of questioning whether certain unexamined assumptions operate in universities about appropriate career histories in research as well as appropriate attitudes and approaches to research. Affirmative action programs have already challenged the expectation that merit for an academic appointment or promotion is demonstrated by a career track that involves undertaking a bachelor honours degree, PhD, perhaps some postdoctoral work and then first lecturing appointment. Consistent with this challenge has been the move by universities to place greater value on teaching experience and demonstrated capacity. However, these changes have not necessarily impacted on how merit is determined when looking only at an individual's involvement in research. A significant move in this direction, nevertheless, is the ARC's decision to ask researchers applying for grants in 1996 to include a track record statement that includes an indication about career interruptions and the extent of access to research opportunities.
The Affirmative Action legislation of 1986 also raised questions about the extent of women's access to appropriate child care facilities. Again this focus shifted attention away from the problems women have in participating fully in their place of work, to arguing that the employer had an obligation to address the domestic responsibilities of their employees. Operating within this framework, Castleman et al. in their report, Limited Access, argue that 'if reasonable active parenthood cannot be combined with an academic career, this constitutes a discriminatory situation' (1995: 17). The impact of the extent and quality of child care available does not appear to have been investigated in relation to women's participation in research since the introduction of affirmative action programs into Australian universities. However, Ingrid Moses has examined this issue in relation to female research students, finding that they are 'slowed down considerably by the lack of childcare'. She also quotes a Norwegian study that suggests women with children under the age of six had particular problems regarding research and stresses the importance of adequate childcare (Moses 1990; 1995).
Finally, in terms of the structural factors impeding women's active involvement in research, a number of authors have suggested that the university system legitimises particular domains of knowledge and ways of knowing that are masculine. This argument is made at a number of different levels. At one level, it is made mainly at the level of statistical association, such as in the case of the argument explored above about the dominance of scientific models of research productivity. Moses extends this point to suggest that recent government policy is leading to a marginalisation of women researchers through its targeting of resources into programs like the Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) and research and development (R&D) activities with industry. For example, at the time she was writing, 51 Cooperative Research Centres had been established, and none had a woman director.
But the argument about masculine bias has been taken further by other authors. Castleman et al. (1995: 93) suggest that research is cast as a stereotypically masculine activity with an emphasis on competitiveness, single-mindedness and self-centredness. Their interviews with university managers seems to point to a picture of the successful researcher as at times, at least, 'an obsessed and driven individual'. Similarly, Blackmore (1992) argues that particular ways of knowledge and experience that are masculine are valued in universities.
Blackmore goes on to argue that until 'women's values, knowledge and worth are equally recognised, ... women [will] not have succeeded on their own terms' (Blackmore 1992: 68). However, recent literature exploring questions about the position of women in universities raise some problems with the way in which Blackmore frames this conclusion.
A number of authors have cautioned against talking about certain ways of knowing or operating in the world as being 'women's ways'. While not necessarily objecting to discussions of dominant modes of masculinity or femininity, they have rejected the normativity of claiming that there are 'women's values' or 'women's ways of knowing'; in other words, to the claim that there are values and ways of operating in the world in which all women necessarily share. Instead they have pointed to the way in which gendered identities and relationships are continually being reconstituted in institutions like universities. Janine Collins (1992), for example, has argued for a focus on how 'the academic woman' has been constituted over time and the shifts occurring at this point in history. She proposes that instead of focusing on why women are under-represented as academics, for example, research needs to look at how various practices, policies and beliefs in universities shape the kinds of opportunities and positions women can occupy in this setting. Such an approach, she insists, is a more dynamic one that looks at the changes occurring in gendered identities and relationships as well as the possibilities for change.
In the area of research, Anna Yeatman (1993: 22) argues along similar lines that recent government policy on funding suggests that marketable research will become the new heartland of universities in such a way as to constitute anew certain gendered relations. To the extent that women remain under-represented in the sciences and technological disciplines in which such research is more likely to flourish, as a group they will be constituted as less valued in the institution and, more generally, in higher education policy. In other words, she is pointing to the constantly shifting nature of gender relations in universities and the way women find themselves positioned as 'women' in different ways at different points in history.
Kay Ferres (1995: 149), on the other hand, argues that femininity has been resignified to some extent in the academy so that it is possible to be an acceptable female in this context while adopting a certain practice of intellectualism. Largely private practices, she suggests, of reading, writing and research, as well as a feminised, personal approach to teaching, do not challenge markedly conventional notions of femininity. On the other hand, conventional femininity continues to be inconsistent with operating effectively in the public domain of university governance and decision-making.
Ferres's (1995: 149) argument also raises some important issues in relation to some of the practices that have been introduced in the area of research to address the position of women. She suggests that equal opportunity policy as a legislative imperative constitutes women as a group who are 'needy' and 'lacking':
At present, women's needs are recognised in a cluster of initiatives which target women as the problem. Their loose attachment to work is a 'work and family' issue; their failure to progress is a question of 'reskilling', or 'lack of confidence'. Their unfamiliarity or dissatisfaction with organisational culture is remedied by 'mentoring', and since it is claimed than [sic] even bad mentoring is better than none, the problematic nature of this relationship and the interests it serves are rarely served.
Ferres is not arguing against equity initiatives but pointing to the dangers inherent; the way in which these policies, and the practices they introduce, can themselves function to constitute women as a group in particular ways without necessarily transforming significantly the culture of the institution.
The material presented in this chapter and, in particular, the arguments canvassed briefly in this last section point to the complexity of the issues involved in exploring the question of women's research productivity in a group of newer universities.