Gender in Academia and the Professions

About

This is a theoretically and empirically based lecture course on the social construction of gender within the labor markets of academia and other professions. We start out study with some foundational gender theory pieces. We then turn to a history of the gendered and racialized construction of scientific expertise. We examine the ways in which the understandings of scientific and scholarly excellence are shaped by culture. We study how inequalities are smuggled into the seemingly objective assessment of excellence. We investigate the meanings of motherhood, fatherhood, and work-family balance. We acknowledge that gender interacts with other social axes of inequality, including nationality, race/ethnicity, sexuality, and social class, yet our primary attention in this course is on gender. Our final day considers literature on sexual and gender harassment, including a new study on academia written by the National Academies of Sciences. Engineering and Medicine.

Course leader

Professor Mary Blair-Loy, University of California, San Diego

Target group

PhD students, graduate or postgraduate student or professional from any social science field of study or related disciplines.

Course aim

Students will develop the following capacities:

a broad understanding of how gender is socially constructed
an understanding of the social structures of academia within the context of professional labor markets
an ability to critically read, assess, and write about the relevant scholarly literatures
practical knowledge about some of the challenges and promises of academic careers

Fee info