Women in Higher Education Management

Women in Higher Education Management

The Women in Higher Education Management (WHEM) Network is an international feminist research consortium.

Vision

To analyse the challenges for women in university management and to develop strategies that can empower them to apply for and succeed in senior management roles. Participating countries are: Australia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Each of the researchers in the WHEM Network has an established reputation in gender and higher education. All have published books and/or refereed articles in the field. The Network members have an impressive number of publications resulting from the WHEM projects to date: five books, numerous book chapters, articles and presentations at international conferences.

The WHEM Network welcomes links to other related research groups and researchers.

The network has been coordinated by Kate White from Australia for 14 years. In 2022, Angela Wroblewski took over as coordinator.

Achievements

The Network’s recent publication is Gender and Higher Education Management in Times of Crisis, edited by Sarah Barnard and Angela Wroblewski. It has been released by Palgrave MacMillan in 2025. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-98941-4

Higher education institutions (HEIs) all over the world are facing difficult times that are often labelled a crisis but could also—due to the complexity of the phenomena under discussion—be characterised as a polycrisis. The chapters in this edited volume approach crisis in the context of higher education (HE) from a social constructivist perspective and from three angles: First, they focus on HEIs in crisis as the consequence of external factors, which impact the way how HEIs are able to perform and to fulfil their tasks. Second, they explore the concept of crisis as an endemic element within the HE environment. This perspective suggests that the underlying causes of the crisis are interwoven with the very logic of HE and research, exemplified by the prevailing notion of excellence. Third, they discuss the expectations towards HEIs in times of crises to provide solutions for current or upcoming crises. The individual contributions adopt multidimensional, multilevel and intersectional approaches to gender inequalities to better understand power relations as expressed through institutional and cultural change processes. The chapters explore the ways in which crises play out and the extent to which they undermine, ratify or reconfigure gender relations in higher education. Contributing authors from different geographical locations also reflect on how higher education management conceives of gender when responding to crisis, as well as the consequences of a binary approach and related essentialism.

The Network’s fourth publication was Gender, Power and Higher Education in a Globalised World, edited by Pat O’Connor and Kate White. It has been released by Palgrave MacMillan in 2021. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-69687-0

The authors examine persistent gender inequalities in higher education and ask why change is so slow. The discussion refers to feminist institutionalism as the underlying theoretical perspective and focuses on institutional resistance, and the legitimating discourses of excellence, choice, displacement, biological essentialism and gender neutrality. In highlighting the importance of gender-competent leadership and empowering equality structures as ways of creating change, it explores the situation in 14 countries—Australia, Austria, Germany, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, the Czech Republic, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and Turkey. The analysis stresses the importance of institutional transformation, the vital contribution of feminist activists and the importance of women's deceptively 'small victories' in the academy.

The Network’s third book project was Gendered Success in Higher Education: Global Perspectives, edited by Kate White and Pat O’Connor has been published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2017. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/978-1-137-56659-1

Much has been written about the barriers to women’s promotion in these contexts; about their masculinist culture and male oriented structures and career paths; and about the underlying gender schemas which legitimate such arrangements and which depict women as ‘the problem’. Little attention has been paid to an analysis of atypical cases; that is, those organisations which in their gender profile at senior level; in their organisational culture; positional and informal leadership create alternative contexts which are more ‘gender friendly’. This is the focus of the case studies in this book. In their various national and organisational contexts they identify key factors in bringing about the successful implementation of gendered change in higher education organisations at various levels. The final chapter draws together the key factors into an overall change model. It includes a focus on external facilitating factors such as legislative framework, policy or advocate interventions; internal facilitating factors, including leadership (both top down and ‘bottom up’); as well as context specific intervention points. This model will provide important knowledge for HE institutions about how sustainable gendered change can be created in organisations as well as providing insights into the creation of a new gender agenda.

The Network’s second project was Generation and Gender in Academia, edited by Barbara Bagilhole and Kate White and released by Palgrave Macmillan in 2013. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137269171

This volume provided the first cross-cultural analysis of the differences in career trajectories and experiences between a senior and younger group of women academics. It used individual autobiographies of women academics in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey and the United Kingdom, who are members of the WHEM Network. Four major themes in their stories are national context; organisational context; family, class and location; and agency. While the younger generation believe they are entitled to careers on the same terms as their male colleagues, major challenges remain. These include countering the argument that the battles have been won for younger academics; lack of support and mentoring at the outset of careers; the continuing difficulty of aspiring to a traditional academic career; capacity for playing the ‘game’ in managerial universities; and recognising mobility as crucial to career success.

The Network’s first research project was published by Palgrave Macmillan in April 2011 as Gender, Power and Management: a Cross Culture Analysis of Higher Education edited by Barbara Bagilhole and Kate White, and has become a standard reference on gender and higher education. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259893954_Gender_Power_and_Management_A_Cross_Cultural_Analysis_of_Higher_Education

It is the first multi-country study to examine the dynamics of men and women working together in higher education senior management teams within a broader organizational context. It is based on interviews with women and men in university senior management in the participating countries. It explores pathways into senior management, perceptions of how women and men regard each other’s performance in top management jobs, and their influence on universities. It questions where women fit in university senior management, whether or not women can and do make a distinctive contribution to university decision-making, and the impact of organizational cultures on their effectiveness as managers and leaders. Finally, it explores why interventions need to be developed for women who wish to apply for higher education senior management positions