Advancing gender equality through the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science: an exploratory study of women's and men's perceptions
Advancing gender equality through the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science: an exploratory study of women's and men's perceptions
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DOI：
10.1186/s12961-017-0177-9
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发表时间：
2017-02-21
影响因子：
4
通讯作者：
Ziebland, Sue
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ovseiko, Pavel V.;Chapple, Alison;Ziebland, Sue
背景：虽然在英国、爱尔兰和澳大利亚，高等教育和研究机构广泛参与了雅典娜天鹅妇女参与科学宪章，以促进性别平等，但对这一过程及其影响的实证研究很少。本研究结合了两个数据集（来自调查的自由文本评论和定性访谈），以探索英国牛津一所研究型大学医学科学系参与Athena SWAN的经验和看法。方法：本研究基于对两个项目数据的二次分析：59名匿名在线调查对象（42名女性，17名男性）提供了相关的自由文本评论，另外，37名女性参与了面对面的叙述访谈。自由文本调查评论和叙述性访谈采用持续比较的方法进行主题分析。结果：女性和男性都表示，参与雅典娜SWAN带来了重要的结构和文化变化，包括对女性职业的支持增加，对照顾责任的更多认识，以及挑战歧视和偏见的努力。许多人表示，如果没有Athena SWAN与政府研究资金的联系，这些积极的变化就不会发生，而其他人则认为会产生意想不到的后果。对项目设计和实施的担忧包括：人们认为Athena SWAN解决长期存在的根深蒂固的权力和薪酬不平衡的能力有限，学术医学领域一直缺乏工作与生活的平衡，对积极变化的可持续性的质疑，认为获得奖项本身可能成为目的，对被认为是积极歧视的怨恨，以及认为大学和更广泛的社会需要进一步的结构和文化变革。结论：本研究的结果表明，雅典娜天鹅在促进性别平等方面具有积极影响，但如果没有更广泛的制度和社会变革，它能在多大程度上改善性别平等可能是有限的。要解决性别不平等的根本原因，就需要文化变革和福利国家政策，鼓励男性更多地参与家庭中的无偿工作，这超出了高等教育和研究政策的范围。
Background: While in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, higher education and research institutions are widely engaged with the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science to advance gender equality, empirical research on this process and its impact is rare. This study combined two data sets (free-text comments from a survey and qualitative interviews) to explore the range of experiences and perceptions of participation in Athena SWAN in medical science departments of a research-intensive university in Oxford, United Kingdom.Methods: The study is based on the secondary analysis of data from two projects: 59 respondents to an anonymous online survey (42 women, 17 men) provided relevant free-text comments and, separately, 37 women participated in face-to-face narrative interviews. Free-text survey comments and narrative interviews were analysed thematically using constant comparison.Results: Both women and men said that participation in Athena SWAN had brought about important structural and cultural changes, including increased support for women's careers, greater appreciation of caring responsibilities, and efforts to challenge discrimination and bias. Many said that these positive changes would not have happened without linkage of Athena SWAN to government research funding, while others thought there were unintended consequences. Concerns about the programme design and implementation included a perception that Athena SWAN has limited ability to address longstanding and entrenched power and pay imbalances, persisting lack of work-life balance in academic medicine, questions about the sustainability of positive changes, belief that achieving the award could become an end in itself, resentment about perceived positive discrimination, and perceptions that further structural and cultural changes were needed in the university and wider society.Conclusions: The findings from this study suggest that Athena SWAN has a positive impact in advancing gender equality, but there may be limits to how much it can improve gender equality without wider institutional and societal changes. To address the fundamental causes of gender inequality would require cultural change and welfare state policies incentivising men to increase their participation in unpaid work in the family, which is beyond the scope of higher education and research policy.