Justifications of Gender Equality in Academia: Comparing Gender Equality Policies of Six Scandinavian Universities

Abstract

Gender equality in academia is often perceived as receiving more emphasis in Norway and Sweden than in Denmark. But how do the public research institutions in the three countries approach issues of gender equality differently? This study investigates how activities related to gender equality are articulated and justified in the policy statements of six Scandinavian universities. The analysis reveals some interesting disparities between the countries. In short, the Danish universities seem to be reluctant to deal with gender equality on the basis of rights-based assumptions. While the Norwegian and Swedish universities juxtapose arguments of utility, innovation, justice, and anti-discrimination, the Danish universities primarily refer to aspects of competitiveness, utility, and innovation when justifying activities on gender equality. The article suggests that the lack of justice-oriented perspectives in the Danish statements is an illustrative example of how neo-liberal managerial ideas about work-place productivity and creativity entail new and more instrumental approaches to gender equality issues in academia.

Notes

¹ The Swedish committee ended its activities in 2010. However, a number of projects funded by the committee were still running in 2012.

² When using the terms large- and medium-sized universities, I refer to the relative sizes of the institutions in the Scandinavian context. The size of academic staff varies from 3,000 to 11,000, while enrolment ranges from 16,000 to 40,000.

³ Readers interested in further documentation are directed to Nielsen (2013). This document also includes references for the final 14 texts undergoing in-depth analysis.

⁴ My translation.

⁵ For a brief introduction to the concept of difference in a Norwegian context see Skjeie and Teigen (2005).

⁶ For a brief review of the literature, see Teigen and Wängnerud (2009).

⁷ It is, however, relevant to note that Sweden might have undergone some changes in recent years. According to Carbin and Rönnblom (2012), issues of gender equality in the political and public arena are not as pronounced today as they were 10 years ago.

⁸ For instance, references are made to activities by US Ivy League universities, and the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU).

⁹ My translation.

¹⁰ Equivalence is a useful theoretical concept in the textual investigation of how entities (i.e. people, organizations, objects) are categorized and how similarities and differences between them are textured and collapsed via chains of equivalence (Laclau & Mouffe 2001; Fairclough 2003: 88).

¹¹ The spirit of capitalism is “the ideology that justifies people's commitment to capitalism and which renders this commitment attractive” (Fairclough & Chiapello 2002: 186).

¹² According to Boltanski Chiapello, excitement is the source that generates enthusiasm and encourages people to become involved in the capitalist system (Boltanski and Chiapello 2005).

¹³ Another explanation could be that GE issues in academia historically have received less emphasis in Denmark than in Norway and Sweden. In other words, the justice-oriented approach might never have found a real inroad in the Danish university system. It has, however, not been the objective of this study to provide an account of the historical developments in the use of GE policies among Scandinavian universities.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mathias Wullum Nielsen

Mathias Wullum Nielsen is a PhD fellow at Aarhus University. He is currently writing a thesis on structural challenges to gender equality in academia. One of the chapters in his thesis focuses on the similarities and differences in the Scandinavian approaches to gender equality in academia.