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ABSTRACT
Women fare less well than men across all academic disciplines: they are less likely to be promoted, they earn less, and many more professors are men. There has, however, been little analysis to date of the experience of women in social work education, a discipline that has historically had higher representation of female staff and students. This study set out to explore women in the social work academy through a case-study of social work education in Scotland. A mixed-methods approach was used, including a review of relevant literature; an online survey of women and men academics in social work education; and semi-structured interviews with female social work leaders, past and present. The study found that women in the social work academy faced the same pressures as other women in higher education; some of these pressures were also shared by men. Most significant, however, was the extent to which women in social work academia experienced twin challenges, firstly, as female academics and secondly, as female social work academics in a discipline that struggles for recognition in the academy. We conclude that this makes for a contradictory and, at times, ambiguous experience for women as they navigate the gendered academy.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Carnegie Trust for funding this research, conducted as part of The University of Edinburgh’s social work centenary project. See http://www.socialwork.ed.ac.uk/centenary.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
2. See Scottish Social Services Council, Analysis of Gender of Managers, 20/06/17, supplied by Mike Docherty, Workforce Intelligence Manager, Scottish Social Services, Dundee DD1 4NY, by e-mail on 9 April 2017.
3. Since this research was conducted, a ninth HEI in Scotland is now offering a professional social work program.
4. This has changed its name to Online Surveys. It is a tool for creating online surveys, run by Jisc, and used by over 300 different organizations in the UK and internationally. See https://www.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/.
Additional information
Funding
Notes on contributors
Viviene Cree
Viviene Cree is Emerita Professor of Social Work Studies at The University of Edinburgh. After a long career in youth & community work and social work, working in practice, teaching and research, Viv is now exploring nineteenth century emigration from Scotland to Australia and working as a volunteer for a number of voluntary organisations, while continuing to supervise PhD students in Social Work. She is writing a blog about her history project https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/emigration-blog/
Fiona Morrison
Fiona Morrison is a Lecturer in the Centre for Child Wellbeing and Protection at the University of Stirling. Fiona’s research interests are in the areas of children’s rights, child welfare, social work with children and families, and violence against women. Her current research is about the compliance of family law and practice with children’s human rights; children’s outcomes in the context of domestic abuse; and innovation in social care on the context of domestic abuse.
Mary Mitchell
Mary Mitchell is a Lecturer in Social Work at The University of Edinburgh. She has over thirty years professional experience in social work and community work, with a particular emphasis on work with children, young people and families. Mary has worked in the voluntary, non-government and government sectors in both Australia and Scotland and has taught community education, social work and childhood practice at a number of academic institutions. Mary completed her PhD in 2018, which focused on Family Group Conferencing outcomes. Her current qualitative research interests lie in investigating Family Group Conferencing as a decision-making process in both adult and child and family social services.
Jackie Gulland
Jackie Gulland is a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Edinburgh. Her research is inter-disciplinary, crossing social work, law and history, and concerns how people negotiate their rights within the welfare state, with a particular focus on gender and disability. Her PhD looked at complaints about social care services. Her recent book, Gender, Work and Social Control: A Century of Disability Benefits, discusses the role of gender in UK social security systems.