Exploring women’s academic identity in Australian higher education using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis

Women are underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) globally. This is compounded by the influence of the neoliberal academic context, and gendered identities, on the roles, experiences, and expectations of women in academia. These elements can be influenced by governance and power differentials (Foucault, 1972), and as such, it can be useful to critically explore these experiences and identities using a Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA). An FDA can be adopted to explore how certain experiences are spoken about, how academic norms are constructed and reinforced, and how the academic self can be restrictive in how one acts and what one says (Wiggins & Riley, 2010). Semi-structured interviews have been conducted with women who work in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) in Australian public higher education settings. Findings elucidate how women academics relay their experiences, various narratives surrounding the navigation of academia, and how women’s positioning within neoliberal academia influences the forming of their academic identity. These experiences and identities are positioned within powerful structures that “surveil” the woman to engage in certain tasks, exploring what women academics do, how they may think or feel about academia, and the conditions under which these experiences take place. Finally, it has been acknowledged that the literature provides many guidelines in terms of how to use the analysis, which paradoxically has lent itself to misinterpretation. Researchers have become perplexed and unsure of how to implement the tool (Hanna, 2014; Woermann, 2012). As such, my research findings will be grounded within an exploration of how FDA is used in research, to assist other researchers in understanding how to apply this analysis to their own work, and to provide recommendations for its future use in academia.

Identity and Space in Higher Education: An Ethnography of a
‘Transforming’ University

Higher education (HE) globally is characterised by persistent inequality, which is particularly inherent in South Africa. As a result of the enduring legacy of colonialism and apartheid, as well as processes of neoliberalism and globalisation, students from certain categories of identity are marginalised, whereas others are privileged. An important element of these dynamics of power is space. Intersections of identity such as race, class and gender are axes of power in differential experiences of space. The legacy of apartheid is keenly felt in the architecture, built environment, monuments, artwork and artefacts, and other design choices within HE institutions (Vincent, 2015). The material environment has consequences for the intellectual life of the university as well as for the students and staff whose everyday realities take place within this architecture (Mbembe, 2016). Despite this, space is often neglected in HE research in South Africa. This study examines the dynamics of space and identity at the University of Cape Town (UCT), in the context of an ongoing and incomplete transformation process through an institutional ethnography. Specifically, it uses photovoice methodology, roving interviews, archival research, campus observations and stakeholder interviews to explore space and identity as constructed by students and staff members. It also seeks to explore how students’ identities are influenced by space; and how students resist, disrupt or reproduce dominant constructions of campus space. The findings suggest that space is deeply implicated in the construction of student identities, and in particular whether these identities are marginalised or privileged within the institution. Furthermore, it elucidates how the university sends messages about who are considered legitimate students and how varying intersectional identities should be performed within campus spaces in its organisation and construction of campus space.

Unpacking collaborative decision-making in higher education: A case for a systems approach

Collaboration is a widely accepted practice of working together to design, implement and/or achieve outcomes. An expected outcome of effective collaborative decision-making, independent of the specific goal or target at hand, must be a sense of justice among the collaborators, both procedural (the processes are fair and equitable) and distributive (the outcome is fair and equitable). Using a collaborative model in higher education requires a systems approach which takes into account the diverse roles and responsibilities of constituents and stakeholders. The Systems-Guides model (O’Connor 2009) provides a framework to recognize and address the variances within, between and among systems and individuals. Participants in any collaborative decision-making effort may vary, minimally or substantially, in factors such as levels of power, of commitment (to the project, to the collaboration, to the institution), and of knowledge, information, and understanding of the aims of the collaborative effort. Using the Systems-Guides model can provide a context that facilitates and enhances the likelihood that leaders of the decision-making process will be more likely to succeed. This is because higher education institutions are fundamentally and unchangeably hierarchical. Hence, the unpacking of collaborative decision-making in such institutions requires attention to variations in overlapping, overarching, and adjacent systems of stakeholders. The authors will present a case study of successful collaborative decision-making efforts and lessons learned by a college president who uses this approach. For example, a lesson learned is that success requires that the leader has substantial contact with the participants during the collaborative process.