Climbing the greasiest of poles? Women and HE leadership in developing countries

July 13, 2015

11:00-15:30

Performing and defying gender: women’s leadership experiences in African HE

Dr Ane Turner Johnson, Rowan University, New Jersey, USA

This paper focuses on a study of sub-Saharan African women’s attainment of leadership positions in HE. The project delved into the career and life paths of women who achieved leadership positions at universities in Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, and Madagascar. The women HE leaders at the heart of the study highlighted their ability to both perform gender at work and to defy and overcome gendered expectations within their careers. Faith, family, and education emerged as common constructs in their experiences of career growth and trajectory, and the intersections of gender performance and personal agency created a threshold in which they exerted ontological sovereignty over their lives and careers. This research tells an important, but often untold, story of successful women on a continent plagued by the crisis narrative.

Leadership positions in HE: where are women academics?

Dr Saeeda Shah, University of Leicester & Dr Victoria Showunmi, UCL Institute of Education 

This paper draws upon a British Academy-funded project that explores the interplay between top leadership positions and gender in four public universities in Pakistan. The project investigated factors and power-conditions/structures affecting women’s access to top leadership positions in that national context, whilst also examining the significance of being ‘research-active’, and the challenges that women face in trying to develop and progress their careers. The data were collected by questionnaire to all academic staff members in the four universities, followed by forty interviews – ten per partner university – with women academics at various stages of their career.

More information here.