Transcript UPGEM - Aarhus Universitet

JRC meeting, Ispra, Italy, February 7th 2008
Women’s experience in science:
scientific culture - concepts,
stereotypes, barriers?
Cathrine Hasse, Associate Professor, DPU, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Stine Trentemøller, Research assistant, DPU, University of Aarhus, Denmark
Target Countries where the
Target
Countries
where the
interviews
are carried
outinterviews are carried out
Other
target
Countries
where
statistical data are collected
Other
target
Countries
where
statistical data are collected
IUPAP Conference: Woman in
Physics Paris 2002
Figure Caption: Data collected for the conference and analysed by K Wiesner
Cultural diversity
 The more industrialised the countries
the larger difference between boys
and girls interests in science
Sjøberg, S. (2004). Naturfag som allmenndannelse; En kritisk fagdidaktikk. 2. utgave. Gyldendal Akademisk.
(http://folk.uio.no/sveinsj/)
BUT
 Italy, Portugal Spain and many Eastern
European countries have just as many
female physicists
Disproportional gendered
choices
 Whatever the country (with their
respective equality policies or lack of),
whatever the discipline, and whether
women were the majority or minority of
students in that discipline, the proportion
of women among the professorates, went
down to somewhere around ten percent
in every country, in every discipline.
(See among others SHE-Figures, Gender and Excellence in the Making,, the Helsinki Group Reports, and the ETAN- report)
Innovation: Look at
leavers
 A. The primary objective of the UPGEM project
is to identify relevant local cultural-historical
processes behind “brain-drains” of female
physicists, who are leaving the field despite
having the same formal qualifications as their
male colleagues.
 B. Qualitative studies of working environment
of academic staff (leavers and stayers) in
physics institutes at universities distributed
along the north/south and the east/west axes
of the European map.
UPGEM-work plan
WP1 Project management
(DPU)
Field site info
WP2 Project Specification
(DPU)
Guide
WP3 Guide for Field Research
(DPU)
WP4
Field Research
Denmark
(DPU)
WP5
Field Research
Poland
(UL)
WP6
Field Research
Italy
(LS)
WP7
Field Research
Finland
(CAW)
WP8
Field Research
Estland
(UT)
Field Data
WP9 Data Analysis and Conclusion
(DPU)
Culture Catalogue
WP10+11 Review and Dissemination
(DPU)
Conference and Project
Result website
Elec
Tro
nic
Data
Platform
MODEL OF CULTURE
CONTRAST ANALYSIS
Data and Hypotheses
Data
1. 208 interviews with male and female physicists (50 in
Poland, and Italy, 36 in Denmark, Estonia and Finland)
translated into English. Aprox. 50% of the informants are
employed outside of academia.
2. Field observations from 20 physics institutes
3. X-Ray of 20 physics institutes
4. Information boxes with cultural historical background
information
Leakey Pipeline
 Whatever discipline we’re discussing,
whatever the proportion of women
among the undergraduates and whatever
equality measures are put in place, we
still see a disproportionate leakage of
women from scientific careers at every
stage in the academic hierarchy in every
country (Alper 1993)
PUSH / PULL Factors
Push factors
 Competition
 Stereotypical identity
 Lack of Self-esteem
 Political changes
 Lack of career perspectives
 Low pay + Short term contracts
 Work motivational problems
 Bad working environment (conflicts, harassment)
 Insufficient organization of workplace
 Mobility requirements
Pull factors
 Family responsibility
 New job possibilities (i.e. in industry or business)
 Better pay
 Better career options
Stayers and Leavers
 Stayers fields: Geophysics, theoretical physics, nano physics,
solid state physics, particle physics, nuclear physics, X-ray
physics, aerosol physics, astrophysics, astronomy, meteorology,
material physics etc.
 Positions held by leavers: Designers, Public Researcher, Industrial
researcher, Patent Consultants, Academic administration
 Website administrators, Well site engineers, College teachers,
Record managers, Medical physics
 Research & development in high technology companies, Energy
industry, Specialist positions in public sector,
 HR management, Polytechnics and high school, Investment
companies, Dissemination of Didactics, Retired
 Unemployed
9) Code: Competition
 Hypothesis: We find more female physicists in
universities that are less competitive compared to
the more competitive universities.
 Definition: This code is used when you judge the
interviewee speaks of competition. It can be
competition for jobs, prestige, funding. It can
refer to personal and general experiences.
 Best example: The case where some physicists
tries to block the publications of another group
because they compete.
Nature of competition
 Ongoing race of publishing
new results
 Emphasizing oneself
 Being able to act and think
strategically
Positive-negative attitude to
Competition
Positive towards competition at work
 The majority of the males
 Less than 1/5 of the females
 Negative towards competition at work
 The majority of the females
 Less than 1/5 of the males
Attitudes towards
competition in countries
Finland:
Female informants reported rarely on competitive situations in their career
and expressed unwillingness to enter competition
Male informants considered competition as an inherent part of academic
work and saw it both as a career booster and a career obstacle
Denmark:
Males talk more often of competition as a positive element. They generally
have a relatively neutral attitude towards competition, and seem to
acknowledge and accept the conditions.
Overall, the female informants appear less willing to compete and less
willing to acknowledge the relevance of taking part in competition (they just
want to do their job), though some of them (mainly stayers) are aware of the
competition and speak of being competitive.
Italy:
Negative accounts of competition mainly came up in female narratives
Negative competition
female leaver
Denmark:
I: Do you think you would have still been there if
there had not been so much competition?
[Female leaver]: Yes, that is for sure, then I would
not have felt the constant expectations of
results and so on. The question is whether that
is a natural part of research, the competition
itself. No, I do not know. It had helped me if
there had not been any competition element in
it.
Open and hidden
Competition
 Open competition is typically between various
research groups, universities or even countries. Open
competition is characterised by practices where
colleagues generally show greater group orientation by
e.g. planning strategy jointly and where all know who is
competing for specific funding or positions.
 Hidden competition is typically described as occurring
at a personal level, i.e. in-group competition such as
individual colleagues competing against each other,
and is typically of a disputable nature.
Open and hidden
Competition
 Open competition:
 [female leaver]: They didn’t accept the theory we
brought which is a part of how research is done; you
retain your point of view and continue to do so. You
spend a lot of energy on fighting the others and move
yourself forwards … In twenty years we can see who
was right.
 Hidden competition:
 [female stayer]: Sometimes I think back at the time in
high school were I didn’t want to be a part of the
intrigue among the girls but now that I’m working at the
Institute of Physics I have to be in it if I have to have a
shot in the competition.
Handling competition at work
Some research groups seem to be better than
others to handle competition.
Two specific research groups in the data, a “geogroup” and a “bio-group”, stand out as having
developed characteristic open traditions in terms
of handling in-group competition in a
collaborative way.
Joint meetings on planning strategies, where all
know e.g. who is competing for specific funding,
lead to a better working environment.
30) Code:
Stereotypes
 Hypothesis: Female physicists are connected to
different stereotypes than male physicists.
 Definition: The code refers mainly to stereotypical
notions of physicists in society or even among
physicists themselves. You should use this code
regardless of whether the person
interviewed
identifies with the stereotype or not.
 Best example: “There are two types of physicists –
those nerds who only works and those who do
other things as well”, “He was a real absentminded type, you know.” or “Most
people seem to
think it is weird to study physics” (said by a female).
Diverse stereotypical
identities in physics
sciences
DK: Geeks and High Priests and Playful
Boys
IT: Genious and Over-philosophical Geek
EST: Black Smith, High Priest and Playful
Boys
Carry male connotations
Cultural models of physics
 Denmark: Connections between physics as
hard + elitist = science anxiety = negative
feelings = less directional force +
masculine = less motivation especially for
girls
 Italy: Connections between physics +
classical and philosophical studies. No
connections to hard, elitist and masculine =
more directional force= more motivation
especially for girls.
Visibility of Women
No clear female connotated stereotype in DK
Being visible as a female is perceived as
problematic by many DK females
The matter of being female is put before their
recognition as competent physicist.
In the Danish interviews no females describe
themselves as accentuating their femininity at
work.
Female visibility
 [Female Danish physicist]: … what I find hard is…when you travel
to _ to conferences and.. What becomes difficult is actually eh _ _
that you sort of get seen..
 I: As a woman?
 [Female Danish physicist]: Yes. I mean, you get …it is like you
have a flashlight in your forehead [laughs]. I mean, it can be
[unclear] but sometimes it is very demanding .. and you talk to
them …and they talk to you just because you are a woman.
 I: Yes.
 [Female Danish physicist] : …and when you talk to them ..they
think you are interested just because you talk to them [laughs].
 I: Yes
 [Female Danish physicist]: and that can be really hard.
Visibility of Women
In the Italian context female visibility
seems to be used as an advantage in
some situations. In the interviews and
fieldwork the Italian women appear
more feminine and seem be able to
play on their femininity without this
interfering with their recognition as
competent physicists.
Female Visibility


I: Do you think that your career would have changed if you had been a
man?
[Female Italian physicist]: Honestly, I have to say that when a committee
to guarantee the same possibilities to men and women was created also
here in this institution, many female colleagues came to me and asked
me “when do you begin?/when do you travel abroad?”, but I think I have
never been discriminated, on the contrary [unclear] I had some
advantages because in a surrounding where they are all men, there is
always some kind of pleasure in being kind to a woman, in giving her a
bonus, in making her a favour. So there was no discrimination towards
me. I remember that I had a female university mate who always opened a
button more in her blouse when she sit for an exam and she used to say:
“Look, this is a point more that I get”, it is not always like this but
sometimes you can [unclear] in a surrounding where there are a lot of
men, there are advantages for a woman, but there can also be some
disadvantages.
UPGEM Conference:
DRAW THE LINE
 First Announcement of the UPGEM Conference
 Copenhagen, May 30-31, 2008
 Research in Academia shows that female and male scientists
follow different career paths in different national contexts. Some
countries are better than others at attracting female scientists to a
research career in natural science. Even so, female scientists in
these countries never reach top positions to the same extent as
their male colleagues. The results presented at the UPGEM
conference unveils the complex and intricate cultural patterns
behind these facts. The project gives a multifaceted picture of the
diversity of the everyday life at universities in five European
countries, Italy, Poland, Finland, Estonia and Denmark.
Homepage
http://
www.upgem.dk
Changelabs at Ispra?
1. From assertion courses and
rolemodel for women
2. Towards new masculinities
3. Towards new rolemodels for men