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As the first step in a challenging change project, we undertook systematic research to demonstrate what gender discrimination looked like in our institutional context:

★ Research in gender-balanced disciplines – Business, Arts and Social Sciences

★ No gender difference in academic performance but gender pay gap of 17% on graduation (WGEA 2013)

★ Only 12 Female CEOS in top 500 Australian public companies

★ Women reach management positions which offer no pathway to senior management – ‘The marzipan layer’ (The Economist 2011)

Replication of business practice in the academy?

★ Structural barriers in business, but these should not exist within the equity conscious university

★ Anecdotal and other evidence suggested that discriminatory behaviour occurs outside of conscious recognition of staff and students

★ Subtle practices, while not overtly discriminatory result in discriminatory outcomes

★ Harvard Business School Gender Equity Case Study showed similar evidence of unconscious gendered behaviour (Kantor 2013)

References

Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) (2012) Australian Census of Women in Leadership. www.eowa.gov.au.

Kantor, J. (2013) Harvard Business School Case Study: Gender Equity.http:// www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/education/harvard-case-study-gender- equity.html

The Economist (2011). Special Report on Women and Work: Closing the Gap. http://www.economist.com/node/21539928

From anecdotal to research evidence

Contact: katrina.Waite@uts.edu.au University of Technology Sydney Australia.

Follow us on Twitter @CreateNDiverse

Observations

Illumination Through exploration

Social Mapping

Fabulation (D.I.Y Groupwork)

Presentation

!

Using our Values Centred Ethnographic Design we:

★ Witnessed the behaviours of business students in their classroom setting

★ Undertook further illumination of our observations through focus groups

★ Witnessed students working in groups in public learning spaces

★ Ran a structured fabulation process with senior students to determine what they considered an ideal type of assessment to develop their capabilities beyond engagement with content

★ Presented findings back to participating students in a way which was related to the theoretical content of a course topic - feminist economics

★ Developed and tested alternative approaches with academics

!What did we witness?

★ Reluctance of men and women to approach each other and work together

★ Men assuming dominant roles in groups and directing women to scribe, “do the powerpoint”

★ Gendered curriculum - content of more interest to men than women - automotive parts in accounting

★ Non-inclusive group behaviour - a dominant, usually male, leader assuming authority with the first utterance

★ Lack of engagement of majority of students in class discussion

★ Evidence produced from the project - photos, audio files, transcripts, and our analysis was critical in opening dialogue for change with academics - and students

★ Strong embrace of our principles by academics and students when shown the evidence of their unconscious gendered behaviour

Exposing unconscious behaviours

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These principles are the starting point for conversations with academics in a continuing process of change:

1. Transparency - fostering gender-mindedness amongst academic staff, and if they forget, fostering mindedness amongst the students as they have most to gain through “minded reminding”

2. Curriculum - Questioning gendered content, topics, cases - Who are protagonists?

3. Classroom management for inclusion - disrupting common exclusionary classroom practices

4. Groupwork - inclusive processes to gain advantage from diversity and to develop more creative solutions

5. Assessment - Adding a personal dimension aimed at developing weaknesses rather than repeatedly practising strengths

6. The embodied learner - As all learning is embodied, reflecting on the personal and individual as a learner / case analyser / and their alternative perspectives

!…And 2 Heuristics

1. Disrupting BIG, loud and first - the naturalised practices of higher education

2. Pause to think, link and tinker - building in time to allow for thoughtful rather than first contributions, and allowing everyone the opportunity to

contribute.

Moving forward - 6 Principles for

Change...

The Mindful graduate

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We aim to inspire a

conversation that

places gender visibly

on the higher

education agenda, in

all disciplines.

Our Mission

Ideation and visual explainer by Andrew Francois – Twitter @DocSketchy