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Anna-Katrin Heydenreich
Title
Dr.
Last Name
Heydenreich
First name
Anna-Katrin
Email
anna-katrin.heydenreich@unisg.ch
Phone
+41 71 224 23 84
Now showing
1 - 10 of 10
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Revue SociologieS (AISLF)
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PublicationManaging Equal Opportunities in Swiss Universities( 2016-06-29)With the publication of the proceedings/the conference “Gender and excellence in the making” (European Commission, 2004), the relationship(s) between these two crucial concepts had entered European Union’s political agenda. The proceedings mark out the relevance of Wennerås and Wold’s (1997) findings of male bias in peer review. Although subsequent research had not always been able to replicate these finding as straightforward as suggested (Sandström 2004…), it nevertheless implemented a serious doubt to the until then untroubled assumption of academia as a gender neutral endeavour. However, if serious doubt is raised that selection processes within academia are not gender neutral, then the meritocratic principles that Merton (1942) had claimed in support for the ‘autonomy of the scientific community and democratic self-government within the scientific community’ (p. 12), are merely a myth, although a powerful one. Re-reading European Commission’s report today, twelve years after publication, we were left puzzled at how it had already covered most of the insights that we are still discussing today. Men and women might have a potentially different output in publications, there are Mathew and Matilda-Effects, ‘male bonus’ is granted and homosocial reproduction taking place, the ideal researcher is defined by full-time devotion while women are said to lack social capital. As women are excluded, they do not contribute as much as men do to setting the research agendas. Furthermore, women’s exclusion from networks is highlighted as troubling for women academics, while the subtle sexism their male colleagues are engaging in remains silenced (p. 20). Rethinking the definitions of scientific excellence, the assessment criteria and specific choice of indicators and how criteria are applied to men and women is recommended. This reads very much timely to us still today. And indeed, changing gender bias and developing equal opportunities for women and men in higher education has been on the agenda since. However, change is often depicted as too slow and also paradoxical and torn between conflicting logics (Kreissl, Striedinger, Sauer & Hofbauer, 2015). Does that mean that nothing has changed over the last twelve years? Why didn’t this conference result in a major re-thinking of how academia organizes careers, merit and quality? This question is our point of departure for this paper. With our study on discourses of scientific excellence and gender equality in Swiss and German higher education, we explored in-depth how discourses of equal opportunitites and scientific excellence are at work when narrating issues of excellence and gender equality in Swiss academia. Investigating how these discourses are drawn upon and how they are combined in three major “meetings”, our analysis points out distinctive consequences and critical issues that are up for future interrogations. This short paper is organized as follows: We first introduce our discourse analytical methodological framework as well as our research design and sample. Analysing 12 interviews with gender equality experts and/or representatives from higher education decision making bodies in Switzerland, we then carve out the three distinctive ‘meetings’ of excellence and gender that we found in this talk. Finally, we discuss the results and their consequences.Type: conference paper
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PublicationCreating legitimacy for a multi-stakeholder initiative within the UN global governance of sustainable development( 2012-07)As a new organizational form in the highly institutionalized setting of UN governance processes on sustainable development, multi-stakeholder collaboration is in need of legitimization. This study looks at how the collaborating stakeholders create legitimacy for their multi-stakeholder collaboration through the ways they position the collaboration within the domain of the UN governance processes. It is proposed that establishing and maintaining legitimacy involves the continuous creation of connectedness and distinctiveness and the juggling of the tension between these countervailing tendencies. Five different modes of how the stakeholders position their collaborative initiative as legitimate are identified.Type: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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Publication
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PublicationType: conference contribution
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PublicationOrganising a multi-stakeholder process - Creating a paradoxical collaborative identity( 2008-09)Within this study multi-stakeholder collaboration is presented as new form of relational organising in response to a crisis of governance in the international environmental politics arena. As a form of societal collaboration, multi-stakeholder processes aim for societal change within the contested field of sustainable development. Multi-stakeholder collaboration is modelled as the discursive creation of an inherently paradoxical identity. The creation of a collaborative identity forms the basis for setting up and managing an inter-organisational collaborative process characterised by fundamental tensions. Four identity-relevant core activities were identified in an in-depth processual case analysis. The participants discursively create their collaborative identity 1) by jointly defining their issue and, intertwined with that, 2) by positioning the collaborative project in its domain, and 3) by defining their relations among the diverse participants and 4) among participants and conveners. These key collaborative activities engender inherent paradoxical tensions which the actors inevitably have to deal with. With regard to positioning the collaboration in its domain, collaborators have to establish connectivity and simultaneously distinctiveness through the way they define their issue. With regard to relating among participants, the joint issue needs to be defined in a way that integrates diversity while creating sufficient focus in order to enable joint action. Accordingly, the relations between participants and conveners also have to be defined in a way that balances leadership and ownership in order to allow for a bottom-up stakeholder-driven process, yet well-organised and focused process. With the analysis, the convergent and divergent constructions of the focal issue as well as the diverse repertoires defining the key relations are presented and studied how they took effect over the course of the process. Furthermore the strategies participants made use of in order to deal with the paradoxical tensions and the divergent constructions are identified. The constructions, repertoires and strategies are examined for their significance for integrating diversity and enabling societal change.Type: doctoral thesis
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PublicationType: presentation
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PublicationType: presentation