Search results

Describes four projective patterns characterizing black female professors′ experiences with students. Implications for the teacher as change agent frame the conceptualization of projections inferred from African American female academics′ experiences. The patterns of the “too good” mother; the “degraded” authority; the “exception to my race”; and the “ally” in marginality are supported by anecdotal data from over ten years of clinical practice with black professional women. Each projective pattern is discussed in the light of differential student dynamics within and across race and gender.

The article engages the “double identity” of being a feminist activist and academic in a tertiary institution in a post‐colonial society. The aim is to grapple with the personal experiences of a “change agent” in a tertiary education sector that is going through political transformation. The author also reflects on the impact of neo‐liberal capitalism on tertiary institutions, and its depoliticising effect on feminist activism. It engages the establishment of gender studies programs.

The article is a viewpoint and uses the personal reflections of a feminist scholar at a South African university to illustrate issues of personal location at a university as a site of struggle, but also location in the global South. It elaborates on the difficulty of changing male dominated institutional cultures and ways in which feminist activism is subverted.

The article shows how the experiences of being a change agent make “the personal political” and this contributes to taking a psychological toll. It exposes the intransigence toward change in hierarchical male dominated institutional cultures and recommends feminist solidarity across tertiary institutions, as well as using institutional opportunities for feminist purposes as counter measures to co‐option.

The value of the article is located in the reflection of a feminist scholar on her own experiences in the context of a South African university but may open a space for feminist scholars in tertiary institutions globally to relate to these experiences.

This article (originally written as a performance piece) focuses on the lessons learned while conducting qualitative research on Black women in the academy, in particular the lessons learned from Dr Vivi South. Theoretical insights from Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Black Feminist Thought, and Narrative Inquiry inform the piece to create an engaging and educational experience that blurs boundaries between traditional modes of academic demonstration, performance, and storytelling. Blurring boundaries between research and practice, theory and method, social science and humanities, community and university creates a space for scholars to rethink the traditional qualitative research interview and the problems of equity in the academy.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into certain themes and discourses that have emerged from two research projects on gender and racial equality in higher education in Sweden and South Africa.

Drawing on discourse analysis using a Foucauldian lens, and Universalism concepts premised on Robert Merton's scientific narratives, social texts are analysed to bring out diversity themes that shape individual research identities as positioned in South Africa and Sweden.

The findings indicate that two common themes have emerged during the research process: marginalized discourses of ethnicity and “race” as these emerge in the appointment process; and institutional culture and language. Despite the obvious differences between the countries there appear to be similar discourses at work in the education policy documents such as “gender equality” and “diversity”. The themes listed above appeared to be central for understanding how “gender equality” and “diversity” strategies operate through ethicised/racialized discourses in researchers' everyday academic lives in similar but not identical contexts.

To be able to determine if these findings can be abstracted to a more general level, further investigations on how gender and race/ethnicity operate in the everyday lives of researchers in different socio‐cultural contexts will need to be conducted.

The paper offers new insights into how global discourses on “gender equality” and “diversity” operate in similar but not identical academic contexts and how academics respond to them on the level of social interaction as well as on the level of institutional culture.

The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on female faculty and administrators working in higher education, past and present.

Materials were selected based on scholarly impact and reputation of the author. Selections were then examined to assure varied perspectives and wide period coverage.

Throughout the past century, women have made tremendous strides in the pursuit of equity in the academic working environment. However, statistics and personal experiences indicate that much progress is still needed.

This bibliography is limited to literature on working female faculty and administrators in the USA. It is intended to provide a broad overview of their past and present working conditions. Materials cover the Colonial period though the present. As such, a brief selection of materials available are included. Although there are much fewer resources that include the women of color experience, whenever possible materials are included. For the purpose of this review, the female student demographic is omitted. As there is a plethora of materials on this subject, it should be examined in a separate bibliography.

This bibliography provides students and scholars a brief introduction to research women in higher education which encompasses diverse voices, a wide historical range and contemporary materials.

bell hooks says in “Reconstructing Black Masculinity” that n[c]ollectively we can break the life threatening choke‐hold patriarchal masculinity imposes on black men and create life sustaining visions of a reconstructed black masculinity that can provide black men ways to save their lives and the lives of their brothers and sisters in struggle. Toward the work of political (re)unification of the genders in black communities today, black men must acknowledge and begin to confront the existence of sexism in black liberation struggle as one of the chief obstacles empeding its advancement. Making womanist space for black men to participate in allied relation to feminist movement to oppose the opression of women means black men going against the grain of the racist and sexist mythology of black manhood and masculinity in the U.S. Its underlying premise rooted in white supremacist patriarchal ideology continues to foster the idea that we pose a racial and sexual threat to American society such that our bodies exist to be feared, brutalized, imprisoned, annihilated‐made invisible.

During the Autumn of 1991 the author became involved in a process of “conscientization” (awakened critical consciousness) as she sought to gain understanding of herself, of other black women managers and the realities of their status and positions in organizations, and UK society at large. The author, a Black British woman manager and educator of Afro‐Caribbean origin, shares her particular reflections on her personal management learning process ‐ a journey towards self‐knowledge and “liberation” unleashing blocked potential. The reflections are primarily intended to provide black managers and professionals ‐ past, present and potential seekers ‐ with a vicarious experience of important challenges encountered; an attempt at “theorizing our experience”. The reflections are also intended for white managers who seek better intercultural understanding and relationships in the workplace. Important challenges included the identification of an appropriate research methodology for researching and understanding the black experience. Outlines the author’s process of identifying strategies for overcoming the fear of addressing and confronting the issues of race and “silence” in the workplace.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate students’ perceptions of the challenges that they face and the factors that facilitate and impede teaching and learning within the context of transformation at the University of the Witwatersrand. The paper also explores students’ perceptions of transformation directly and their ideas related to facilitating this process. The authors reflect briefly on colonialism and apartheid in South Africa and the state of higher education after 18 years of democracy.

A qualitative, explorative, descriptive survey research design was employed to gain a deeper understanding of how students experience living, learning and teaching in higher education. A sample of 194 students with a mean age of 22.40 participated in the study.

The results revealed positive facilitative factors such as quality of teaching, social support, material resources and practical/clinical training; as well as negative hindering factors that included high workload, English as a medium of instruction and limited access to “other” resources which impacted the learning processes. There was a general feeling of dissatisfaction with the current status of the school regarding transformation.

This study makes novel contributions to the literature, especially related to the South African context. For instance, white students in professional degree programs reported that their inability to speak indigenous African languages hindered their provision of services to clients. This finding contrasts with previous literature that suggests that students who speak English as a first language have greater advantages than multilingual students whose mother tongue is not English.

The research was aimed at gauging the experiences of Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) staff working in academic and research libraries across the UK, part of the higher education and public sector significantly under researched.

Using an essentially qualitative approach involving a focus group and in-depth interviews, the research design aimed to capture the lived experiences of BAME library employees.

BAME employees are very conscious of their ethnicity due to a feeling of being monitored and under pressure to perform to a higher standard. BAME staff are subjected to verbal racism including microaggression from co-workers. There is no adequate mechanism in place to address the concerns of BAME staff and represent their interests. BAME employees are overrepresented at lower ends of the profession and are not encouraged by line managers to pursue promotion opportunities leading to a distinct lack of diversity at the top level of academic libraries.

There are implications for the work experience and career development of BAME library staff, for the leadership and management of libraries and the wider higher education sector to reflect upon.

Based on real life experiences of BAME staff, this research plugs a gap in a neglected area of the public and higher education sector and provides an opportunity for managers of academic libraries to reflect on the issues raised and consider interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the reflective identity work of a white female chartered accountant, scholar and academic manager, regarding the intersectional transformations of gender and race as well as leadership within the South African accounting profession over four decades.

The theoretical lens of intersectionality is applied through an autoethnographic approach. Multiple layers of personal experiences and observations are interpreted through identity work of leadership provided and received. Autoethnographic data are substantiated and contextualised through the researchers’ sense-making, official and scholarly sources.

Sustainable transformation of the accounting profession requires a deepened understanding of the interconnections of the personal, structural and systemic areas within unique contexts. Leadership, as provided and received, must be included within the intersectional orientations. Intersectional orientations become then more significant for understanding progressive changes of the demographic profile of the accounting profession not only in South Africa but also in other countries. The transformation interventions aimed at affirming high-quality black African, coloured and female candidates to the South African accounting profession are founded on the principles of social justice. A sustained reframing of the demographic profile of a profession is possible through accelerated and well-funded collaborative transformation interventions enhancing intentional structural changes of the membership pipeline.

The possible limitations of this study lie in the contextual nature of the material and findings and the lens of the specific theory.

The understanding of the practice of interventions aiming at transforming the country-specific demographic profile of a scarce skills profession such as the accountancy profession.

The originality of this paper lies in the application of an intersectional theoretical lens that argues for leadership as a dimension alongside age, gender and race in an autoethnographic sense making of the transformation of the South African accounting profession.