Access to abstract restricted until July 2015. / Department of Educational Studies

Black women currently and historically have faced challenges as faculty in higher education. The problem the study addressed was the lack of intellectual study and resulting literature about Black women faculty in the field of Instructional Technology. This research sought to gain better insight into experiences of Black women professors in Instructional Technology. Specifically, the purpose of this research was to identify and describe the lived experiences of Black women who are tenure-track faculty in the Instructional Technology professoriate. A review of literature regarding faculty work, Black faculty in the Academy, Women in the Academy and Black women in the Academy provide groundwork for the investigation. The study employed a phenomenological methodology to answer the research questions. Siedman’s (2005) “three-interview series model” was used to collect data from the participants. The researcher facilitated three 90 minute interviews with each participant – the life history interview, the current experience interview and the meaning-making interview. The findings of this research indicate that the support of their parents and attendance at integrated grade schools prepared the participants to work in their current positions. As they worked in the professoriate, these Black women realized that they had to self-advocate and set their own boundaries. They made meaning of their experiences by connecting it to their faith and realizing that they were not in the position for themselves. The implications of this study are also indicated in the advice the participants gave to Black women who wish to pursue careers in the Instructional Technology professoriate.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Bowling Green State University, 2009. / Document formatted into pages; contains ix, 356 p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 40-51).

abstract: Most research on the experience of young women in student service roles in higher education is focused on a reflection of the early career experiences of mid and senior level professionals. Young women enter the field with a set of expectations about the work and their early career experiences need to be uncovered in order to better understand what they expect from their roles in student services. This study focused on the experience of young women in student services and the dynamics they identify as being significant to their work experience. Six women in their mid-twenties working in student service roles participated in two dialogic interviews regarding their work experience. Findings from these women's stories suggest that women are aware of internal and external dynamics that shaped their work experience, and are engaged in their journey toward Self-Authorship along intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions. Specifically, the women actively chose their career path, looked for opportunities to develop their professional cache, and were impacted by their relationships with their supervisors and colleagues. The women are interested in their professional development in student services in higher education and are active in shaping the experience to meet their expectations. The findings suggest that to understand the experience of young women in student service roles in higher education, women should be asked to share their stories on their early career experiences, including interactions with supervisors and other professional colleagues. By representing these voices in the dialogue on the experience of young women in student service roles, the dynamics that shaped those experiences can be better understood. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ed.D. Higher and Postsecondary Education 2011

The purpose of this research is to investigate constraints that women academics experience in their research careers and how enablements, particularly in the form of mentoring relationships and support structures, can impact on their research career development in the context of the new knowledge economy of Higher Education. The research was a case study of one South African Institution and used a mixed method approach. Social realism underpinned the research. Data was collected and analysed within the spheres of structure, culture and agency, using critical discourse analysis, interpretation and abstraction strategies. I investigated how women researchers understand and experience career success and what they perceive and experience as enablements and constraints to their research careers. Institutional support structures and cultures were examined with a focus on the role of the Head of Department. I explored mentoring and questioned whether the agency of women academics is empowered by mentoring and supportive structures to overcome constraints to their research productivity and the development of their careers. Gender-based issues of inequity, low self-esteem and accrual of social capital appear to be the underlying factors affecting how women perform in the research arena and advance within the institution. It was found that mentoring is a generative mechanism that has a favourable impact on women academics as it enables them to overcome obstacles to research productivity and career advancement.

In the academic year 1996/1997, the number of women undergraduates enrolled on degree courses at UK universities for the first time in history surpassed the number of men (Dyhouse, 2006). Year-on-year, statistics continue to indicate that women outnumber men in higher education (HE). Feminist scholars have noted that, as a consequence, women’s participation in HE has in recent years been constructed as an unequivocal ‘success story’, with women widely regarded as both outnumbering and outperforming men (Dyhouse, 2006; Leathwood and Read, 2009). This thesis seeks to trouble the notion that women really are the educational ‘winners’ by virtue of their gains at the point of access by highlighting some enduring gender inequalities within HE – that is, women's uneven experiences of the cultures and structures of HE by gender, class, ethnicity and discipline. Using a qualitative case study design, this thesis seeks to explore the everyday ‘lived’ experience of a small number of women undergraduates studying either a science, technology, engineering or mathematical (STEM) discipline or arts/humanities discipline at one high-performing British university. Using a combination of focus group interviews and 14 longitudinal case studies of individual women (comprising participant-kept diaries, in-depth interviews and email interviews), this study seeks to provide a detailed understanding of women's lives both inside and outside of their course and their negotiations of academic achievement, disentangling some of the complex processes involved in identifying with, and specializing in a discipline over time. In this study, a ‘patchwork’ theoretical approach has been adopted in order to conceptualise women’s identities, incorporating insights from feminist post-structural theory, new material feminisms and Becky Francis’ (2012) concept of gender monoglossia and heteroglossia as re-worked from Bakhtin (1981, 1987). This study indicates that women's gender and academic identities are intricately interwoven and often complex, contradictory and precarious – with women differently taking up and discarding dominant discourses of the ‘ideal’ and ‘successful’ university student in line with their distinct classed, ethnic and ‘aged’ backgrounds. This study also highlights the role that academic disciplines play in shaping women’s lived university experience both inside and outside of formalized learning contexts. In particular, the data suggests that the discourses of academic success open to the women were uneven, and powerfully shaped by the science/arts divide. Yet this study also highlights how the high-performing university was constructed by many women as a positive and freeing space, offering up a variety of discourses of student success.

The study is premised on the assumptions that the under-representation of women in leadership in academia is aggravated by weak implementation of gender policies. In light of this, the aim of the current study was to assess the nature and extent of the implementation of gender policy frameworks as a way of engendering gender parity in leadership in academia. The study was informed by the socialist-feminist theory and John Rawls’ and David Millers’ theory of social justice. The theories were chosen on the basis of their socialist-scientific approach to gender issues and also because of their resonance with the situation in Zimbabwe’s tertiary institutions. The theories were analysed within the context of Agenda 2063. The relevance of the agenda’s vision for this study is its recognition of gender equality, particularly in leadership in academia, as a critical cog for Africa’s development agenda. The researcher opted to use the qualitative approach which is embedded within the interpretivist research paradigm. The interpretivist approach makes use of qualitative methods of data collection, presentation and analysis. Data were generated from a sample of twenty four lecturers, two vice-chancellors, two pro-vice-chancellors and two registrars from two universities, a private church-run institution and a state university, mainly through interviews. Data were also generated through focus group discussions and document analysis. Data from documents were used to buttress data from the interviews and focus group discussions. The findings of this study showed that the male-management norm dominated in almost every strategic section of the structures of the two institutions. This was attributable to weak implementation of gender policies. The failure of the gender policies to bring a visible change to the institutional landscape in terms of gender equality was a result of an interplay of personal, cultural and organisational factors. Some of the factors that thwarted women’s career progression to leadership positions included, lack of inspiration from role models, lack of support from colleagues, lack of training in leadership, and the Zimbabwe Council of Higher Education’s (ZIMCHE) indiscriminate policy on recruitment of staff members. All the factors however, were encapsulated within the patriarchal stereotypical conception of a women as fit for domesticity. Within the same conception, men were considered to be imbued with the clout and traits consistent with leadership demands. Studies carried out elsewhere in Zimbabwe and outside the boarders of Zimbabwe have yielded similar results. This explains the continuing and relentless nature of gender inequality in academic institutions. In order to increase the participation of women in leadership positions, the study recommends the following: establishment of a monitoring and evaluation exercise designed to audit the effectiveness of the gender policies; establishment of a review of the university programmes with the aim of establishing or intensifying training programmes in academic leadership and management; establishment of a scholarship and research fund to encourage women to undertake higher degrees studies, and the intense application of affirmative action policies and gender mainstreaming in the universities.

abstract: ABSTRACT This study examines the experiences of five women doctoral students in music education. The goal was to gain insight into the important experiences and concerns they encountered during their studies. While the literature on women in other fields indicates that socialization of women to the academy differs from that of their male counterparts, this concern has yet to be addressed in the field of music education. Participants, selected to show maximum variation in personal and professional characteristics, were women who had previously taught in K-12 settings and who were enrolled in or recently graduated from a doctoral program in music education in the United States. Data were collected primarily through in-depth interviews and photo elicitation, and were analyzed through both individual case and cross-case analyses. All of the women initially stated gender was not an issue that influenced their doctoral studies, but analysis showed that they had clearly internalized the socially constructed roles and expectations reflected in society, and that those roles and expectation did, indeed, impact their choices and behaviors prior to and during their doctoral studies. Three facets of gender were important, specifically socially constructed roles and expectations for women in both their families and in their doctoral studies, gender performativity related to the male-centered expectations in academia, and the importance of intersectionality. The participants’ doctoral experiences were contextualized not just by their gender, but also by their race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, religion, and age. Analysis supports other researchers’ findings that women doctoral students may have different experiences in their doctoral studies than their male counterparts. Recommendations for doctoral programs in music education and music teacher educators are provided. This study’s findings suggest further research is needed to investigate the impact of gender balance in doctoral cohort and faculty, amount of teaching experience prior to studies, and educational background or prior research experience on women’s doctoral experiences, as well as the roles of intersectionality and performativity for women in an academic context. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Music Education 2017