Women in Academia – reflecting on the empirical and the personal

Dawn MannaySchool of Social SciencesCardiff UniversityMannayDI@cardiff.ac.uk

Outline

Research FindingsHomework or Housework?Capacity to CareClass and Higher EducationShifting the focus - Researcher Under

the Lens

Research Overview

Mothers and Daughters on the Margins: Gender, Generation and Education ERSC

University Challenge CUROP Research Site – Hystryd ‘Los Angelization’ of socio-economic terrain Participants Position of the researcher Mature students in Russell Group Universities

3 Research Questions

PLACE - How does the immediate location feature in and mediate women’s educational, family, relationships and employment histories (mothers) and futures (daughters)?

SOCIAL REPRODUCTION - To what extent do inter-generational (e.g. mother’s and daughter’s) narratives of their educational experiences, employment histories, social networks, relationship cultures and gendered identities converge and diverge?

GENDER - In what ways do interpersonal relations, broader social networks and institutional cultures and practices intersect and operate to regulate women’s educational, social and employment opportunities and orientations?

Methodology

Making the familiar strange (Delamont and Atkinson 1995; Mannay 2010)

Power and participatory methods Three methods of visual data production Place, Space and Possible Selves Auteur Theory (Roes 2001) Psychosocial and narrative approaches Unforeseen disclosures (Mannay 2011) Sandboxing

Homework or housework?

‘It’s not too bad with these irons they got now… I’m not there all day like I used to be, just half a day’

Capacity to Care

Caroline: He says ‘I hate that nuniversity I wish you never started that nuniversity’

Bethan: And the washing up and the hoovering, I like to do it sometimes (pause) because I still feel like I’m doing something for my children, I’m

Interviewer: Mm Bethan: For where they live (pause) does that

make sense

Class and Education

Adele: I’ve just I’ve always been close to my family and I hope that when I’m older I still am

Interviewer: Mmm, so d’you worry about that when you do your (degree)…

Adele: I don’t now because so far I haven’t changed (laughs) (both laugh) I don’t think I have anyway

Interviewer: (laughs) Adele: But it’s just when I’m older when I have a house

and that, and um hopefully and nice cars and things, I, hope I still remember where I came from

Education and Separation

Emma: I think there was a bit of jealousy see at the start of me joining college …yeah it was like I don’t know it ah, it’s weird right saying this, but the first couple of months, I think there was like a bit of grief you know what I mean (laughs) …it was like grief, like I lost something

Request to Shift the Lens

Social scientists explore other peoples lives

Asked to share my own journey today

Shifting to the other side of the lens

!

Nothing is more telling than a story

The story I was invited to tell http://inspiring-women.org.uk/2012/08/24/determination-and-degrees-

dawn-mannays-story/

Cool Runnings

Yul Brenner: Look in the mirror, and tell me what you see!

Junior Bevill: I see Junior. Yul Brenner: You see Junior? Well, let me tell you

what I see. I see pride! I see power! I see a bad-ass mother who don’t take no crap off of nobody!

Summary

Women in academia are faced with multiple psychosocial barriers

Multimodal and creative methods Subjective experience as expert testimony Informed rather than ignorant policies Community collaboration and support Responsive institutional and structural change

to engender equality in contemporary Wales

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Mannay, D. 2013. ‘Keeping close and spoiling' revisited: exploring the significance of ‘home’ for family relationships and educational trajectories in a marginalised estate in urban south Wales. Gender and Education, 25 (1), pp. 91-107. Impact Factor: 0.460 Ranked: 141/206 in Education and Educational Research

Mannay, D. 2013.  ‘I like rough pubs’: exploring places of safety and danger in violent and abusive relationships. Families, Relationships and Societies. 2 (1), pp. 131-137

Mannay, D. 2013. ‘Who put that on there... why why why?:’ Power games and participatory techniques of visual data production. Visual Studies, 28 (2), pp.136-146

Mannay, D. and Morgan, M. 2013. Anatomies of inequality: Considering the emotional cost of aiming higher for marginalised, mature, mothers re-entering education. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education. 19 (1), pp. 57-75.

Mannay, D. 2010. Making the familiar strange: Can visual research methods render the familiar setting more perceptible? Qualitative Research, 10 (1), pp. 91-111. Impact Factor: 1.426 Ranked: 14/89 in Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary and 25/138 in Sociology.

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