Just a Matter of Time? Women’s Career Advancement in Neo-Liberal Academia. An Analysis of Recruitment Trends in Italian Universities

Recently, the Italian higher education system has experienced two profound changes: the strong feminization of its academic staff and the implementation of market-based reforms aimed at fostering cost efficiency and economic productivity. Such reforms include the reshaping of the academic career ladder envisaged by the last university reform, the so called Gelmini reform (law 240/2010), and the adoption of a performance-based funding system. Both elements occurred in parallel with a strong cut in turnover. By accessing unique data on recruitment covering the last two decades, which were provided by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research’s statistical office, this study aims at investigating these changes from a gendered perspective. More specifically, it firstly aims at analyzing if the feminization of the academic staff is due to an effective improvement of gender equality in recruitment or, rather, to demographic dynamics; secondly, it investigates to what extent the recent neo-liberal transformations, and more specifically the reshaping of the career structure combined with the limitations on hiring, has had any implications in terms of women’s recruitment and advancement. The results suggest that the road to gender equality is extremely slow and non-linear. The introduction, with the Gelmini reform, of the new fixed-term assistant professor has tightened female access to the tenure track. Moreover, female recruitment remained substantially unchanged over the period among associate and full professors, thus suggesting that the feminization of the academic staff is not due to an effective improvement of gender equality in recruitment, but also to demographic dynamics, such as the retirement of men who are concentrated in the older cohorts

Mudanças no governo e gestão das instituições de ensino superior em Portugal

Mestrado em Estudos em Ensino SuperiorNas últimas quatro décadas, o Ensino Superior sofreu mudanças mais profundas do que aquelas que conheceu nos restantes séculos da sua existência. Tais mudanças enquadram-se no âmbito de reestruturações implementadas no sector público que têm como denominador comum a assunção que o sector privado é mais eficaz e como tal se lhe devem aplicar as práticas de gestão do sector privado. Esta corrente ideológica que pretendia ver aplicados ao sector público os princípios por que se rege o sector privado, defendendo que este era o caminho para tornar as instituições públicas mais eficazes, eficientes e diminuir um excesso de burocratização de que eram acusadas, é conhecida na literatura por Nova Gestão Pública (NGP) e managerialismo. As reformas que já haviam sido implementadas noutros países tornaram-se uma realidade no Ensino Superior português apenas na primeira década do século XXI, com a publicação da Lei nº 62/2007, de 10 de setembro, que estabelece um novo Regime Jurídico para as Instituições de Ensino Superior (RJIES). Foi esta reforma, enquadrada nos princípios da NGP, que motivou o presente estudo e que se traduziu na publicação dos seis artigos que aqui se compilam e constituem esta tese de doutoramento. Procurou-se dar resposta às seguintes questões de investigação: a) de que forma as IES portuguesas interpretaram e transpuseram para a prática o ‘projeto’ político e organizacional do RJIES sobre a governação e gestão das instituições? b) o modo como este ‘projeto’ foi transposto para a prática pode ser caracterizado como uma transformação profunda da governação e da gestão das IES tal como preconizada pelas expectativas políticas contidas na nova Lei? c) a adoção do regime fundacional traduziu-se por transformações mais profundas nas estruturas de governação e gestão das IES, no sentido do seu maior afastamento da burocracia profissional, em comparação com o regime de instituto público? A análise das estruturas de governo de três universidades fundação (Aveiro, Porto e ISCTE) e de três universidades do regime de instituto público (Coimbra, Minho e Nova de Lisboa), aliada à análise das 26 entrevistas a reitores, presidentes de conselho geral, administradores e diretores de unidades orgânicas permitiu as seguintes conclusões principais: a) não se verificam diferenças substanciais entre universidades fundação e de instituto público que possam estar diretamente relacionadas com a escolha do modelo institucional; b) as universidades não se afastaram completamente da burocracia profissional, co-existindo características deste modelo e do modelo managerialista; c) o modelo híbrido de governação (aqui designado de arquétipo colegial-eficiente) emergente da reforma encontra-se presente quer ao nível das estruturas de governação, quer ao nível do esquema interpretativo que prevalece entre os atores das seis instituições, tendo sido possível caracterizá-lo e demonstrar que características mantém da burocracia profissional e aquelas que incorporou do modelo managerialistaOver the last four decades, Higher Education has changed more than over centuries of existence. Such changes fall within the scope of restructurings implemented in the public sector that have as common denominator the assumption that the private sector is more effective and as such management practices of the private sector should be applied to the public sector. This ideological trend that wanted to see private sector principles applied to the public sector, arguing that this was the path to follow to have more effective and efficient public institutions and to reduce an excess of bureaucratisation they were accused of, is known in literature by New Public Management (NPM) and managerialism. The reforms that had been implemented in other countries become a reality in Portuguese Higher Education only in the first decade of the 21st century, with Law nr. 62/2007, of 10th September, that establishes a new Legal Framework for Higher Education Institutions (RJIES). This was the reform, within the principles of NPM, that motivated the present study and that resulted in six published papers herewith compiled and that make the core of this doctoral thesis. The following questions were addressed: a) in what way have Portuguese HEIs interpreted and transposed into practice the political and organisational ‘project’ of RJIES regarding governance and management of institutions? b) can the way this ‘project’ was transposed into practice be characterised as a deep transformation of HEIs’ governance and management such as foreseen by the political expectations of the new law? c) has the adoption of the foundational model resulted in deeper transformations in governance and management structures of HEIs, with institutions moving further away from the professional bureaucracy, when compared to the public institute model? Analysis of the governance structures of three foundation universities (Aveiro, Porto and ISCTE) and of three universities that remained within the public institute model (Coimbra, Minho and Nova de Lisboa), together with the analysis of 26 interviews to rectors, presidents of general council, administrators and unit directors led to the following conclusions: a) there is no evidence for the existence of substantial differences between foundation universities and public institute universities that may be directly linked to the choice of the institutional model; b) universities did not entirely withdraw from the professional bureaucracy, instead characteristics from this model and from managerialism co-exist; c) the hybrid governance model (hereafter referred to as efficient-collegial) emerging from the reform is to be found both at governance structures level and at the interpretative scheme level prevailing among actors from all six institutions and it was possible to characterise it and to show which characteristics it keeps from the professional bureaucracy and those it incorporated from the managerislist model

Responding to new policy demands: A comparative study of Portuguese and Dutch non-university higher education organizations

Sijde, P.C. van der [Promotor]Bakker, F.G.A. de [Copromotor

Unmet goals of tracking: within-track heterogeneity of students' expectations for

Educational systems are often characterized by some form(s) of ability grouping, like tracking. Although substantial variation in the implementation of these practices exists, it is always the aim to improve teaching efficiency by creating homogeneous groups of students in terms of capabilities and performances as well as expected pathways. If students’ expected pathways (university, graduate school, or working) are in line with the goals of tracking, one might presume that these expectations are rather homogeneous within tracks and heterogeneous between tracks. In Flanders (the northern region of Belgium), the educational system consists of four tracks. Many students start out in the most prestigious, academic track. If they fail to gain the necessary credentials, they move to the less esteemed technical and vocational tracks. Therefore, the educational system has been called a 'cascade system'. We presume that this cascade system creates homogeneous expectations in the academic track, though heterogeneous expectations in the technical and vocational tracks. We use data from the International Study of City Youth (ISCY), gathered during the 2013-2014 school year from 2354 pupils of the tenth grade across 30 secondary schools in the city of Ghent, Flanders. Preliminary results suggest that the technical and vocational tracks show more heterogeneity in student’s expectations than the academic track. If tracking does not fulfill the desired goals in some tracks, tracking practices should be questioned as tracking occurs along social and ethnic lines, causing social inequality