Gender equality in German universities: vernacularising the battle for the best brains

We examine how global pressures for competitiveness and gender equality have merged into a discourse of ‘inclusive excellence’ in the twenty-first century and shaped three recent German higher education programmes. After placing these programmes in the larger discourse about gender inequalities, we focus on how they adapt current global concerns about both being ‘the best’ and increasing ‘gender equality’ in locally specific ways, a process called vernacularisation. German equality advocates used ‘meeting international standards’ as leverage, drew on self-governance norms among universities, used formal gender plans as mechanisms to direct change, and set up competition to legitimate intervention. This specific incremental policy path for increasing women's status in German universities also mobilised the national funding agency and local gender equality officers as key actors, and placed particular emphasis on family friendliness as the expression of organisational commitment to gender equality

Practicing Intersectionality in Spain

Intersectionality has become a very popular term in academic, policy and activist circles. We understand intersectionality as a theoretical project concerned with elucidating the re-lationships between different principles of inequality and oppression. We identify three conceptual moves that distinguish intersectionality from other theoretical frameworks about inequality and power: a movement from additive to interactive models, a movement from categorical to process-based frameworks, and a movement from autonomous individu-als to embedded social relations as foundations for social theory. We deploy examples re-lated to the paid domestic work in Spain to demonstrate the usefulness of these conceptual moves.El término interseccionalidad se ha vuelto muy popular en círculos académicos, políticos y activistas. Las autoras entienden la interseccionalidad como un proyecto teórico que busca analizar el modo en que distintas formas de desigualdad y opresión social se relacionan en-tre si. Las autoras identifican tres movimientos conceptuales que marcan este proyecto: sustituir modelos aditivos por modelos interactivos, reemplazar marcos teóricos que se ba-san en categorías sociales por modelos teóricos basados en procesos sociales, y tomar las relaciones sociales -y no la idea del individuo autónomo- como la unidad de análisis básica para construir teoría social. Las autoras ilustran el proyecto teórico y las implicaciones de los movimientos conceptuales a partir del análisis del trabajo doméstico en España

Practicing Intersectionality in Spain

Intersectionality has become a very popular term in academic, policy and activist circles. We understand intersectionality as a theoretical project concerned with elucidating the relationships between different principles of inequality and oppression. We identify three conceptual moves that distinguish intersectionality from other theoretical frameworks about inequality and power: a movement from additive to interactive models, a movement from categorical to process-based frameworks, and a movement from autonomous individuals to embedded social relations as foundations for social theory. We deploy examples related to the paid domestic work in Spain to demonstrate the usefulness of these conceptual moves

Nudge for Deliberativeness: How Interface Features Influence Online Discourse

Cognitive load is a significant challenge to users for being deliberative. Interface design has been used to mitigate this cognitive state. This paper surveys literature on the anchoring effect, partitioning effect and point-of-choice effect, based on which we propose three interface nudges, namely, the word-count anchor, partitioning text fields, and reply choice prompt. We then conducted a 2*2*2 factorial experiment with 80 participants (10 for each condition), testing how these nudges affect deliberativeness. The results showed a significant positive impact of the word-count anchor. There was also a significant positive impact of the partitioning text fields on the word count of response. The reply choice prompt showed a surprisingly negative affect on the quantity of response, hinting at the possibility that the reply choice prompt induces a fear of evaluation, which could in turn dampen the willingness to reply.Comment: CHI 2020, 10 page

Advancing the human right to housing in post-Katrina New Orleans: discursive opportunity structures in housing and community development

In post-Katrina New Orleans, housing and community development (HCD) advocates clashed over the future of public housing. This case study examines the evolution of and limits to a human right to housing frame introduced by one nongovernmental organization (NGO). Ferree’s concept of the discursive opportunity structure and Bourdieu’s social field ground this NGO’s failure to advance a radical economic human rights frame, given its choice of a political inside strategy that opened up for HCD NGOs after Hurricane Katrina. Strategic and ideological differences within the field limited the efficacy of this rights-based frame, which was seen as politically radical and risky compared with more resonant frames for seeking affordable housing resources and development opportunities. These divides flowed from the position of the movement-born HCD field within a neoliberal political economy, especially its current institutionalization in the finance and real estate sector, and its dependence on the state for funding and political legitimacy

Determinants of Collaborative Leadership: Civic Engagement, Gender or Organizational Norms?

This analysis attempts to unravel competing explanations of collaborative leadership styles of state legislative committee chairs. Specifically, the paper considers the influence of community or volunteer experience, gender, and institutional variables. The data show that women chairs are more likely than their male peers to cite as valuable the leadership skills and experiences that they gain through community and volunteer experience. Compared to their male colleagues, women committee chairs on average also report a greater reliance on collaborative strategies in the management of their committees. Prior community or volunteer experience has little or no direct effect on collaborative styles. In contrast, institutional factors have a much stronger and countervailing influence. Legislative professionalization produces a strong negative effect on collaborative style. Results suggest that conformity to institutional norms may be a more compelling influence than prior community experience. The analysis also points to the gendered nature of organizational leadership with men's and women's styles showing different associations to style depending on the number and power of women in a legislature.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Aufstieg und Untergang der "Muttipolitik": Feminismus und deutsche Vereinigung

Die friedlichen Revolutionen in Osteuropa im Jahr 1989 leiteten eine neue Ära mit weitreichenden Folgen für die Frauen ein. Dieser Übergang hat sich in der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik besonders schnell vollzogen. Die DDR zeichnete sich durch eine sehr aktive Frauenbewegung aus, die im Laufe der Wende entstand. Dieser Aufsatz gibt einen Überblick über die Sozialpolitik der DDR, die einer deutlichen und organisierten feministischen Kritik unterzogen wurde, sowie über die sich verändernden politischen Verhältnisse, in denen die Bewegung Fuß zu fassen suchte. Die geschlechtsspezifischen Vorteile für Frauen als Mütter schufen diskriminierende Bedingungen, die die Feministinnen erkannten und gegen die sie sich wandten. Ihr Versuch, die DDR-Politik in Richtung einer Gleichbehandlung von Männern und Frauen zu verändern, scheiterte u.a. deshalb, weil der Staat als ganzer zusammenbrach. Die Konfrontation mit der anders organisierten und weniger großzügigen Sozialpolitik in der BRD hat die Feministinnen in eine defensive Haltung gedrängt. In der gegenwärtigen Krise werden zwei wichtige Grundsätze in weiten Kreisen bejaht: die Notwendigkeit von Treffpunkten, in denen Frauen ihre eigenen Interessen artikulieren können, um nicht nur Nutznießerinnen oder Opfer einer staatlich bestimmten Frauenpolitik zu bleiben, und das noch wichtigere Problem, wie Männer in die Reproduktionsarbeit einzubeziehen sind. (DIPF/Orig.

Gender-Based Pay Gaps: Methodological and Policy Issues in University Salary Studies

Methodology is often a point of contention in gender-based salary studies. Although this debate seems at first to be merely about technical issues, it also has an important conceptual dimension. We argue that there are two competing implicit conceptions of discrimination, one institutional and the other individual, that underlie many such debates. We first contrast the preferred methodologies advanced by each side, the policy capturing approach and the flagging approach, and explore the theoretical meaning of their statistical models. We then describe a practical application of both methodological approaches in one specific salary inequity study. In conclusion, we reflect on the implications of such practical statistical choices, discuss how such models can be combined, and make suggestions for sociologists who act as statistical experts or work with them in gender-based salary inequity studies on their own campuses