Challenges and Negotiations for Women in Higher Education

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-12

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2. Ambivalent Positions in the Academy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 13-20

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   2. Challenging Women in the Male Academy: Think About Draining the Swamp

      • Barbara Bagilhole

      Pages 21-32

   3. Women: Mothers and Others:

      • Karen Ramsay

      Pages 33-52

   4. The Gendered Implications of Quality Assurance and Audit: Quality and Equality

      • Louise Morley

      Pages 53-63

3. Process and Pedagogy at Work

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-72

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   2. From Tangle to Web

      • Val Walsh

      Pages 73-93

   3. Strange Bedfellows

      • Jen Marchbank

      Pages 95-115

   4. Welcome to the Pleasure Dome

      • Jocey Quinn

      Pages 117-129

   5. Caring Monsters?

      • Christina Hughes, Lynn Clouder, Jackie Pritchard, Judy Purkis, Viv Barnes

      Pages 131-147

4. Career – Identity – Home

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 149-158

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   2. Distance Learners Juggling Home, Work and Study

      • Arwen Raddon

      Pages 159-181

   3. Three Ages of Woman

      • Pamela Cotterill, Maureen Hirsch, Gayle Letherby

      Pages 183-200

   4. Imaging ‘Career’

      • Jan Sellers

      Pages 201-221

   5. Women and Work/Life Balance

      • Amanda Loumansky, Sue Goodman, Sue Jackson

      Pages 223-240

   6. Final Comments and Reflections: The Challenges and Negotiations of Lifelong Learning for Women in Higher Education

      • Pamela Cotterill, Sue Jackson, Gayle Letherby

      Pages 241-253

5. Back Matter

   Pages 255-259

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CONCEPTUALISING CHALLENGES AND NEGOTIATIONS FOR WOMEN IN HIGHER EDUCATION 1 2 3 Pamela Cotterill , Sue Jackson and Gayle Letherby 1 2 3 Staffordshire University; Birkeck, University of London; University of Plymouth INTRODUCTION Despite the historical tradition of academia as a male space (Evans, 1995; Abbott et al, 2005; Stanley, 1997; Letherby, 2003) it is possible to argue that the expansion of higher education in the 1980s and 1990s benefited women more than it did men. By 1995 there were two and a half times more women in the academy than in 1970/1 (Abbott et al 2005), and in the decade to follow the numbers of women undergraduate students had overtaken men with a substantial minority of these being older, non-standard entrants. Furthermore, as Paula J Caplan (1997: 3) argues: Visions of the academic life draw us women toward it, picturing an intellectual community whose members search with passion and integrity for Truth and Knowledge. We imagine that in academia we shall find freedom from bias, freedom from worldly struggles of power and wealth, freedom to choose what to study and what to say, and an environment characterized by tolerance and openness, where everyone’s energy is focused on the open exploration of ideas. However, whilst this may be the vision for some women, it is important not to view this widening of female participation in higher education through ‘rose tinted glasses’.

• Gender
• Lifelong Learning
• education
• higher education
• learning
• quality
• quality assurance
• university

• Staffordshire University, Stoke on Trent, United Kingdom

  Pamela Cotterill

• Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom

  Sue Jackson

• University of Plymouth, United Kingdom

  Gayle Letherby

Policies and ethics