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Gender Bias in Academia

Lindström, Josefin LU orcid ; Allansson, Jakob LU ; Åström, Joakim LU and Johansson, Axel LU (2022) In Lärande i LTH p.3-4
Abstract
Gender, being an identity contingency as coined by Claude M. Steele in his book Whistling Vivaldi, is not self-chosen, is virtually impossible to escape, and comes with expectations, prejudice and – most importantly – uneven pre-conditions for our choices in life. Gender inequality is a wide-spread problem, causing much harm on the
individual and societal levels, and the academic world is no exempt. One major source of gender inequality is related One major source of gender inequality is related to implicit (subconscious automatic associations) gender bias that can harm e.g. the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of women. While sexism still might be part of the explanation on gender differences in academia, the concept of... (More)
Gender, being an identity contingency as coined by Claude M. Steele in his book Whistling Vivaldi, is not self-chosen, is virtually impossible to escape, and comes with expectations, prejudice and – most importantly – uneven pre-conditions for our choices in life. Gender inequality is a wide-spread problem, causing much harm on the
individual and societal levels, and the academic world is no exempt. One major source of gender inequality is related One major source of gender inequality is related to implicit (subconscious automatic associations) gender bias that can harm e.g. the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of women. While sexism still might be part of the explanation on gender differences in academia, the concept of implicit bias suggests that this is not the only explanation for injustices but still as problematic. The extent to which teaching personnel at LTH is gender biased might influence the education they provide and is hence of great relevance to investigate, as awareness of implicit bias might be a way forward to reduce the systematic unfairness in academia. Implicit biases have been investigated for many years, 2003-2015, in an American-based web project (Harvard Project Implicit) but have not yet been investigated among teachers at LTH. In this study, we let 56 teachers at LTH partake in a survey and in the
Implicit Association Test (IAT) for Gender-Science [2] and compared our results with those of the 628,295 participants in Project Implicit to investigate how the gender biases at LTH differs from the population at large. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to specialist publication or newspaper
publication status
published
subject
keywords
gender, implicit bias, higher education, teaching, LTH, IAT, implicit association test, STEM
categories
Higher Education
in
Lärande i LTH
issue
49
pages
3 - 4
publisher
Genombrottet, Lunds tekniska högskola
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
3177ca01-4f72-4622-be47-34ef00429755
alternative location
https://www.lth.se/fileadmin/cee/genombrottet/Laerande_i_LTH/La__rande_i_LTH_blad_49.pdf
date added to LUP
2022-05-03 11:50:42
date last changed
2023-02-06 11:41:56
@misc{3177ca01-4f72-4622-be47-34ef00429755,
  abstract     = {{Gender, being an identity contingency as coined by Claude M. Steele in his book Whistling Vivaldi, is not self-chosen, is virtually impossible to escape, and comes with expectations, prejudice and – most importantly – uneven pre-conditions for our choices in life. Gender inequality is a wide-spread problem, causing much harm on the<br/>individual and societal levels, and the academic world is no exempt. One major source of gender inequality is related One major source of gender inequality is related to implicit (subconscious automatic associations) gender bias that can harm e.g. the careers, work-life balance, and mental health of women. While sexism still might be part of the explanation on gender differences in academia, the concept of implicit bias suggests that this is not the only explanation for injustices but still as problematic. The extent to which teaching personnel at LTH is gender biased might influence the education they provide and is hence of great relevance to investigate, as awareness of implicit bias might be a way forward to reduce the systematic unfairness in academia. Implicit biases have been investigated for many years, 2003-2015, in an American-based web project (Harvard Project Implicit) but have not yet been investigated among teachers at LTH. In this study, we let 56 teachers at LTH partake in a survey and in the<br/>Implicit Association Test (IAT) for Gender-Science [2] and compared our results with those of the 628,295 participants in Project Implicit to investigate how the gender biases at LTH differs from the population at large.}},
  author       = {{Lindström, Josefin and Allansson, Jakob and Åström, Joakim and Johansson, Axel}},
  keywords     = {{gender; implicit bias; higher education; teaching; LTH; IAT; implicit association test; STEM}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{04}},
  number       = {{49}},
  pages        = {{3--4}},
  publisher    = {{Genombrottet, Lunds tekniska högskola}},
  series       = {{Lärande i LTH}},
  title        = {{Gender Bias in Academia}},
  url          = {{https://www.lth.se/fileadmin/cee/genombrottet/Laerande_i_LTH/La__rande_i_LTH_blad_49.pdf}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}