Practitioner, Professor, Researcher, Reformer

Although women are performing well academically, are they reaching the heights that their male counterparts are? If not, why not? Practitioner, Professor, Researcher, Reformer: Women’s Atypical Stories shows why gender inequalities persist in the academy and beyond.

Jackie Carter and Linda Baines shed light on why women might choose to leave academia, while also asking questions about how to bring lived experience and knowledge transfer into academia from those who chose a different career path initially. Educational structures such as recruitment, promotion and reward have barely changed in the last 100 years. Through a thematic analysis of personal narratives from thirty women the authors examine the structural issues that persist (e.g. care giving as a gendered domain, routes into higher education, elitism within the academy). They argue that to create a workforce that values activism and practitioner experience higher education needs a radical rethink. And to achieve better gender equality, a reform of recruitment and reward in higher education may be long overdue.

Practitioner, Professor, Researcher, Reformer: Women’s Atypical Stories is essential reading for researchers and practitioners who want to discover what it means for women to be in and of the academy in the 21st century.

Jackie Carter is a Professor of Statistical Literacy and the Academic Lead for Disability Inclusion at The University of Manchester, UK. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship and Principal Fellowship by Advance HE, the UK professional body that oversees teaching and learning in Higher Education, collectively for her outstanding impact on student outcomes and the teaching profession in Higher Education. She has also been named as one of the top 100 Disability advocates by The Shaw Trust.

Linda Baines is a Post-doctoral researcher, former senior public sector manager with substantive experience in negotiating and managing complex commercial contracts, knowledge exchange, intellectual property, strategic planning and business development, governance, risk and project management.