Data snapshots of the access and participation of ‘women’ academics in UK universities: Questioning continued gendered, racialised and geopolitical inequalities

Abstract

Replete with espoused discourses of equality, diversity and inclusion within public bodies, is the UK, wherein lauded initiatives reward its universities’ commitments to increasing the access and positioning of ‘women’ in higher education. This paper contributes a critical quantitative analysis of the state of representation and participation of academic staff within these universities generally, and the majority‐female discipline of education particularly. Education is important because it has a direct relation to social change and ethicality. It may maintain or reproduce the status quo; however, exercising its transformative potential is essential for the success of various international frameworks aiming to address global inequality, including most recently the Sustainable Development Goals. Sensitised by QuantCrit principles, a descriptive statistical exploration was undertaken of the staff composition and employment conditions captured within the administrative datasets reported on academic staff by all the public universities in the devolved nations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales from 2015 to 2020. The findings of this study confirmed: (i) the continuation of gendered inequalities across the academic hierarchy, particularly as the pyramid narrows to the assigned intellectual leadership position of ‘professor’; (ii) racialised, gendered inequalities in access to employment, and in positioning once employed; and (iii) more adverse conditions where gendered, racialised and geopolitical inequalities intersect, most extremely for Black African female academics. The study demonstrates that the centring of ‘race’ and consideration of nationality are required to challenge coloniality, and to bring to the fore the differential impacts of systems of discrimination within this globally influential sector.