Ovseiko Pavel V, Chapple Alison, Edmunds Laurel D, Ziebland Sue
Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, OX3 9DU, United Kingdom.
Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG, United Kingdom.
Health Res Policy Syst. 2017 Feb 21;15(1):12. doi: 10.1186/s12961-017-0177-9.
While in the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Australia, higher education and research institutions are widely engaged with the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science to advance gender equality, empirical research on this process and its impact is rare. This study combined two data sets (free- text comments from a survey and qualitative interviews) to explore the range of experiences and perceptions of participation in Athena SWAN in medical science departments of a research-intensive university in Oxford, United Kingdom.
The study is based on the secondary analysis of data from two projects: 59 respondents to an anonymous online survey (42 women, 17 men) provided relevant free-text comments and, separately, 37 women participated in face-to-face narrative interviews. Free-text survey comments and narrative interviews were analysed thematically using constant comparison.
Both women and men said that participation in Athena SWAN had brought about important structural and cultural changes, including increased support for women's careers, greater appreciation of caring responsibilities, and efforts to challenge discrimination and bias. Many said that these positive changes would not have happened without linkage of Athena SWAN to government research funding, while others thought there were unintended consequences. Concerns about the programme design and implementation included a perception that Athena SWAN has limited ability to address longstanding and entrenched power and pay imbalances, persisting lack of work-life balance in academic medicine, questions about the sustainability of positive changes, belief that achieving the award could become an end in itself, resentment about perceived positive discrimination, and perceptions that further structural and cultural changes were needed in the university and wider society.
The findings from this study suggest that Athena SWAN has a positive impact in advancing gender equality, but there may be limits to how much it can improve gender equality without wider institutional and societal changes. To address the fundamental causes of gender inequality would require cultural change and welfare state policies incentivising men to increase their participation in unpaid work in the family, which is beyond the scope of higher education and research policy.
在英国、爱尔兰和澳大利亚，高等教育和研究机构广泛参与了“雅典娜天鹅科学女性宪章”以促进性别平等，但关于这一过程及其影响的实证研究却很少。本研究结合了两个数据集（一项调查中的自由文本评论和定性访谈），以探讨英国牛津一所研究密集型大学医学系参与“雅典娜天鹅宪章”的一系列经历和看法。
该研究基于对两个项目数据的二次分析：59名匿名在线调查的受访者（42名女性，17名男性）提供了相关的自由文本评论，另外，37名女性参与了面对面的叙事访谈。使用持续比较法对自由文本调查评论和叙事访谈进行了主题分析。
男性和女性都表示，参与“雅典娜天鹅宪章”带来了重要的结构和文化变革，包括对女性职业的支持增加、对照顾责任的更多理解，以及挑战歧视和偏见的努力。许多人表示，如果没有“雅典娜天鹅宪章”与政府研究资金的挂钩，这些积极变化就不会发生，而另一些人则认为存在意想不到的后果。对该计划设计和实施的担忧包括：认为“雅典娜天鹅宪章”解决长期存在和根深蒂固的权力及薪酬不平衡问题的能力有限；学术医学领域工作与生活仍缺乏平衡；对积极变化可持续性的质疑；认为获得该奖项可能本身就成为目的；对感知到的正向歧视的不满；以及认为大学和更广泛社会需要进一步的结构和文化变革。
本研究结果表明，“雅典娜天鹅宪章”在促进性别平等方面有积极影响，但如果没有更广泛的机构和社会变革，其在改善性别平等方面的作用可能有限。要解决性别不平等的根本原因，需要文化变革和福利国家政策，激励男性更多地参与家庭中的无薪工作，而这超出了高等教育和研究政策的范围。
