Women in Academia – reflecting on the empirical and the personal Dawn Mannay School of Social Sciences Cardiff University

Outline Research Findings Homework or Housework? Capacity to Care Class and Higher Education Shifting the focus - Researcher Under the Lens

Research Overview Mothers and Daughters on the Margins: Gender, Generation and Education ERSC University Challenge CUROP Research Site – Hystryd ‘Los Angelization’ of socio-economic terrain Participants Position of the researcher Mature students in Russell Group Universities

3 Research Questions PLACE - How does the immediate location feature in and mediate women’s educational, family, relationships and employment histories (mothers) and futures (daughters)? SOCIAL REPRODUCTION - To what extent do inter- generational (e.g. mother’s and daughter’s) narratives of their educational experiences, employment histories, social networks, relationship cultures and gendered identities converge and diverge? GENDER - In what ways do interpersonal relations, broader social networks and institutional cultures and practices intersect and operate to regulate women’s educational, social and employment opportunities and orientations?

Methodology Making the familiar strange (Delamont and Atkinson 1995; Mannay 2010) Power and participatory methods Three methods of visual data production Place, Space and Possible Selves Auteur Theory (Roes 2001) Psychosocial and narrative approaches Unforeseen disclosures (Mannay 2011) Sandboxing

Homework or housework? ‘It’s not too bad with these irons they got now… I’m not there all day like I used to be, just half a day’

Capacity to Care Caroline: He says ‘I hate that nuniversity I wish you never started that nuniversity’ Bethan: And the washing up and the hoovering, I like to do it sometimes (pause) because I still feel like I’m doing something for my children, I’m Interviewer: Mm Bethan: For where they live (pause) does that make sense

Class and Education Adele: I’ve just I’ve always been close to my family and I hope that when I’m older I still am Interviewer: Mmm, so d’you worry about that when you do your (degree)… Adele: I don’t now because so far I haven’t changed (laughs) (both laugh) I don’t think I have anyway Interviewer: (laughs) Adele: But it’s just when I’m older when I have a house and that, and um hopefully and nice cars and things, I, hope I still remember where I came from

Education and Separation Emma: I think there was a bit of jealousy see at the start of me joining college …yeah it was like I don’t know it ah, it’s weird right saying this, but the first couple of months, I think there was like a bit of grief you know what I mean (laughs) …it was like grief, like I lost something

Request to Shift the Lens Social scientists explore other peoples lives Asked to share my own journey today Shifting to the other side of the lens !

Nothing is more telling than a story The story I was invited to tell dawn-mannays-story/

Cool Runnings Yul Brenner: Look in the mirror, and tell me what you see! Junior Bevill: I see Junior. Yul Brenner: You see Junior? Well, let me tell you what I see. I see pride! I see power! I see a bad-ass mother who don’t take no crap off of nobody!

Summary Women in academia are faced with multiple psychosocial barriers Multimodal and creative methods Subjective experience as expert testimony Informed rather than ignorant policies Community collaboration and support Responsive institutional and structural change to engender equality in contemporary Wales

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