This article addresses Iranian women in higher education and their contemporary position in academia in Iran. By systematically reviewing available academic and official databases on women’s positions in academia published online or in print, the question is raised if women’s current position and role in academia is the result of personal choice-making or an existent systematic discriminatory social structure.
To address this issue, available Iranian research and data on female recruitment in universities are analyzed. The results show that there is a general accordance with two findings in the research addressing women’s position in academia. First, gender discrimination is restricting women’s choices by systematically excluding them from educational, managerial, and administrative positions. Second, in spite of the substantial increase in women’s enrollment in tertiary education, a significant development in women’s position and role in scientific and educational institutions has not taken place. After discussing the data, I will try to compare two sets of sociological theoretical approaches that offer explanations for women’s lower levels of participation in the academia; namely, theories of exclusion and theories of participation.
This research also reported substantial evidence that Iranian higher education institutions effectuate gendered hierarchy and power distribution and practice gender discrimination in filling available academic and administrative positions. Cultural-historical ideological system of patriarchy is reinforced and reproduced in universities; thus the most effective theoretical tools to analyze women’s lower levels of presence in the academia are theories of exclusion, which are based on the recognition of a structural gender-based discrimination system; such explanations can be found in social learning or feminist theories.
Although women’s participation in higher education is gradually growing and gender boundaries are being stretched on a daily basis, there is a need for fundamental structural changes in social and educational spheres and widespread implementation of positive discrimination.
Link to Original Article in Journal of Sociology and Anthropology
Published by Ladan Rahbari
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