{"title":"A critical analysis of Athena Swan as a policy-scoring scheme","authors":"John Armstrong, Alice Sullivan","doi":"10.1002/berj.4071","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Athena Swan was established in 2005 with the goal of advancing the careers of women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) subjects in higher education. Since then, it has expanded its remit in various ways and has generated some controversy. This paper explains how Athena Swan operates as a policy-scoring scheme, requiring universities to submit plans for policy improvement in order to receive a bronze, silver or gold award. We explain that the implications of rewarding plans for improvement have not been widely understood. We document Athena Swan's changing policies on sex and data collection, which for a period discouraged data collection on sex. We demonstrate the way in which activists were able to capture Athena Swan's policy development process and argue that policy-scoring schemes can lead to groupthink and pose risks to academic freedom. The outsourcing of equalities work to such schemes does not encourage evidence-based prioritisation and discussion of the needs of competing characteristics.</p>","PeriodicalId":51410,"journal":{"name":"British Educational Research Journal","volume":"51 1","pages":"225-243"},"PeriodicalIF":3.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/berj.4071","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"British Educational Research Journal","FirstCategoryId":"95","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/berj.4071","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"教育学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Athena Swan was established in 2005 with the goal of advancing the careers of women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) subjects in higher education. Since then, it has expanded its remit in various ways and has generated some controversy. This paper explains how Athena Swan operates as a policy-scoring scheme, requiring universities to submit plans for policy improvement in order to receive a bronze, silver or gold award. We explain that the implications of rewarding plans for improvement have not been widely understood. We document Athena Swan's changing policies on sex and data collection, which for a period discouraged data collection on sex. We demonstrate the way in which activists were able to capture Athena Swan's policy development process and argue that policy-scoring schemes can lead to groupthink and pose risks to academic freedom. The outsourcing of equalities work to such schemes does not encourage evidence-based prioritisation and discussion of the needs of competing characteristics.
期刊介绍：
The British Educational Research Journal is an international peer reviewed medium for the publication of articles of interest to researchers in education and has rapidly become a major focal point for the publication of educational research from throughout the world. For further information on the association please visit the British Educational Research Association web site. The journal is interdisciplinary in approach, and includes reports of case studies, experiments and surveys, discussions of conceptual and methodological issues and of underlying assumptions in educational research, accounts of research in progress, and book reviews.
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：
京公网安备 11010802042870号
