Date : 2024-02-10
Time : 2024-02-21
Venue : LT2, UG/F, Sino Building, CUHK
Abstract:
This study aims to examine gender disparities and potential gender inequalities in academia by drawing on life history data of faculty members in one of the Hong Kong universities. Different genders may face different opportunities and obstacles in seeking recognition and promotion regarding their teaching, research, and service, and they often balance their family and career in different ways. The findings will not only shed light on the theoretical understandings on how men and women perform in academia based on their different education and working experiences, but also help policy makers and the public to reflect on how to promote gender equality and encourage diversity and inclusion in academia. The archival life history data are mainly derived from scholars’ resume posted on official or personal websites. After coding by important themes emerged from prior theoretical grounds, the study illustrates the timing patterns of job entry and promotion, and then explore the underlying sociodemographic factors that help to shape their academic performance and life aspirations. The preliminary findings have clearly indicated the persistent existence of the leaky pipeline in this university. That is, the proportion of women at each stage of the academic tenure track continues to decrease. However, such leaky pipeline effects in non-STEM majors are relatively smaller. The results of faculty comparisons further confirm the so-called “survival selectivity”, especially in STEM majors. In other words, those female associate professors who successfully substantiated will be promoted to full professors even faster than their male counterparts. We then try to develop a series of interventions that could be implemented by individuals and organizations to attract and assist female scholars at each stage of this pipeline and to increase gender equality in academia in general.
Bio:
Dr. Hua (Sara) Zhong obtained her PhD at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. Currently she is an associate professor of Department of Sociology and Associate Director of Chinese Law Programme at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. She has been a visiting scholar at University of California Irvine, Cambridge University and the National Australian University. Her research and teaching interests include criminology, criminal justice, social development, youth studies and gender studies. Currently she has several ongoing projects on social change and trends of homicide/cybercrime/delinquency/substance use by gender, by age and across cultures. Her publications have appeared in Criminology, Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Journal of Criminal Justice, Feminist Criminology, Journal of Youth and Adolescence and International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology etc.
