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Diversity, Difference and Distributive Justice in Academic Leadership Professor Louise Morley

Diversity, Difference and Distributive Justice in Academic Leadership Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer. Why Diversify Academic Leadership?. Higher education a major site of:

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Diversity, Difference and Distributive Justice in Academic Leadership Professor Louise Morley

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  1. Diversity, Difference and Distributive Justice in Academic Leadership Professor Louise Morley Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) University of Sussex, UK http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer

  2. Why Diversify Academic Leadership? Higher education a major site of: • Cultural practices/messages/ values • Identity formation • Knowledge formation, capital & dissemination • Opportunity structures for social mobility • Worker production for other influential institutions • Symbolic control (Holmwood, 2011; Morley, 2011)

  3. Snapshot Statistics: Absent Women Hong Kong • 13% professors/readers in 2009/10 • No female vice-chancellor (HKSAR, 2012). Sweden • 20% professors in 2010/11 • 43% vice-chancellors (SOS, 2012). Turkey • 28.5% professors in 2010/11 • 7% vice-chancellors (ÖSYM, 2012). UK • 21% professors in 2010/11 • 14% vice- chancellors (HEFCE, 2012).

  4. Consequences of Absence of Leadership Diversity Employment/ Opportunity Structures • Distributive injustice/ Structural Prejudice. • Depressed career opportunities. • Misrecognition of leadership potential/ wasted talent. Service Delivery • Knowledge Distortions, Cognitive/ Epistemic injustice(Fricker, 2007) • Reproduction of Institutional Norms and Practices. • Margins/ Mainstream hegemonies, with women, BME staff seen as Organisational ‘Other’.

  5. Impeding Diversity in Senior Leadership • Who self-identifies/ is identified by existing power elites, as having leadership legitimacy? (Morley, 2012). • Are certain groups, styles, talents and potential mis-recognised/ perceived as too risky? (Fitzgerald, 2011). • Do dominant groups continue to appoint in own image/ clone themselves? (Gronn and Lacey, 2006). • Is leadership still synonymous with structural positions and traditional types and displays of masculinity (Davies & Thomas, 2002). • Do current leadership scripts offer creative or restrictive potential (identity cage) to under-represented groups? (Alvesson et al., 2008). • Are informal practices e.g. networks, headhunters’ searches reproducing privilege? (Watson, 2008). • Does decision-making lack transparency/ accountability? (Rees, 2011).

  6. Diversity = Representational Space? Norm- saturated policy narratives • add more under-represented groups • into current higher education systems as students and academic leaders = • a form of distributive justice/ smart economics • organisational and epistemic transformation. Development of a sociology of absences (Santos, 1999)(2007/8- ECU, 2009).

  7. Diversity in Academic Leadership is Not… • Treating identity simply as ademographic variable. • Access to organisations monopolised by the elite. • Allowing women/ minorities in, but ensuring that they continue to lack capital (economic, political, social and symbolic) to redefine the requirements of the field (Corsun & Costen, 2001).

  8. Action or Words? • ‘Speech acts’– ‘saying it’ does not bring about actions that ‘do things’. • Difference between higher education being diverse and ‘doing diversity’ (Ahmed, 2006). • Gulf between staff experiences of diversity and equality and organisational statements and policies (Deem et al., 2005; ECU, 2011).

  9. Action for Change: Promoting Informed and Inclusive Practices Structural Interventions • Accountability and Transparency • Data Collection and Diversity Monitoring • Diversity Data in quality audits/ league tables. • Equality Impact Assessments/ Mainstreaming • Action on Bullying, Harassment and Discrimination • Developmental Opportunities - Coaching, Mentoring and Networking.

  10. New Conceptual Grammars, Innovative Vocabularies and Leadership Styles How can • Leadership narratives, technologies & practices be more: • than discursive performances involving repetitions of the values/ beliefs of new public governance • than legitimating HE reform narratives • more generative, inclusive and diversity-sensitive?

  11. Follow Up? Centre for Higher Education and Equity Research (CHEER) http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer/ Follow CHEER on Twitter https://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=SussexCHEER

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