Roumbanis, Lambros | 2024
In: Acker S., Ylijoki O-H., and McGinn M. The Social Production of Research: Perspectives on funding and gender. Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE)/Routledge.
Status as been described as an ancient form of social inequality that interpenetrates modern meritocratic institutions, including research and higher education. Status is a multifaceted social phenomenon that can affect the relations between people in many different ways. Despite political and normative changes that promote equal treatment of men and women, deep-rooted gender biases still exist as integral parts of the creation of status hierarchies in academic life. In this chapter, I illustrate this argument using a number of concrete situations from the Swedish Research Council panel groups in which some male reviewers responded with disrespect to the arguments presented by their female colleagues. The analysis is intended to shed new light on the social dramaturgy of gender-based status inequalities in the grant peer review process. It is unusual in putting the emphasis on the panellists’ detailed interactions rather than on the efforts to encourage gender equality in competition results through rule-changes and other prescriptive means. Moreover, it reveals the intersectionality of gender, age and esteem in shaping the behaviour of panellists.
