Gender and Feminism: Epistemological Perspectives on Institutional Transformation

• In Event: 18.064 - Waves of Change in Institutional Transformation: The Role of Feminism

Abstract

A component of institutional transformation is the fundamental shift in underlying assumptions related to people and practices (Kezar & Eckel, 2002). Such a shift is partly informed by epistemological positions of people who participate in change initiatives. People bring with them different perspectives about change and transformation. How change takes place is shaped by the people who are part of a particular project team. In the case of ADVANCE grants project teams are comprised of people with a common interest in increasing the number of women in STEM fields. By definition, ADVANCE grant principal investigator teams tend to be interdisciplinary in an effort to bring together the best thinking and change and transformation in a given organizational setting. Since the focus of ADVANCE is the advancement of women in STEM fields, the teams of scholars that are typically part of an institutional transformation project include faculty and researchers from STEM fields—disciplines that come from a tradition of experimentation rooted in positivism. While not all members of the team will come from one set of disciplines or even different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, the context of any ADVANCE grant is likely to include multiple disciplinary and epistemological perspectives about what change is and how it is best achieved. There are also likely to be multiple perspectives about gender, women, and feminism. ADVANCE, while clearly about gender and organizational change, is not necessarily beholden to, grounded in, or sympathetic to feminist views (Daza, 2012, 2013).

One of the primary indicators of a successful ADVANCE grant is a demonstrated increase in the number of women in STEM fields (and on some campuses this has been expanded to social science areas as well). These grants have a common goal of the increased representation of women using a combination of approaches that include programmatic change (e.g., child care assistance) as well as structural change (e.g., changing promotion and tenure processes). How campuses go about it varies considerably. What also varies are the epistemological approaches people bring to how this takes place. For example, for some the focus is on changing and supporting women to be able to adapt to campus cultures in an effort to be successful; whereas, others may see it is necessary for the campus to change in order to be able to increase representation. To be sure there is no one way to approach this and the broad array of grants illustrate multiple views. There are also varied and multiple conceptual models and epistemological perspectives about gender and institutional transformation.

Relying on examples from my experience with two ADVANCE projects and a review of the literature (e.g., Bilimoria & Liang, 2011), the purpose of this presentation is to examine the role of feminism as an epistemological perspective in ADVANCE grants. The intent is to explore the ways that different conceptions of gender (e.g., as a variable, as a concept inextricably tied to feminism) shape the conduct of work and outcomes in ADVANCE grant projects.

Author

• Kelly A. Ward, Washington State University