Study reveals gender imbalance in teaching
Researchers Johanna Söderström and Luise Bendfeldt have completed a study on gender mainstreaming at the Department of Government. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt, Uppsala University.
A study at the Department of Government, funded by Uppsala University’s Gender Mainstreaming Funds, shows clear gender differences in teaching duties. Men supervise more and grade theses more often, while women handle more exam grading and teaching-related administration.
According to researchers Luise Bendfeldt and Johanna Söderström at the Department of Government who conducted the study, women’s teaching is also spread across more courses than men’s, particularly among professors.
“There may be gendered differences when it comes to who says yes and who says no to different types of teaching, as well as a willingness to step in and fill potential gaps.”
Because women spend more time grading, they have less opportunity for student-facing work. This affects visibility among students and may influence who is chosen as supervisor.
“The differences for supervision might in part depend on how supervision is organised at a department level. Female doctoral students might benefit more from being asked directly to supervise than to have to match themselves to theses, as it is currently organised at our department.”
“Pedagogical housekeeping”
"The conversations should be relevant across different departments at the university”, says Luise Bendfeldt and Johanna Söderström. Photo: Mikael Wallerstedt, Uppsala University.
The report shows that women spend more time on teaching administration or “pedagogical housekeeping”, tasks often underestimated in time budgets and spread across the year through numerous meetings.
“Our investigation and report were not done from the perspective of the decision-makers at the department, rather we wanted to find out what can be supported by evidence. The report should hopefully provide for more informed decisions. Likewise, those in charge at the department might consider whether men are asked to do such tasks to the same extent as women are. Conversations about pedagogical career planning might be useful here, and should be relevant across different departments at the University.”
Bendfeldt and Söderström state that at the moment, teaching visibility overall is not of concern at the Department of Government, but these types of studies are needed in order to be able to see if the student-facing teaching staff is representative.
A slow change
Continuity in teaching ensures stability but can hinder innovation. Courses, especially at master’s level, are often taught by the same lecturers for years, preventing new staff from broadening their teaching portfolios.
“A potential solution could be to rotate teachers or create more master’s courses. What are the trade-offs between these lock-in effects and the desire for continuity in teaching? Is there a concrete ideal to reach or is it a question of ongoing efforts at the department? We hope that the report will be used as input to wider discussions. At the moment there is a group working on the structure of our master’s courses, and we hope this report will provide insights during that process.”
It is also difficult to ensure that all teachers’ preferences and career needs are heard.
“Here, different forums might be a solution, for example teaching preferences could be more directly written into the individual planning documents, lifted at employee dialogues, etc. This is particularly important as preferences may change over time, and different career stages require different teaching experiences. In fact, not having certain forms of teaching experiences can be a serious roadblock for career progression.”
Transparency and fairness
The report calls for more transparent analysis of teaching patterns. Such insight improves fairness and legitimacy in teaching distribution and reduces concerns about preferential treatment.
“However, doing these analyses relies on everyone filling in their individual teaching plans in the same manner, and in a manner that is detailed enough (separating different forms of teaching for example).”
Different teachers have different preferences, skills, and career needs.
“There is not necessarily one concrete and ideal model of how to teach. Once more, continuous discussions and joint planning in pedagogical career talks would be very helpful here.”
The report by Bendfeldt and Söderström generally suggests introducing more structured pedagogical career planning, with regular check-ins and discussions about teaching development.
“The gendered difference suggests that individual teachers should also consider how spread out they are in their teaching, and discuss this with their Director of Studies.”
Johan Ahlenius