Recontextualizing the Gender Order in Academia: An Integrated Model for Analyzing Gender Inequalities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51624/SzocSzemle.22929Keywords:
gender order, gender inequalities in academia, discourse, recontextualization, cumulative discursive recontextualization model, higher educationAbstract
Gender inequalities persist in academia despite the formally gender-neutral and, more recently, gender-equality-oriented regulations governing universities. While the literature has extensively examined the structural, organizational, interpersonal, and individual mechanisms of gender inequality, less attention has focused on how these dimensions are interconnected and how their interaction contributes to the persistence of inequalities. This study develops a cumulative discursive recontextualization model (CDRM). The model argues that discourse mediates the legitimizing meaning systems of the gender order across structural, organizational, interpersonal, and individual dimensions through recontextualization, whereby they emerge in different discourses adapted to the specific logic of each dimension. The discourses produced across these dimensions build cumulatively upon one another, mutually legitimizing and reinforcing each other, while circular feedback processes contribute to the stabilization of gender inequalities. The study demonstrates the model through the recontextualization of three legitimizing meaning systems—the legitimate academic subject, the ideal academic career trajectory, and the value of academic work—while aggregate institutional data from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) primarily illustrate its structural dimension. The CDRM provides an integrated interpretive and diagnostic framework for the multilevel analysis of gender inequalities in academia and shows that effective institutional interventions for gender equality require coherence across the different dimensions.
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