Page 128 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg
P. 128

126 CHAPTER 5
comparison, assumption), if the argument voiced a risk, trust, doubt, or mistrust, and what the final decision was on the candidate (e.g., put on reserve list, invited for an interview, rejected). During the coding process I kept notes (memos) on the insights, ideas and patterns that I identified (Benaquisto, 2008).
During the previous steps, I found different phases of the selection procedure where practicing gender occurred. Practicing gender was not limited to situations where candidates were evaluated, as I also found, particularly in the e-mail and document data, that practicing gender occurred before and after committee deliberations, for example in composing hiring committees. I found multiple ways in which committee members practiced gender both before and after the deliberations and decided to make an analytical distinction in my data presentation between these phases.
Concerning the evaluation of candidates, gender practicing appeared most salient in the final phase of the decision-making, where committees had to decide on the ranking of the top candidates. In that phase there were subtle and complex interactions between committee members that resulted in the ranking of men as top candidates in four out of five procedures. This is particularly interesting, as this is the moment when committees had to choose between candidates and decide whom they consider the top candidate. In all cases, a number of candidates, both men and women, were ‘dropped’ early on in the final evaluation discussion, for example due to a lack of teaching experience, doubts about the quality of research, because they were considered too junior / not senior enough, or overall too inexperienced. In all the cases, at least one woman made it to the final two or three candidates who were considered an eligible candidate for the position.
Earlier research showed that “discrimination is most likely to occur when candidates have passed a basic threshold of perceived competence” (Dovidio and Gaertner, 2000 as cited in Rivera, 2017, p. 1119) and that practicing gender had most profound outcomes for candidates deemed to be above the bar or “at bar” in final decision meetings (Rivera, 2017). For that reason, I zoomed in on the discussions amongst committee members after each interview with candidates and on the deliberations leading to the final decision-making. I analysed on what criteria and arguments candidates were ranked top or sub-top and how men and women top candidates were evaluated. I looked for differences and similarities in the evaluation of candidates, which resulted in the identification of a number of patterns in the discussions among committee members. The analysis of the various patterns of practicing gender during committee deliberations led to five themes: 1) Championing candidates; 2) (Not) overcoming doubts; 3) Questioning truthfulness; 4) (Not)






























































































   126   127   128   129   130