Page 83 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

on gender and academic recruitment have shown the importance of examining what gender practices are at play ‘at the gate’, where researchers are allowed or denied entrance (Van den Brink, 2010; Van den Brink et al., 2010; Van den Brink & Benschop 2012b; Van den Brink & Benschop, 2014; Nielsen, 2016; O’Connor & O’Hagan, 2015). However, as most studies concern higher positions in the academic hierarchy, we know little about the gender practices that affect the recruitment and selection of early-career researchers, such as non-tenured assistant professors.
Studying gatekeeping at the early stages of the academic career is particularly interesting because in this phase is decided who are included or excluded from (precarious) positions with a prospect of a more permanent contract, and eventually a career in academia. A few studies note that the assessment of potential plays a role in the evaluation of researchers (Van Arensbergen et al., 2014a; O’Connor & O’Hagan, 2015), particularly for early-career researchers (Bazeley, 2003) who have recently entered the academic labour market. To identify “those who are researchers of promise” is primarily a subjective endeavour (Bazeley, 2003, p. 271). Subjectivity tends to come with gender practices and therefore the recruitment and selection of assistant professors need further scrutiny. Studies in social psychology that focus on cognitive bias in the evaluation of men and women have shown, for example, that male students are evaluated as more competent for a position (Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, & Handelsman, 2012) and that men are favoured in hiring decisions (Biernat & Fuegen, 2001). What these studies do not show is how these biases become manifest in the construction of recruitment and selection criteria and the assessment of a candidate’s potential to meet those criteria. Therefore, we will study how committee members practice gender when constructing recruitment and selection criteria for assistant professorships, where the potential of early-career researchers is evaluated.
Our point of departure is the conviction that “workplaces are infused with gender” (Martin, 2003, p. 343). We use the notion of gender practices to grasp the practices that happen in action and on many organisational levels (Martin, 2003). We define gender practices as “the intentional or unintentional and often un-reflexive way of distinguishing between women and men, femininity and masculinity” in daily work situations (Van den Brink, 2010, p. 24). Central to the practice approach is the notion that “social life is an on-going production and thus emerges through people’s recurrent actions” (Feldman & Orlikowski, 2011, p. 1240). In line with Dick and Nadin (2006), we argue that selection criteria and their meaning are socially constructed in ways that mirror the interests of a particular group, which can produce inequalities for other groups, notably women. Therefore, selection criteria are not neutral, but
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