Women and Feminism in Higher Education Scholarship: An Analysis of Three Core Journals

Abstract

This study examined the response of higher education to the increased presence of women in the academy through an investigation of academic literature. A feminist framework was used to guide the analysis, which focused on 5 years of three leading journals in higher education: (1) The Review of Higher (RHE); (2) The Journal of Higher (JHE); and (3) in Higher (ResHE). Research articles were selected that had titles that indicated that the article concerned women or a subject especially associated with women. Data show that some scholars do use a feminist frame to guide their research in spite of the limited use of the word in an article title or in the text of the article. Over two-thirds of the articles coded as gendered from their titles were identified as feminist in nature, but when the larger picture was examined, only 8.4% of all the articles appeared grounded in feminist theory. Gender was most salient in JHE, coded in 22.7% of the article abstracts, and least salient in RHE, coded in 15% of the abstracts. Thirty-five percent of the title-gendered articles were not identified as feminist in ResHE; gender only served as a research variable in those articles. Women and feminism were explicitly included in only 84 articles of those selected, and a comparison with a previous study by B. Townsend (1993) indicates that over time, the number of times women and feminism have been included in articles has remained relatively stable. (Contains 4 tables and 38 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATI.ON Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) his document has been reproduced as . received from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. Women and Feminism in Higher Education Scholarship: An Analysis of Three Core Journals Jennifer L. Hart Center for the Study of Higher Education University of Arizona Paper presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education National Conference, Richmond, VA, November 2001 2 BEST COPY AVAILABLE