Digital reading and gender inequality in higher education

The increase in popularity of higher education has improved the talent competitiveness of China on the global stage and highlighted the function of higher education in fostering social prosperity and development. But, as higher education has continued to advance, other issues have surfaced. Although enrollment chances have risen, there is still inequity in the distribution of opportunities, particularly across genders. The gender disparity in the growth of Chinese higher education is therefore examined and discussed in this article. The analysis and comparison approach is used to explain the causes and solutions to gender inequality in Hong Kong and Mainland China's higher education stages. It is discovered that there are gender bias-causing similarities and differences between Hong Kong and Mainland China. The study's findings are that traditional Chinese beliefs have an impact on gender inequality in higher education in Hong Kong and Mainland China. In several professions and textbooks in Hong Kong, there are very serious gender stereotypes, whereas, in Mainland China, gender inequality is greatly influenced by the urban-rural divide. The remedies for gender disparity examined in this research have a mitigating impact but do not actually solve the issue. China should establish policies in the future that are better suited to its own national circumstances and guarantee that the policies are implemented effectively.

This study examines the impact of leadership styles on faculty job satisfaction, with a focus on the moderating role of gender inequality in higher education. Findings reveal a strong correlation between leadership styles, job satisfaction, and gender inequality, highlighting the significant influence of gender disparities on workplace dynamics. Transformative leadership is positively associated with higher job satisfaction, whereas transactional leadership also plays a substantial role in influencing satisfaction levels. However, gender inequality diminishes the positive effects of these leadership styles on job satisfaction. The study underscores that gender discrimination in hiring, compensation, promotion, leadership opportunities, and performance evaluations negatively impacts female employees’ job satisfaction. Women facing systemic barriers, such as glass ceilings and sticky floors, experience stunted career growth, reduced motivation, and dissatisfaction. This, in turn, lowers their productivity, adversely affecting organizational performance. The findings emphasize the need for equitable workplace policies to enhance job satisfaction 126and maximize organizational outcomes. Addressing gender inequality can foster a more inclusive work environment, enabling organizations to benefit from the full potential of their workforce while improving employee satisfaction and productivity. This study contributes to understanding the critical interplay between leadership, gender equality, and job satisfaction in higher education institutions.

This chapter examines gender inequality (unequal treatment or perceptions of individuals based on their gender) in education, with a particular focus on higher education. Data presented within this chapter is drawn from my doctoral work. Analysis is offered to this presented data. In the current educational system, gender inequality makes it difficult for girls and women to persist. Yet many girls and women have managed to manoeuvre the difficult landscape and succeed. Why? How did they do it? These are questions that phenomenology can help answer. Phenomenology offers a means for uncovering the meaning of a phenomenon related to gender inequality. By understanding the strategies and resources these girls and women utilized, we can inform educators, board members, policy makers, and society in general to bring about change. Change that allows the same opportunities for girls and women that boys and men experience in education.

In this article, the authors find that, during financial crises, the wage gap between female and male accounting professionals declines and gender inequality in higher education is affected. In addition, less support and lower wages for disabled accounting professionals demotivate disabled students in accounting higher education. Because of budget cuts during financial crises, universities limit their support to women and the disabled. The authors consider 104 universities from the database of the United Kingdom’s Higher Education Statistics Agency for 2005–2011. Their theoretical and empirical findings establish that there was a growth in female students and a decline in disabled accounting students during the recent financial crisis. The established link between the higher education and the accounting profession enriches the accounting literature and may help policymakers to identifying better ways of enhancing equality and the inclusion of disabled students in accounting higher education to address inequality and non-inclusivity in the profession, especially during periods of financial crisis.

Under the premise of Gender Stereotyping in education, the difference between males and females at the stage of higher education somewhat restricts the future employment development of females. Throughout this paper, it develops a series of studies on the future employment development of females around the gender inequality existing in the higher education stage. By reviewing existing literature and data, it examines the current situation of women in higher education and how it affects them. This paper analyses the impact on women's future employment choices by looking at the gender stereotypes of women in higher education, the curriculum and choices of higher education, and the representation and lack of gender equality in higher education. Therefore, this passage will discover the requirements of women’s educational expectations and the influence of factors on women’s employment, the consciousness of gender inequality through the teaching process of higher education, and the analysis and suggestions on the status quo of gender equality education in colleges.

Despite the indisputable progress of gender equality in academia in recent decades, the relative stagnancy of women's participation in decision making and resource distribution remains a global issue. There is growing evidence that a large part of gender inequality in higher education and research cannot be explained by explicit measurable factors. Male bias is encoded in societal and academic culture and to a significant extent determines subconscious choices and decisions benefiting men. This chapter analyses cultural reasons behind gender inequality and typifies them in a form of a matrix based on gendered attitudes to women's leadership in academia. The analysis of typical resistances reveals psychological and social mechanisms of subtle gender discrimination and is followed by a set of proposed preventive measures.

The aim of this study is to gain an understanding of the experience of gender inequality in higher education by Australian female Heads of Social Work. This exploratory study is significant as it builds upon previous studies of gender inequality that have focused on reasons why women are under-represented in senior positions, pay gaps, leave provisions, and training. The findings provide new information on the experiences of gender inequality of female Australian Heads of Social Work and include recommendations for change.

Global Trends in Gender Inequality in Higher Education: A Bibliometric Analysis (1993–2024)

In the context of rapid economic development and social transformation in China, this article, based on Bourdieu's theory of cultural capital, explores the phenomena of inequality in China's higher education and their impact on the reproduction of social strata. It first analyzes the inequalities in educational opportunities, processes, and outcomes, identifying family background, uneven distribution of educational resources, and deficiencies in the educational assessment system as the main factors contributing to these inequalities. Through empirical data, the article demonstrates how cultural capital is transmitted and accumulated within the education system, thereby affecting individuals' social mobility. Finally, the article proposes a series of policy recommendations, including optimizing the distribution of educational resources, reforming educational training and management systems, and improving educational assessment mechanisms, to reduce educational inequality. It also provides guidance for future research directions. These measures aim to promote educational equity, break the solidification of social strata, and achieve social harmony and progress.

Globally, correlations are reported between lower academic attainment and university students being a member of an ‘equity’ or ‘historically under-represented’ group. We seek to illuminate how this so-called awarding gap might transpire. Taking a longitudinal qualitative approach, 35 undergraduate students from equity and diverse backgrounds at an Australian university participated in a series of interviews. Using a metaphorical framing, we liken the students’ participation in higher education to building a house of cards, which refers to studying within a precarious, unstable or fragile situation. Students learn to work with the cards they are dealt through much scheduling, ordering and invisible work. Inevitably, when one of the cards wobbles and impacts their study, a partial or complete collapse of the structure can swiftly occur. In the aftermath, students try to rebuild. The house of cards metaphor illustrates how universities reproduce disadvantage through the institutional structural barriers that interact with individual students’ lives. Of concern, students perceive participation challenges to result from their individual faults, instead of from precarious structural foundations on which their house of cards is built. This article makes a contribution to critically interrogating structural inequities that influence students’ participation and, ultimately, success in higher education.

This longitudinal evaluation of gender inequalities and economic growth addresses key questions in the evolving debate over the character of gender differentiation and the goals of womens empowerment. These questions include: 1) whether the impact of strategies of economic growth served to enhance or undermine the status of women; 2) whether changes in the status of women were accompanied by significant changes in gender inequality; and 3) the implications for existing debates. Section I reviews several sets of literature pertinent to the questions using three general approaches: modernization-neoclassical women in development and gender and development. Section II presents the data and methods used in the evaluation. The research assessed the contending interpretations reviewed in the first section by combining another set of cross-sectional and longitudinal data on womens status and inequalities between men and women with other existing indicators. Section III discusses the results in the following order: 1) cross-sectional patterns in womens status; 2) trends in womens status; 3) cross-sectional patterns in inequality between men and women; 4) trends in inequality between men and women; and 5) conclusion. Finally section IV presents an overall discussion of the findings of the whole longitudinal evaluation.

This article seeks to re-invigorate debate about how we theorise inequalities in higher education. The work of sociologist Basil Bernstein has not yet been brought to bear in this area, despite the affordances it brings in teasing out the implicit rules that perpetuate inequalities in higher education. Drawing on empirical findings from a qualitative study into the impact of university-led ‘outreach’ work in the UK context, the article applies and tests the work of Bernstein. It is argued that his framework offers the analytical precision to expose the implicit rules and principles that underlie young people’s encounters with higher education.

Although participation in higher education (HE) has expanded in Europe, social inequalities remain a major political challenge. As HE expansion has not led to equal access and success, the mechanisms behind policies seeking to reduce inequalities need to be examined. Focusing on the widening participation agenda, this article investigates how universities translate political demands to their local contexts. The translation perspective is adopted to study the German HE system as an example characterized by high social exclusion. Based on policy document analysis, the study first explores the rationales underlying the discourse on widening participation. Second, a multiple case study design is used to investigate the organizational responses to the demand of widening participation. The findings indicate that the political discourse is dominated by two perspectives that regard widening participation as either a means to bring about social justice or to ensure a reliable pool of skilled labor. The study further reveals that different legitimizing strategies serve to link the policy of widening participation to local contexts. This study contributes to research on social inequalities in HE by introducing a translation perspective that permits analysis at both macro and organizational levels, while acknowledging institutional variations in organizational responses to political demands.

The quickly growth of the (quasi-)experimental literature on policy interventions in higher education provides an opportunity to identify the causal effects of these interventions on disadvantaged students. We selected 71 studies and rigorously gathered and compared more than 200 causal effects of outreach and financial aid interventions on access and completion rates of disadvantaged students in higher education. We find that outreach policies are broadly effective in raising access of disadvantaged students when they include active counselling or simplify the university application process, but not when they only provide general information on higher education. In terms of financial aid, we find that need-based grants do not systematically raise enrolment rates but only lead to improvements when they provide enough money to cover unmet need and/or include an early commitment during high school. Still, need-based grants quite consistently appear to improve completion rates of disadvantaged students. In contrast, the evidence indicate that merit-based grants only rarely improve outcomes of disadvantaged students. Finally, interventions combining outreach and financial aid have brought promising results although more research on these mixed-interventions is still needed. We also discuss the theoretical implications of these findings for our understanding of the mechanisms driving social inequalities in higher education.

The widespread use of technology and the Internet have changed many of language learners' everyday practices, including literacies. While there have been many studies with the focus on language learners' digital literacies, few, however, have explored language learners' digital information literacy and online reading practices with the use of social bookmarking tools, especially in a community college setting. We address this gap by investigating community‐college language learners' digital literacies when social bookmarking with the focus on digital information and online reading practices from an ecological perspective. In this qualitative multiple‐case study, the focal participants were five English learners, students in an English as a Second Language writing course in a community college in the northeastern United States. Data collection included interviews, observations, and researchers' e‐journals. Thorough within‐ and cross‐case analysis of data shows that language learners searched for digital texts and evaluated them based on relevance, reliability, interest, language, and importance for them and their learning community in the social bookmarking tool. The participants struggled with the number of results in search engines, keywords, and evaluation of digital texts for relevance and reliability. We show the need for more instruction, support, and guidance of language learners' digital information literacy practices as well as the benefits of providing students with opportunities to read digital texts. Our suggestions for future research include investigating the role of multimodality and other factors that influence language learners' evaluation practices when they look for and read information online.