Ninth Level Ireland

“Questions remain about the process by which College appointed its new associate vice-provost for equality, diversity and inclusion. At the beginning of the summer, this Editorial Board wrote in glowing terms about Provost Patrick Prendergast’s introspective address at the launch of the Systemic Action for Gender Equality (SAGE) charter …” (more)

[University Times, 10 November]

“Trinity’s gender equality efforts are being ‘hampered by the fragmented structure’ in which many key stakeholders interact with each other, according to a confidential report obtained by The University Times. The report, which was published in May, also highlighted the lack of visible information on equality, diversity and inclusion in Trinity …” (more)

[Katy Amos, University Times, 8 November]

“You’ll have heard the story about women whingeing about how their proudly-submitted papers got rejected by a premier journal without being sent out to referees. Or that the comments they received from referees were unduly harsh, but a male colleague’s paper got through on the nod without multiple resubmissions. Just a bunch of females having a moan wasn’t it because they can’t hack it? Well, no. Turns out they (we) were right …” (more)

[Athene Donald’s Blog, 6 November]

“Staff at Trinity College Dublin said the university isn’t ‘exactly going to right the wrongs of history’ by commissioning busts of female scholars for its library, emails released under Freedom of Information show. Earlier this month, the university asked staff and students to nominate the first female scholar to be memorialised in a bust for the Long Room, the main chamber of the Old Library, the Irish Times reported …” (more)

[TheJournal.ie, 6 November]

“Trinity rushed through the appointment of a top-ranking officer for gender equality, The University Times has learned, U-turning on an earlier decision not to create the position amid fears that its application for a new government equality initiative would be ‘seriously weakened’ without a senior equality advocate …” (more)

[Donal MacNamee, University Times, 5 November]

“A stark gender gap between boys’ and girls’ schools in the number and choice of Stem subjects they offer their pupils is shown in new figures. While there is universal uptake in maths, and biology is popular among female pupils, other Stem subjects don’t get the same look-in at girls-only schools …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 4 November]

“Last November, The University Observer reported on UCD’s gender imbalance problem, specifically relating to the lack of women in senior-level staff positions. At the time, only 30% of UCD Heads of School were women and only 24% of UCD full professors were women. The target is a 40% balance …” (more)

[Jade Wilson, University Observer, 1 November]

“Women academics do not rise through the ranks as fast as men with the same credentials and personal circumstances, research indicates. The study, of 2,270 academics at 24 top UK universities, found the men reached more senior levels than the women, even after parenthood was accounted for …” (more)

[Hannah Richardson, BBC News, 17 October]

“University College Dublin (UCD) today announced that the UCD School of Medicine, UCD School of Biology and Environmental Science and UCD College of Engineering and Architecture (made up of a further six Schools), have received Athena SWAN Bronze awards for their commitment to gender equality …” (more)

[AlphaGalileo, 10 October]

“More women than men have been elected to the position of president in students’ unions in the Republic of Ireland, while a slight majority of women have been elected across all sabbatical officer roles within the unions …” (more)

[Finn Purdy, Trinity News, 3 October]

“Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room is famous around the world for its stunning collection of rare library books. The fact that all of the 40 marble sculptures which line the main chamber of the Old Library are men is a less celebrated fact. Finally, after almost 300 years, this is about to change …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 2 October]

“In recent months, a number of high profile cases have focused attention on how credit is attributed to the creation of academic research and in particular the way in which the role of women is often diminished or effaced as part of this process. In this post Donica Belisle and Kiera Mitchell highlight the historical precedent of Mary Quayle Innis and the unrecognised impact she had on her husband Harold Adams Innis’ career and suggest that the social sciences and humanities would benefit from a wider interpretation of scholarly attribution than is currently practiced …” (more)

[LSE Impact Blog, 18 September]

“Many secondary school girls face an ‘information and confidence gap’ over so-called Stem subjects such as science, technology, engineering and maths, according to a new survey. Some 64% of girls say they don’t know enough about Stem, while 26% of students say here are easier ways of getting CAO points than choosing to study Stem …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 12 September]

“Despite being better educated overall – women aged 25-64, with a degree in Ireland earn 28% less than their male counterparts, according to a new report. This is among the findings in an annual overview of structure, finances and performance of education systems in the developed world, by the international think-tank OECD …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 10 September]

“Ireland has the largest pay gap between men and women with third level qualifications in the OECD. Education at a Glance, which was published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, shows that men educated to third level in Ireland earn more than their female peers …” (more)

[RTÉ News, 10 September]

“The number of women climbing the career ladder in science is ‘disappointingly low’, say researchers. Women make up half of students in the life sciences, but only one in four professors, according to data from 500 scientific institutions worldwide …” (more)

[Helen Briggs, BBC News, 6 September]

“Trinity students will soon be able to opt for gender neutral pronouns in official College records, marking a significant expansion to the College’s gender recognition policies. Students will be addressed by their first name in College letters and emails …” (more)

[Emer Moreau, University Times, 4 September]

Abstract: Gender segregation in higher education (GSHE) is recognized as a key factor to explain the persistence of gender inequalities in the labor market despite the reversal of gender gap in educational attainment. Women are systematically overrepresented in fields of study, such as social sciences and the humanities, which offer relatively poor labor market prospects; at the same time, they are underrepresented in fields that perform above the average, as engineering and ICT. Several explanations for GSHE have been proposed in the literature, but their explanatory power has to be assessed yet. Using a rich longitudinal dataset on a recent cohort of Italian upper secondary school leavers, in this paper we jointly test seven potential mechanisms for GSHE. Our results show that rational choice explanations—such as skill-based explanations and gender differences in career preferences—fail to account for GSHE. On the contrary, expressive motivations related to preferences for school subjects and for specific occupations are found to mediate to a significant extent GSHE. However, our most important result concerns the key role of curricular track choice at upper secondary level which, alone, mediates two third of the gender difference in access to the humanities and social sciences and one third of the gender difference in access to engineering and ICT.

Carlo Barone and Giulia Assirelli, Gender segregation in higher education: an empirical test of seven explanations. Higher Education, first online: 3 September 2019.

“Ireland, May 1969, and St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, Co Kildare, was causing a stir. An Irish Times journalist paid a visit to the seminary, founded in 1795, and now separate to what became Maynooth University …” (more)

[Una Mullally, Irish Times, 20 August]

“Girls have once again outperformed boys in a majority of higher level subjects in this year’s Leaving Cert. A gender breakdown of the results shows girls secured a higher proportion of top grades – H1s, H2s and H3s, or 70-100% – across most subjects …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 15 August]