1er octobre
Aicha Serghini Idrissi et Patricia Garcia-Prieto
(Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management (ULB))
Salle Doucy
Résumé
Leading Academic Performance (LAP) models in European universities are shifting to meet Anglo-Saxon and Asian standards. We argue that the gendering of LAP needs to be more explicitly recognized, particularly with regards to the potential negative implications for the career advancement of female academics. This paper proposes an alternative explanation to gender under representation in leading academic positions.
Building on social identity theory we posit that much of the application of LAP criteria are affected by gender social identity. We integrate concepts from social identity theory of leadership and social identity performance to describe how performance evaluations of academics can be biased against women academics by female as well as by male peers.
We put forth how female academics may strategically perform their academic and and/or female social identity to be recognized as leading academic performers. The strategic performance of social identity can also help explain previous research findings such as the glass ceiling or the queen bee affect, among others, addressed by the literature.
Through social identity theory we explore internal processes that offer an alternative explanation to women’s under representation in academia. We assert that this under representation is linked to gender identities which can affect how individuals make sense of leading academic performance models. We offer some new insights as to how performance evaluation of peers in universities could lead to gender biases favoring the attribution of LAP to those male academics closest to the LAP prototype.