Dynamics in the entanglements of gender cultures and disciplinary cultures in science as a key for gender equality: the case of the physical sciences

Although the decrease of women among the academic personnel with each career step holds for all disciplines in higher education institutions, the underlying processes within the institutions which lead to this problem are closely related to the particular disciplinary culture. Thus when problematizing gender equality and asking for the gendering of academic careers in scientific research and higher education, it is indispensable to take into account that the gendering of the sciences differs between different disciplines. The physical sciences are among those science disciplines with the lowest percentage of women in research and higher education. Whereas in Germany the vertical segregation within physics seems to mitigate slowly, the effects of the horizontal segregation still persists obstinately. Academic careers in science are influenced by the gender cultures in the respective research institution and its working place cultures. Last not least they are also related to the organizational type of the research institution, e.g. universities or non-university research institutes. Drawing on an ongoing ethnography in four physical research institutions in Germany I want to discuss recent dynamics in the entanglements of gender cultures and working place cultures for the case of the physical sciences and consider the role of the different institutional settings for these dynamics. In the course of the fieldwork there emerged different levels on which gender cultures become relevant: Firstly, the day-to-day explicit talk about „gender“, mostly in the context of gender equality, secondly, the doing gender in the interactions of physicists and, thirdly, the performings of gender through research practices of doing physics. The entanglements of the observed gender cultures, working place cultures and their institutional settings will be revised with regard to the recent policy-governed developments concerning gender equality in these research institutions. Introduction Though in the past two decades the participation of women in science has constantly increased, the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ still impedes the professional advancement and the participation of women in the higher ranks of academia across all scientific disciplines. This phenomenon has been thoroughly studied within Higher Education Research. It has been documented how the decreasing percentage of women’s participation with each step on the academic career ladder is entangled with the structures and cultures of the academic disciplines. One crucial factor is, among others, that students and young researchers have to adapt their educational and professional career paths to institutionalized requirements and the dominating norms which still seem to match predominantly to stereotypical male career paths (c.f. for a more recent publication Beaufaӱs, Engels & Kahlert 2012). Furthermore the organizational requirements of many female scientists’ private lifes are still in conflict with the normative expectation of being constantly present and available in research laboratories and offices, even though these norms are more and more criticized also by young male researchers. Moreover women have less access to and are less strongly integrated in formal and informal networks of funding and support (Dautzenberg, Fay & Graf 2011). Although this vertical segregation holds for all disciplines, the underlying processes that lead to this problem are closely related to the particular disciplinary culture. Thus when asking for the gendering of academic careers in scientific research and higher education, it is indispensable to take into account that the gendering of sciences differs between different disciplines (c.f. Beaufaÿs 2003; Heintz, Merz & Schumacher 2004) – and moreover also within an academic discipline, depending on the particular subfield. Due to horizontal segregation processes some STEM-fields suffer from a low participation of women at all ranks of the academic career, among them physics. At the level of first-yearstudents the percentage of women in physics increased over the past 20 years from 15% to 25%. Since 2000 this rate fluctuates between 18% and 25% and have recently levelled out at 25% (c.f. GWK 2011). Contrary to the percentage of female students the percentage of female professors has increased more continually, from 2,7% in 2000 to 9,4% in 2012 (c.f.. Statistisches Bundesamt), as well the percentage of PhD’s from 9,1% (Kassing 2000, 35) to 20% (Matzdorf & Düchs 2013, 33). Thus the vertical segregation in physics seems to mitigate, whereas the horizontal segregation still leads to the low percentage of women among study-beginners. Physics being gendered due to the underrepresentation of women means a domination of men concerning social and also research practices in the laboratory. Relevant factors are institutional structures, temporal and organisational conditions, social practices of daily laboratory life, styles of communication and interactions as well as professional selfconceptions and value systems. A Europe-wide comparison of different national cultures of physics has demonstrated for the case of physics inasmuch gendered academic careers are influenced by the gender cultures in the respective research institution and its working place cultures (c.f. Hasse & Trentemøller 2008). Gender turned out to be inscribed in scientific practices, in habitual styles and disciplinary cultures (c.f.. Traweek 1988; Münst 2002; Erlemann 2004; Lucht 2004). Also for the case of physics the project “genderDynamics” examines the entanglement of three interrelated dimensions. It relates different disciplinary cultures within physics with different forms of organizing science and ask for their entanglement with gender cultures. Empirically three institutional settings are investigated: universities, non-university research institutions and excellence clusters. Drawing on the ongoing ethnography in non-university research institutions within the frame of “genderDynamics”, in this short paper, I will sketch entanglements of gender cultures and disciplinary cultures for the case of different physical sciences in Germany, among them solar energy research and astro-particle physics. Apart from the university research, non-university research institutions form an important part of state-funded research in Germany. Each of these research institutions is member of one of four umbrella organizations: The Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers, the Max-Planck Society, the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz-Association. Three of these umbrella organizations are represented in the project “genderDynamics”: one FraunhoferInstitute, two Helmholtz-Institutes and one Max-Planck-Institute. Two institutes are dedicated to rather applied research, as renewable energies and photovoltaics, a third one does experimental astro-particle physics and the fourth field institute deals with theoretical astrophysics. Gender in discursive and material practices of physics In the course of the fieldwork as part of the ethnography it became apparent that one can differentiate heuristically three levels on which gender cultures become relevant: Firstly, there is the day-to-day explicit talk about „gender“, mostly in the context of gender equality. As from the moment I am entering the field, it pops up in the first instance and becomes a topic for the institute’s researchers when the people in the institute get to know me as a social scientist whose project is named “genderDynamics”. 1 genderDynamics is a collaboration between the Freie Universität Berlin and the Technical University Berlin. It is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) by the European Union (Project Number: 01FP121235-38). 2 For the notion of disciplinary cultures see Arnold & Fischer (2004) as well as Huber (1991). In addition to this, a recent policy trend towards more, though relatively soft, regulation of gender policies in science aims at increasing the percentage of women in STEM-fields. This has repercussions on the actual day-to-day research culture, e.g. when equality measures like special fellowships dedicated exclusively for women to apply for, are discussed in informal communication. Some male researchers feel excluded by such initiatives supporting women and are problematized. In these debates some male informants see their gender even as a hindrance for a career in physics. On a second level it is crucial how social interactions between the actors in the field are gendered in the sense of their ‘doing science as doing gender’ (c.f. West & Zimmerman 1987). It becomes particularly relevant for the physicists’ career in interactive settings among the team members when it comes to be judged as being excellent or not, as being able to ‘make it’ in physics or not, as being the one who gets a position, further support or being offered career opportunities. For the processes of being ascribed a good performance, a reward-worthy reputation or strong achievements, Ridgeway and Correll argue that expectations of who might be acknowledged with these appraisals, are biased by gender beliefs and, in the result, lead to supporting predominantly men (Ridgeway & Correll 2004). In order to examine how these processes are entangled with disciplinary cultures it makes sense to explore inasmuch research contents co-constitute communication and interaction settings and thus may construct gender cultures.