Dissertation
The representation and construction of gender in job advertisements for executive leaders in private nonprofit higher education: barriers and bridges to women’s leadership
University of Iowa
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
Summer 2021
DOI: 10.17077/etd.005951
Abstract
Private nonprofit higher education leadership inequitably represents women compared to men. Diversification at the dean, provost, and president levels is critical because leaders who think and lead differently can positively effect higher education, generating civic, economic, cultural, and political change for the well-being of individuals, institutions, and society. An unexamined barrier for women’s academic advancement is the role job advertisement language plays in privileging some candidates while excluding others. Job advertisement language may also have the potential to minimize barriers for women. Language is a social practice that constitutes and is, in turn, constituted by society. The societal perception of leadership as masculine shapes the language organizations use in advertisements to attract their perceived audience. Gender-biased job advertisement language may discourage potential applicants, affect the perceptions of the search committees who narrow applicant pools, and prime decision-makers about whom to hire. Gender-biased job advertisement language that embodies institutional values concerning who can lead will sustain gender inequity. Examining the potentially negative and constructive effects (i.e., the barriers and bridges) of higher education job advertisement discourse is key to understanding the larger phenomenon concerning the underrepresentation of executive women leaders. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis as both theoretical framework and research methodology, to interpret the meanings and messages in 40 job advertisements for executive leadership positions in private nonprofit institutions. Critical Discourse Analysis illuminates power imbalances in seemingly neutral text, and disrupts them. This study’s intended audience is private nonprofit higher educational institutional employees who influence and control leadership hiring processes, and thus can alter gender-biased structures to effect change. The findings and themes in this study will reveal how the values of private nonprofit institutions emerge through job advertisement language, whether and how job advertisement language disguises discourses that produce and reproduce inequity or achieve equity, and how discourses contribute to the multi-layered explanations for the gender gap in private nonprofit higher education leadership. Conscious attention to how discourse shapes and is shaped by institutions could empower rising women leaders and improve inclusive climates for retaining women leaders.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The representation and construction of gender in job advertisements for executive leaders in private nonprofit higher education: barriers and bridges to women’s leadership
- Creators
- Kathryn Hagy
- Contributors
- Cassie Barnhardt (Advisor)Leslie Locke (Advisor)Carolyn Colvin (Committee Member)Christine Ogren (Committee Member)Rachel Williams (Committee Member)
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), University of Iowa
- Degree in
- Educational Policy and Leadership Studies
- Date degree season
- Summer 2021
- DOI
- 10.17077/etd.005951
- Publisher
- University of Iowa
- Number of pages
- xii, 261 pages
- Copyright
- Copyright 2021 Kathryn Hagy
- Language
- English
- Description illustrations
- illustrations
- Description bibliographic
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 188-239)
- Public Abstract (ETD)
Private nonprofit higher education leadership inequitably represents women compared to men. Gender constructions in job advertisements for leadership positions are a potential barrier for women. Perceptions of leadership as masculine and gender-biased job advertisement language may discourage applicants and influence hiring personnel. This study uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine advertisements for executive leadership positions in private nonprofit institutions— revealing how language may produce and reproduce inequity to explain why there are so few women leaders.
- Academic Unit
- Educational Policy and Leadership Studies
- Record Identifier
- 9984124173102771
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