ABSTRACT

Higher education and research and innovation in Europe continue to suffer from an indefensible waste of female talent and gender inequality. The European Commission recommends that these organizations adopt gender equality plans (GEPs) and other initiatives for institutional change. However, the levels of readiness, expertise, and experience with such interventions are wide-ranging across institutions and member states, thus collaborative approaches might be particularly valuable. Drawing on the experiences of transnational and multi-institutional communities of practice (CoPs) for gender equality (GE), we illuminate how the CoP approach supported change agents, who leveraged CoP membership to respond to challenges in promoting GE initiatives. Being part of collaborative, co-designed CoPs for learning, knowledge sharing, and institutional change provided external support to the change agents’ activism and allowed them to build legitimacy around GE work. CoP members leveraged this support through learning opportunities, knowledge transfer, sharing practice, political support, and solidarity from the CoP stakeholders. Findings also show that when CoPs were transnational, multi-institutional, and interdisciplinary, their heterogeneity did raise some challenges in relation to the divergence of members’ contexts and geopolitical idiosyncrasies and that this should be considered when designing CoPs which transcend national and institutional boundaries.

摘要

欧洲的高等教育、研究和创新继续遭受无可辩驳的女性人才浪费和性别不平等。欧盟委员会建议这些组织采用性别平等计划 (GEP) 和其他机构变革举措。然而，此类干预的准备程度、专业知识和经验在机构和成员国之间范围广泛，因此协作方法可能特别有价值。借鉴跨国和多机构实践社区 (CoP) 在性别平等 (GE) 方面的经验，我们阐明了 CoP 方法如何支持变革推动者，他们利用 CoP 成员资格应对促进 GE 倡议的挑战。作为协作、共同设计的 CoP 的一部分，用于学习、知识共享、机构变革为变革推动者的激进主义提供了外部支持，并使他们能够围绕 GE 的工作建立合法性。CoP 成员通过学习机会、知识转移、共享实践、政治支持和 CoP 利益相关者的团结来利用这种支持。调查结果还表明，当 CoP 是跨国、多机构和跨学科时，它们的异质性确实对成员的背景和地缘政治特质的差异提出了一些挑战，并且在设计超越国家和机构边界的 CoP 时应考虑到这一点。CoP 利益相关者的政治支持和团结。调查结果还表明，当 CoP 是跨国、多机构和跨学科时，它们的异质性确实对成员的背景和地缘政治特质的差异提出了一些挑战，并且在设计超越国家和机构边界的 CoP 时应考虑到这一点。CoP 利益相关者的政治支持和团结。调查结果还表明，当 CoP 是跨国、多机构和跨学科时，它们的异质性确实对成员的背景和地缘政治特质的差异提出了一些挑战，并且在设计超越国家和机构边界的 CoP 时应考虑到这一点。