Sustainable gender equality: Opening the black-box of quality assessment in higher arts education

Abstract

Issues of gender equality (GE) in academia receive increasing attention in terms of social justice and human resource management, and quality of research (Leach, 2016; Thompson, 2018; Pandey, 2019). While there is a body of research on gender representations and measures for women’s advancement in academia (Riegraf et al., 2010), little research has been conducted on the intertwinement of quality assessment and gendered mechanisms in a sustainable perspective. The starting point for our discussion of short empirical examples is the assumption that insights from the arts and humanities will set quality assessment in academia and beyond into a broader context (Benneworth et al., 2016). With our chapter, we are ‘opening a black box’ (Lamont, 2009) of quality assessment in higher arts education in Norway and scrutinize in what ways current practices may bring academia towards more sustainable working environment (or not). <p>

<p>The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are the worlds action plan to eliminate poverty and inequality and to stop the climate change before 2030. The 17 SDGs are grouped into five subgroups: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships. In this chapter we point out three particularly important goals that has great impact on higher education and research: SDG 4: Good education, SDG 5: Gender equality, and SDG 9: Innovation and infrastructure. Since 2000, there has been a progress in achieving the target of universal primary education in total.1 UNICEF shows that more girls are in school than ever before, and we know that ‘investing in girls’ education transforms communities, countries and the entire world. / …/ They earn higher incomes, participate in the decisions that most affect them, and build better futures for themselves and their families’. One of the most powerful and proven vehicles for sustainable development is inclusive and good education. The SDGs focus on the importance of eliminating all forms of discrimination, and one way to achieve this is innovations and infrastructure.R ebuilding infrastructure are key to finding lasting solutions that contribute to long- lasting change. GE in higher education and research are important to promote due to the SDG of building a fairer world where everyone has the same opportunity to contribute, create, fulfil their dreams and use their talents, and most of all to develop a more sustainable world in partnership with other human beings.