Day: January 12, 2016

Gender Bias in Student Evaluations

jennysaul9 Comments

From Inside Higher Ed:

There’s mounting evidence suggesting that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable. But are these evaluations, commonly referred to as SET, so bad that they’re actually better at gauging students’ gender bias and grade expectations than they are at measuring teaching effectiveness? A new paper argues that’s the case, and that evaluations are biased against female instructors in particular in so many ways that adjusting them for that bias is impossible.

As the UK embraces a new system of ranking teaching effectiveness, and allowing this to partly determine funding, it’s really important to bear this in mind.  If NSS (National Student Satisfaction survey) scores are key to the TEF (the new system), and the best way to get high NSS scores is to have men doing the teaching, there might be a worrying incentive for discrimination.

 

CFP: Precarity (SWIP UK)

jennysaul

SWIP UK (Society for Women in Philosophy) Annual Conference 2016 organised in collaboration with CAPPE (Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics), University of Brighton

 

Precarity: Passion, Rage, Reason

 

Thursday 16th –Friday 17th June 2016

University of Brighton

Call for Papers:

In the current context of austerity, growing levels of inequality, insecurity and injustice mean that many around the globe are forced to eke out an existence under increasingly precarious conditions. Few remain sanguine in the face of this, and whilst some argue that precarity is necessary given current conditions many others express anger, frustration, resentment and a passionate determination to find alternatives. In the academy, the term “precarity” has gained currency across disciplines to both describe conditions and theorise responses. However, this conference problematises precarity as both an analytic tool and topic of academic investigation. Firstly, since precarity is structured unevenly via our social identities and positions it asks whether (and why not) those experiencing precarity can express this within the academy? To what extent can they be heard and responded to before the embedded hierarchies, structures of power and language dilute, deflect and silence their angry and passionate articulations, by twisting them via requirements for “reasoned arguments” as defined by others?

Furthermore we note that precarity has a more positive resonance when it describes the destabilisation of norms and binary frameworks; such as those that structure gender, sexuality, nationality and race. Here, precarity is seen as something to celebrate; a field within which to challenge authority and constraint. Additionally, as destabilisation – in terms of working and living conditions, and identity – precarity is celebrated as “flexibility” through the neoliberal paradigm, with fragmentation and uncertainty seen as conditions for creativity, choice, motivation and competition. As a consequence, we ask whether precarity’s radical potential needs to be revised.
This conference welcomes panel proposals or papers that explore any aspect of precarity: Themes could include but are not limited to:

  • Precarity, casualisation, fragmentation
  • Precarity in the university
  • The effects of precarity on existing inequalities of gender, race, class, sexuality and disability
  • Precarity and psychosocial
  • Epistemology and claims to knowledge: reason and passion
  • The validity of expressive modes: passion, rage and reason
  • Precarity, destabilisation and fluidity of identity categories
  • The ‘precariat’ as social category

We anticipate that these and related issues will be of interest to people working in, among other areas, philosophy, gender studies, political theory, critical geography, international relations, psychology and sociology.

 

Abstracts of no more than 200 words should be emailed to SWIP@brighton.ac.uk by 11 March 2016 at the latest.

Registration fees

Employed academics: £65

SWIP members: £60

Unwaged/low waged/underemployed/students: £25

This event is intended to be as inclusive as possible. If you cannot afford the registration fee but would like to attend the conference there are a limited number of free places available. SWIP members/Friends of SWIP will be given priority. Please contact the organisers: SWIP@brighton.ac.uk.  The venue is wheelchair accessible, and we aim to be as accessible as we can in all ways.  Please do contact the organisers about your needs.

 

The conference fee includes a buffet dinner on the Thursday evening. Delegates will need to provide their own lunch and refreshments during the conference.

 

For further information about SWIP visit: http://www.swipuk.org

For further information about CAPPE visit: www.brighton.ac.uk/CAPPE

For further information about the conference and updates visit: http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/cappe-conference/SWIP

 

This event will adhere to the BPA/SWIP UK Good Practice Scheme guidelines: http://bpa.ac.uk/resources/women-in-philosophy/good-practice