نشریه مطالعات دانشگاه
پیاپی 3 (بهار 1402)

Statistics show that in the year 2001, there occurred a major demographic transformation in Iranian universities, a transformation that, along with it, brought about many cultural, social and economic consequences. That year, the number of women admitted to public universities exceeded for the first time that of men. In other words, 50.5% of all those admitted to universities were women . If we assume this increase in number as the beginning of the feminization of the student status in Iranian universities, we must ask ourselves what is the relationship between this transformation and the cultural, social and economic changes that universities witnessed from that year onwards? This is a fundamental question in the cultural and social studies of universities in Iran. 
The year 2001 can also be considered the beginning of a general debate on the role of women in Iran's higher education. Since then, many researches have been conducted and articles have come up in this regard. Most of these researches and articles could focus on two issues: 1) Gender and identity changes affected by this great transformation, and 2) Difficulties and problems related to attracting female graduates in the labor market. We have dedicated this issue of the University Studies Quarterly in collaboration with the Department of Women's Studies of the Research Institute of Cultural, Social and Civilization Studies to investigate the issues of women in higher education and thus collected articles under the two aforementioned topics. In the first article, which examines the understanding of university women about the managerial tenure in higher education, Mohammad Taghi Karmi Qahi and Zainab Moradinejad have presented a noteworthy typology from the point of view of women regarding the problems and capacities of proper management in the university. In the second article, "Women in Iran's Higher Education Management: A Double-glazed Glass Ceiling over the Shuttered Gates of Faculties", Leila Falahati has addressed the same issue, having a more extensive discussion about these problems. In the subsequent articles, Saideh Pourkhazaei et al., Samieh Fereidouni, and Zahra Mirhosseini et al. have addressed the issue of empowering women in higher education and their employment after graduating from universities. Somayeh Fereidouni, in her article, raises the question as why there has not been a significant change in women’s entry into the labor market despite the increase of female graduates. The last two articles are dedicated to gender and identity changes affected by the presence of women in higher education. Mohammad Aghasi and Zahra Sadat Rooholamin have narrated the female students’ experience of identity changes while attending the university whereas; Khadijeh Keshavarz has examined the views of students from three universities in the Iranian capital such as the University of Tehran, Amir Kabir University and Al Zahra University on gender relations. She categorizes those views into three approaches and carefully lists their differences. Based on procedures adopted in previous issues of the quarterly, Mehri Tayebinia has written a review on Karam Habibpour Getabi's book entitled The Social Construction of Difference: Gender in the University Classroom. This is a critical review that highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this book and offers helpful suggestions at the end.

The increasing presence of women in higher education arenas has been one of the most important developments over the past few decades. However, their understanding of holding managerial positions in academia seems an important topic to be dealt with and the current paper is an attempt in this regard. For this, a conceptual framework is compiled with an interpretive approach relying on sensitive concepts such as culture, double hermeneutics and glass ceiling from the views of Max Weber, Anthony Giddens and Morris et al. In order to achieve the goal, the thematic analysis method and an in-depth individual interview technique were used. The statistical population was faculty members and female doctoral students of Allameh Tabatabai University, 18 of them were selected by purposeful sampling and individual interview techniques. Based on the results, five types of desperate protestors, survivors of the competition, dependent shadow sitters, isolated familyists, and waiting intentions were extracted. The findings revealed three important points: 1. University in Iran is part the society and socio-cultural structure. The issue of women on managerial positions has a deep connection with social issues, and it should be seen in the light of the country’s structure as a whole. 2. Today, Iranian women hold numerous managerial positions in the higher education domain. Of course, it goes to their level of awareness and activism which help them enter into the realm of academia. 3. Regarding the women’s presence in higher education fields, one should not go to the prevailing narrative and issue a general verdict for all of them.

A glance at the participation of women in higher education across the world shows that the presence of women in higher education has been increasing steadily since the 1970s, and in Iran, this process has witnessed a dramatic growth in line with the policy of educational justice. This growing trend of women's participation raised the idea of feminization of higher education in Iran although the evaluation of achievements indicates the existence of stable gender inequalities at different aspects of higher education. The purpose of this study is to investigate the share of women in the management positions of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology. The data were collected through a questionnaire distributed among female managers of the Ministry in 2020-2021. Findings revealed that the share of women in management positions is less than 10% and at the same time they are facing a double-glazed glass ceiling. In the first layer of this ceiling, a small share of women in the scientific ranks, including assistant professor (15%) and full professor (5%) prevent them to achieve higher level of managerial positions in higher education. This process is a reflection of the concept of leaky pipelines in the structure of higher education in Iran, which reflects the fact that women fall in the promotion process. In the second layer, the large share of women in the positions of department management and deputy of faculties (97 percent) and the small share in to university administrable positions (3 percent) indicate gender inequality. The findings showed that a total of 97% of women's managerial positions are limited to the faculties, and the positions outside of the faculties are negligible. In other words, the faculties have shuttered gates to allow women to enter, meanwhile, the double-glazed glass ceiling rests over the administrative staircase of higher education.

A country needs the participation of all members of society, including women to achieve sustainable development. Women make up half of the population, which is especially important to pay attention to their needs, issues, problems, and prepare programs for their training and empowerment. In other words, empowering women is one of the important components of that endeavor. From this point of view, this research aims to analyze women's empowerment from the point of view of students of Alzahra University, a women higher academic institution in Tehran. The research is qualitative based on a semi-structured interview with 50 students in the academic year of 2022-2023. Based on the findings, the concept was categorized into six dimensions: psychological (with the components of freedom of expression, right to choose, decision making, planning, purposefulness, management of emotions, personal life skills, attention to existential value, self-belief, trust to ego, sense of satisfaction, responsibility, solving personal problems, ethics, independence, strong spirit, strong character and courage), social (with the components of communication, respect, social awareness, media literacy and social presence), family (with the components of interaction, having the power and skill of family life), political (macro-level decision-making and political literacy), the economic dimension (with job and income components) and knowledge (with the component of attention to the value of science). This research helped understand the concept of women's empowerment and can play a key role in the policy making.

Female employment, which has always been a very important and challenging issue around the world, is not an exceptional to Iran. Over the past two decades, Iranian females have become the most important costumers of higher education. A large number of social activists and even some governments have worked to facilitate females' employment.  However, the rate of female employment in Iran has been significantly less than the global average. It seems that, there are some missing elements, which are rooted in social beliefs. This research has been designed based on interpretive paradigm, qualitative approach and thematic analysis method, in order to respond to this main question: Why despite increasing female university students and graduates, there is no significant change in the rate of females' employment? The research participants included 46 female and male high school students (who were about to enter higher education) and 35 female higher education students from 9 Iranian provinces. Findings showed that gender-based norms in defining females’ role and responsibilities, especially about employment, have highlighted students' beliefs. On the other hand, female higher education students have defined employment as an ornamental good. They also defined the important role of university as an opportunity for them to social presence, which provides intellectual independence as well. In line with Becker's Theory, gender beliefs and female points of views about employment and university have serious share to build employers' tastes, which can lead to the separation of females from labour market.

Over the past three decades, there has been a phenomenal increase in Iranian students in different levels of higher education. And according to the Iranian Statistical Center as reflected by the media, women have overtaken men in entering universities despite the fact that many of them do not get the opportunity to obtain official jobs. Thus, some of the female university graduates opt for entrepreneurship in order to participate in the socio-economic domain of the country. This study aims to understand the narratives of women entrepreneurs regarding the impact of higher education on their entrepreneurial activities. This is a qualitative research based on phenomenological studies. To this aim, in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 women entrepreneurs. Four main categories extracted include: passion/boredom contradiction, university as a platform for transformation, university as a medium for networking, and the academic field of creativity potentials. Additionally, ten sub-categories were: getting rid of official formalities and system subjugation as staff, nurturing or flourishing creativity and capability, learning fundamentals of entrepreneurship, changes in vision, personality growth and excellence, entrepreneurship and networking, entrepreneurial benefit from diligence to networking, ability and interest convergence in education, and educational guidance. The results indicate that universities are considered gateways to entrepreneurship for female students. Therefore, providing the grounds for establishing or connecting with various networks, promoting self-confidence and morale, and helping students flourish in their abilities will lead to the advancement of entrepreneurship among women and their social, family and individual status.

The subject of this research is the understanding of students' attitudes towards gender relations. Connell's theories of “gender order” and Bourdieu's “male dominance” have provided the conceptual framework for this study. Research data were collected using a qualitative approach and through semi-structured interviews with 32 female and male students of three universities in the Iranian capital i.e., University of Tehran, Amirkabir University of Technology and Alzahra University. The data were analyzed thematically that finally revealed three main themes and eleven sub-themes and showed that the students had three distinct approaches to gender relations: One group considered gender discrimination to be of little importance. They justified gender inequality based on natural differences, colluded with patriarchal values, and were somehow satisfied with lesser responsibility on the part of women in some fields. The second group constituted a large part of the participants, and was sensitive to gender discrimination. Within this group, most of female students had either experienced discrimination in their family life since childhood, or faced gender discrimination in the university and the labor market. Most of the male students in this group were aware of their gender-based privileges. The third group constituted a minority that was active in promoting legal gender equality within university associations or promoting student publications, etc. However, even among these activists, there was obvious frustration towards changing the laws. In some cases, this encouraged them to emigrate. Most of participants believed that universities play a positive role in their intellectual transformations, particularly in the field of gender relations. That said that the university usually provides a platform for interaction among students which can help bring changes to values and attitudes.

Entering the university, accepting the role of a student and getting involved in student life provides the opportunity to create some attitudinal and behavioral changes in students. The present study aims to know the quality of identity changes of female students and identify some changes in their attitudes and behavior after entering the university. For this, using the qualitative research method, interviews were conducted with a number of female undergraduate students of Tehran universities. The participants were selected through the purposeful sampling method and based on the snowball technique. The answers were separated and interpreted via thematic analysis. After implementing the text of the interviews and coding them, the primary concepts were classified into four: "way of spending leisure time", "forming a family by reconstructing female gender identity", "style of religiosity", "attitude towards happiness and life satisfaction". The narratives of students show that the aforementioned categories have gradually changed. In expressing their on campus lived experience, they believe that they have become more individualistic, self-interested, egalitarian, secular and realistic, meaning they have gone through an important identity transformation. Also, depending on individual life, the experience of attending different universities and the quality of the academic atmosphere of the university, especially the professor-student interaction, social participation with organizations inside and outside the university, and the possibility of finding a suitable job, it can moderate the effects and intensity of students' identity changes. What is important is that getting to know the life of female students as a less mentioned group, provides the possibility to know more about the hidden layers of the Iranian university.

The book entitled The Social Construction of Difference: Gender in the University Classroom was written by Dr. Karam Habibpour Getabi in 2017. This is notable for examining the methodological dimensions of an academic research in the field of gender identity, especially female identity, as well as paying attention to science in the experience of gender differences and approaches leading to structure and agency in the gender reproduction or construction. The book claims the neglect of sociology in dealing with the cultural and social dimensions of the university classroom, and hence, it talks about the narrative of gender experience in the classroom. It seems that despite the set goals, the direction of the book is more than anything related to the gender issue and with the default design of the gender bias in the classroom, the methodology and the research process will suffer bias, as well. The research path focuses more on the separation of subjects in the field of learning. Data interpretation, contrary to the claim of the book and the proposed theoretical approaches, has not been on the path of constructivism. Finally, the role of the university in strengthening the gender difference or adjusting this difference is unclear, and the interpretation and evaluation of the university and its role in identifying students is formulated in a passive rather than active mode. One of the main challenges of this critique is related to the style of expression of the collected concepts and their interpretation. In other words, the conceptualization of titles in the presentation of research results will reproduce gender stereotypes in a hidden agency. Therefore, in order to degenderize research requires more than anything else a real understanding of issues, imbalances and social discontinuities.