The system level: Navigating an academic career

According to Acker (2012), the first gendering process is about the organisational structure itself and is demonstrated through hierarchy and distance, for example, how an organisation is divided by gender, what place is considered appropriate for whom, what behaviour is considered appropriate and what the hierarchies of power look like. The organisational structure of media technology, as in many Swedish universities, is represented by two formal professional positions: the senior lecturers or associate professors (‘lektorer’ in Swedish) and the lecturers (‘adjunkter’ in Swedish). In media technology, these two formal positions encapsulate the difference and hierarchical order between theoretical and practical competences, practitioners and academics and researching and teaching obligations, even if these roles and practices are not always clear-cut. The positions of lecturer and senior lecturer require different formal merits and degrees, and to some extent have different assigned tasks and duties. For example, a lecturer at the university typically carries out education-related work, while a senior lecturer is assigned to teaching, research and development work.

In Sweden, media technology is offered as a subject at several universities. At the department under study, media technology specialises in user experience design (i.e. how users experience design and digital artefacts) and the production of interactive media artefacts. The practical courses are mainly staffed by lecturers. A majority of the lecturers have a broad experience of media production outside academia. Eighty per cent of the lecturers are middle-aged or upper-middle-aged and have ten to thirty years of work experience outside academia. Ten out of twelve are men. This stands in contrast to the senior lecturers, where the majority have stayed within academia since they received their PhD and are middle-aged, and only nine out of seventeen are men. Their teaching practices, to a greater extent, include theoretical courses and the supervision of bachelor's and master's theses.

The formal qualifications for lecturers are a bachelor's degree in a particular subject or competence in craftsmanship skills, while senior lecturers hold a PhD degree. Senior lecturers can be selected onto faculty boards and committees, and they apply for research funding and such like. The different employment contracts for lecturers and senior lecturers reflect the different status of these two groups and uphold the regime that knowledge as theory is more valued than knowledge as practice (as summarised in Table 1). Lecturers also usually have more precarious work conditions, such as part-time or temporary contracts (or both). Notably, the department's wage statistics show that the average wage for senior lecturers has increased more than the average wage for lecturers during this period. The formal positions, roles, duties and wages of senior lectures increase their symbolic value and status in comparison to the skills and competences of lecturers, whose status decreases.

The symbolic level: Representations of media technology

On a symbolic level, we look at how the identity of media technology at the university is represented by analysing how the subject is communicated on websites and social media. As Acker (2012) puts it, the second process involves symbols and images (in a broad sense) and is about creating symbols that explain and justify the system; symbols that express, reinforce and sometimes challenge the different identity positions at the workplace.

Our results show how both images and texts on the official website describe media technology as a practice-based, profession-driven education that provides students with jobs such as ‘interaction or UX designers, web developers, media designers, game designers or 3D animators’. Thus, the images communicate that media technology is largely a practical programme, not a theoretical one. The images also promote an inclusive education that aims to recruit female students, as all the pictures of people depict women and, to some extent, diversity.¹ Notably, one of the theoretical courses in the Media Technology department is only represented symbolically as a fussy image of a seminar room, something vague that students encounter at the master's level.

The semi-official communication on Facebook and Instagram, administered by individual teachers, gives a more vivid and nuanced picture of what is done within the educational setting. Here teachers post and upload images of students’ work, guest teachers and social events. The social media content emphasises media technology as a highly practical education, which is demonstrated in the visual discourse; however, it also reflects a representation of a fairly gender-equal environment, even if teachers tend to be older men and students younger women. On a symbolic level, the ‘official’ narrative represents a general institutional ambition to recruit more women from diverse backgrounds and also frames the department as a site for practical rather than theoretical knowledge.

The interaction level: The negotiation of power in social interaction

On the third level, focusing on interaction, Acker (2012) points out that social structures are produced and reproduced through daily interactions, including all the patterns of domination and submission that exist in most workplaces. These patterns can include which networks exist, who talks to whom and who is listened to. In short, it is about behavioural patterns. In the work setting of media technology, patterns of dominance and submission are reinforced and maintained through demonstrations of certain competences and skills. For example, both lecturers and senior lecturers must demonstrate their technological and practical skills to fit into the department's profile and enable them to become part of the research field of human–computer interaction; this is especially important if you are a woman (as the discipline traditionally consists of male engineers). However, in some situations, practical knowledge can equally be questioned:

A small group listens but whispers to each other, giggles and smiles a little. A girl raises her hand in the middle of an argument and asks why they should learn about what he is talking about. He replies that it is because it can lead to them gaining useful, practical knowledge. The student argues that the content is uninteresting, unnecessary, and that it is banal. Several of her student friends agree. (…) He realises that he allows himself to be provoked but still cannot help it. He loses focus and words (…) he goes down to his office, sits down, takes a deep breath, and tries to understand what happened, why he suddenly felt so powerless and what he needs to do to be able to go back to the students in eight minutes. (Lecturer, male, quotation from collective memory-work)

As the person familiar with the situation and comfortable in the role of the professional, the lecturer's confidence and status shifted at the precise moment when his expertise was questioned by a group of young, mainly female students from a more academic-oriented programme. The words uninteresting, unnecessary and banal turned this event into a situation where several years of insight, knowledge, experience, methods, adaptations and successes were perceived as ineffective and useless.

Class, in combination with gender and age, might have played a role in this situation, as coming from an academic middle-class background brings security and self-confidence. Class background was also identified as a central theme in the participants’ discussions about accessing and navigating the academic room. The act of speaking in an academic setting could be seen as a huge accomplishment for someone coming from a non-academic background. The context in which the following recalled memory was extracted was when the senior lecturer was a doctoral student attending a session on a PhD course:

And I think I was the fourth or fifth to speak. When it was my turn, I said something, I do not remember what. I did not tremble in my voice because I had suppressed all nervousness. Everyone sat quietly and listened. Maybe I talked for one or two minutes. But it was that nod and empathetic look that made me not feel like I was saying something totally weird, strange or something no one understood. I got confirmation and I felt it worked, I had made it. For me, it was something big. (Senior lecturer, female, quotation from collective memory-work)

In this shared memory, the participant overcame a huge obstacle by talking in an academic room occupied by professors, senior lectures and doctoral students – a situation that often represents theory in the setting of an educational workplace. The expectation within the academic organisation of media technology is addressed in the collective memory-work by, for example, the feelings of being allowed to exist in the academic room, as opposed to the experience of feeling disparaged and ignored. Also common in the collective memory-work was the theory–practice dichotomy, addressed in terms of power, power relations and feelings of being powerless.

The subtle nuances of power in terms of how it is changeable emerged from the analysis, which implies that the power relationship between who is dominant and who is submissive can shift. This was also applicable to identities connected to the dichotomy between theory and practice. In the Department of Media Technology, practical technical knowledge is highly gender-coded and applies to certain types of masculinities, such as the programmer or the engineer. A woman who wants to enter this gendered code needs to take on a role gendered as masculine but not behave as too masculine in order to not be devalued as a (heterosexual) woman. However, when navigating the career system of higher education, other skills and competences are emphasised, such as theoretical and ‘academic’ competences. In one of the shared memories, the complexity of the subtle nuances of power became visible in a dinner conversation, where most of the participants had an academic background, except for the participant. This memory took place during the informant's studies at an art college and describes a dinner party at a medical student's home where the majority were students following a more theoretical education.

The dinner conversation was initially focusing a lot on the latest exam, upcoming courses (…). She felt completely powerless and wrong in the context, could only nod a little now and then, and at the same time thought about how long she would have to stay without appearing too unpleasant. Suddenly the conversation slipped into art, design and literature. And then the inner feeling changed, she ended up in the centre, everyone sat and listened, attentive and a little devout. (…) She left dinner with a feeling of still being wrong. But still quite right. In many ways. (Lecturer, female, quotation from collective memory-work)

This memory demonstrates how the participant went from being outside of the conversation, feeling ‘completely powerless and wrong in the context’, to being at the centre of the conversation when her area of expertise was in focus. The memory also shows the double feelings of this shift, ‘being wrong’ and ‘quite right’ at the same time. Participants discussing the shared memory could recognise themselves in this situation, and they ended up discussing how hard it is to find situations where you feel one hundred percent confident, as this position of domination can so suddenly shift, with just a comment, which can both give and take away power. As one participant puts it: ‘it is the nuances that make a difference, it is often so subtle that it is only afterwards that it is possible to see what really happened’. The duality and the sudden shifts can make it hard for individuals within an organisation to decode and interpret what values and norms are perceived as the right ones. The imbalanced relation between theory and practice also indicates that these kinds of power relations are of importance for understanding the organisational procedures of this dichotomy.

Loss of control and shame were addressed in the discussion, in terms of not being able to handle either a theoretical challenge or a practical one.

He says that it is the only thing they can do, because they have to think about his career before hers. He's an associate professor. She's just a lecturer and a doctoral student. He says that she has lots of opportunities for a much longer career than him, which he is at the end of. Inside she wants to scream, but she has no voice, nothing to say. The feeling is like a tingle in her arms, but she says nothing of everything she wanted. She says, ‘sure, thank you, it will probably be good’. (Senior lecturer, female, quotation from collective memory-work)

This memory addresses the difficulties in voicing one's opinion in a situation where unequal relationships exist; here the unequal relationship is between a female lecturer and PhD student and a male senior lecturer. In interaction with others, she acts according to social expectations in order to adapt to the correct identity stipulated by the organisation – that of the rational and neutral academic. As described by one participant, ‘power can be difficult to see when you are exposed to it’. In line with Acker (1990), the view on organisational identities as encouraging individuals to act according to organisational norms and correct identities can be seen as a way for an organisation to promote some formal positions before others, as in the examples from the collective memory-work. In specific moments, it is hard to feel in control of the situation and act accordingly. Even in vulnerable situations, a common striving to do and say the right things, according to one's identity, tends to override emotional reactions.

The performative level: Doing the theorist and practitioner

The fourth process that Acker (1990) describes produces identity and, so to speak, teaches and encourages the individual to act according to what, within the organisation, is perceived as the ‘correct’ gender and organisational identity. In the subject area of media technology, we have seen this represented by, for example, male lecturers focusing on rules of procedure in seminars with students, while female lecturers comment on the students’ efforts and give them encouragement and support.

The other central theme that we would like to bring to the fore within the fourth process of gendering (Acker 1992) is that of embodied power. In the collective memory-work, power was given by others in interaction and connected to both physical appearance and identities of being a theorist or a practitioner. In the following shared memory, knowledge and competence are referred to in a similar way to how knowledge is manifested in the academic setting. In the shared memory quoted here, a senior lecturer or professor describes knowledge as embodied by focusing the student's attention on her own body.

The senior lecturer, or if she is a professor at that time, stands in the middle and points to her body, and points with her hands along the body and says, ‘I usually tell my students when I meet them for the first time, that this is how knowledge can also look’. The following week in the classroom, the participant sharing the memory thinks about it many times, so this means that knowledge can also look like this. She thinks about it every time she steps into the classroom. She thinks especially a lot about how it sounds when she walks, how she moves. It is strange that the body is a part of this, not what she says or does, but that the body is an expression of knowledge and competence. (Senior lecturer, female, quotation from collective memory-work)

This memory demonstrates how knowledge can be represented by a physical manifestation. How one should be, behave or dress, as an academic, represents certain ideals about what knowledge may look like. The shared memory enunciates that our bodies are part of the performative process of identity work in organisations. Through the statement that ‘the body is an expression of knowledge and competence’, the physical manifestation of ourselves, our bodies and our clothing is put to the fore in terms of claiming authority, legitimacy and belonging to a certain role or position.