Rankings in Higher Education: criteria for measuring Gender Equality in Universities

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Ainhoa Novo-Arbona, María Silvestre Cabrera, Eva Martínez-Hernández, Arantxa Elizondo Lopetegui
Publishing Year 2024 Issue 2024/168
Language English Pages 22 P. 131-152 File size 212 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2024-168008
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University rankings are an increasingly important aspect of the world of higher education. They have become an essential component for providing transparency in universities, serving at the same time to help measure and evaluate the quality of those institutions. Rankings differ according to their objectives, target audience, content, and methodologies. In general, rankings do not include indicators relating to gender equality. There are a few exceptions that include indicators of gender balance – understood as the proportion of women and men in different academic fields – in the student body and among academic staff. The main objective of this article is to consider which indicators should be incorporated into measurements of equality in Spanish universities. The article explores the idea that measuring equality can be interpreted from two different perspectives: either as a measure equivalent to parity or as a measure equivalent to equity. The two approaches have distinct ideological and philosophical bases, and their operationalization provides different results in the classification of universities.

Keywords: university rankings; gender equality; higher education; equality indicators

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Ainhoa Novo-Arbona, María Silvestre Cabrera, Eva Martínez-Hernández, Arantxa Elizondo Lopetegui, Rankings in Higher Education: criteria for measuring Gender Equality in Universities in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 168/2024, pp 131-152, DOI: 10.3280/SL2024-168008