As most of us know, the Bologna Process (BP) has brought to the public several aspects that have become part of our day to day lobby strategy: the Social dimension of Higher Education (financial support of students, affirmative action, advice and support, social service, counseling), mobility and three cycle structure and access. Each of these aspects has gender implications that impact on the general success of the implementation of BP in Europe.
Social Dimension has obvious gender implications. In most countries, the number of females decreases as the position is higher. The choice of subjects is still based on typical gender stereotypes all over Europe. Also questions of financing are still different for men and women due to their different status in society.The big pay gap between men and women bring serious problems for female students when it comes to student debt and the current situation of growing tuition fees. The ideological support from the families varies in many cases between male and female students. This includes also the will to support the children and motivate them at least to enter Higher Education. Within the Berlin Communiqué in 2003, Gender Equality became a part of the social dimension of the Bologna Process. In the Bergen Communiqué, the part was not mentioned again, the social dimension was now restricted to economical and social barriers toward Higher Education. Nevertheless, as well as the social dimension, Gender Equality and Gender specific aspects can be seen as a broad part in all action lines of the Bologna Process, coming also across with all action lines. One important aim for the future could be the inclusion of Gender Equality in the communiqué again, but this time followed by serious action of the countries that are involved in the Bologna Process.
In a lot of Bologna countries, the implementation of the three cycle structure came together with a restriction of access to the Master’s level. ESU’s first Bologna with student eyes showed that there is a gender bias regarding female participation at the Master’s level. The glass ceiling effect that keeps a lot of women out of Ph.D. studies and higher levels of academia will also keep them away from the Master’s level in the future. This means basically a decrease in education and opportunities based on gender.
Mobility has a strong gender specific aspect. While looking at the mobile students, a lot of countries have a bigger participation of female students abroad. This is also due to the gender specific choice of subjects that lead women more into subjects that are usually more mobile, such as language, social sciences and cultural science. But on the other hand, the access to mobility is more restricted for female students. In some countries, women are even not allowed to study or they face huge discrimination. Women in subjects that focus on these countries and regions face disadvantages, when mobility becomes a key issue for the future job.
At the level of Doctoral Studies, the female participation remains low nearly all over Europe. While the 3rd cycle became a part of the Bologna Process, it is also now up to us to deal with that issue. One main issues of the lack of female participation in the higher academic sphere is also the problem of lacking motivation from the social environment. But also the actual academic “elite” plays an important role. If doctoral studies are becoming more structured as a 3rd cycle, old structures of personal relations between professors and PhD-students can be destructed. Since they were mostly male connections (because there were mainly men) this could have an impact on the female participation. On the other hand did the “not-so-structured” PhD studies serve different needs of more flexibility and personal needs, so that a more structured way will keep students out of the system as well.
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