CODESRIA Gender Institute 2009
Theme: Gender in Higher Education in Africa
June 1st -26th 2009 - Venue: Dakar, Senegal

Call for Applications

Each year, since 1994, CODESRIA has organised a Gender Institute which brings together 12 to 15 researchers for between four to six weeks of concentrated debate, experience-sharing and knowledge-building. During the first few years of the existence of the Institute, its main objective centred on the promotion of a generalised gender awareness in the African social research community. The Institute has subsequently been organised around specific themes designed to strengthen the use of gender as an analytic category that is integral both to the output of African social researchers and the emergence of a networked community of scholars versed in the field of Gender Studies. The theme that has been selected for the 2009 Institute is: Gender in Higher Education in Africa.

The struggle for social equality between men and women remains an area of continuing relevance to any quest for a holistic understanding of economy, society, culture and politics in contemporary Africa – as, indeed, in every other region of the world. In fact, it can be argued that it is an arena whose construction is a permanent work in progress. And yet, the general, instinctive but misleading assumption has persisted, even in otherwise knowledgeable circles, that any reference to gender is little more than a code word for raising narrow, even parochial concerns that are specific to the interests of women only. In a bid to correct this erroneous instinct and, in so doing, open new frontiers of reflection on gender issues among African social researchers, CODESRIA has decided for the strategic plan period 2007 – 2011 to continue to build on its tradition of critical and innovative gender research by strategically focusing its annual Gender Institute on themes that will both contribute to an erosion of stereotypes about gender studies, and advance the frontiers of gendered knowledge as knowledge that is holistic.

Education at all levels in Africa is gendered terrain and gender disparities are even more pronounced in higher education. Although some strides have been made in terms of the participation of women in African higher education as evidenced by increasing female student numbers and a significant number of females completing undergraduate and graduate degrees, Amina Mama’s statement that “patriarchal knowledge is still coded into everyday practices” is still relevant in the discourse on higher education. For example, fewer women compared to men proceed to establish careers and to occupy senior positions at African universities. In addition, the structures of many Africa Universities remain deliberately masculine, in terms of their representational structure, decision making procedures and the culture of their members. Women continue to be minorities in higher education and those involved in these institutions are fragmented and isolated for various social, economic, cultural and psychological reasons.

Within CODESRIA, the gendered nature of higher education was recently bought to the fore in December 2008 at the Dean’s conference, held in Yaoundé as part of the General Assembly. Nineteen deans from different African countries representing the faculties of Humanities and Social Sciences took part in the conference. Of these, only one was a woman. The absence of female deans at the conference was because the pool of female deans in African Universities is small. In addition to be a quantitative minority, these women face tremendous gender related challenges at personal and professional levels which affect their freedom of movement to attend conferences. The problem of gender in higher education is a global one, though more acute inAfrica. This has wider implications on the production of gender sensitive knowledge at a global level.

The challenge involved in levelling the gender terrain in higher education involves coming up with strategies that bring about re-organisation and transformation of African Higher education Institutions in a permanent way that opens up opportunities for career development and career advancement for women while recognising their multiple gender specific roles.

To this end, the 2009 CODESRIA Gender Institute will focus the attention of laureates on the understanding of factors that influence and impede women from fully participating in higher education as well as understanding the gendered nature of the structures and character of the higher education environment in Africa. Laureates will also be encouraged and expected to come up with new and innovative studies/findings that address transformative strategies linked to research, curriculum design, management and decision making. These strategies should challenge laureates to think of ways of deconstructing the complex dynamics of injustice and post colonial inequality in African higher education, while taking cognisance of the challenging environment that confronts African higher education institutions in the 21st Century.

The objectives of the 2009 Gender Institute are to:
1) Provide a platform to African scholars with an interest in undertaking theoretical and empirical research on gender relations in African higher education;
2) Familiarise researchers with the latest literature in the field and through this help consolidate an African perspective on the theoretical debates taking place on gender relations and/in education;
3) Sharpen researchers’ gender analytic skills, as well as promote an African feminist methodology in the understanding and assessment of decision making in African higher education institutions and understanding that gender disparities that go beyond quantitative to qualitative inequalities;
4) Encourage African knowledge production on the gender relations that underpin education and institutional building, in so doing, contribute to the emergence of a critical mass of networked intellectuals with an active research interest in deepening research on this theme.
5) Encourage researchers to come up with transformative strategies that challenge past and current gender and other injustices in African higher education systems.

Organisation
The activities of all CODESRIA Institutes centre on presentations made by resident researchers, visiting resource persons and the participants whose applications for admission as laureates are successful. The sessions are led by a scientific director who with the help of invited resource persons ensures that the laureates are exposed to a wide range of research and policy issues generated by or arising from the theme of the Institute for which they are responsible. Open discussions drawing on books and articles relevant to the theme of a particular institute or a specific topic within the theme are also encouraged. Each participant selected to participate in any of the Council’s institutes as a laureate is required to prepare a research paper to be presented during the course of the particular institute they attend. Laureates are expected to produce a revised version of their research papers for consideration for publication by CODESRIA. For each Institute, CODESRIA Documentation and Information Centre (CODICE) prepares a comprehensive bibliography on the theme of the year. Access is also facilitated to a number of documentation centers in and around Dakar.

Why is the topic of women’s participation in higher education relevant?
1. Senior academics, deans, professors, vice chancellors, registrars, leaders of teachers’ unions play a very critical role in institution building. Their contribution to the design of gender sensitive institutions is invaluable at many different levels.

2. The visibility of women in senior positions acts as catalyst that motivates younger women to play a more influential role in institutions of higher learning thereby changing persistent post colonial injustices.

3. Although the number of women obtaining higher degrees in African universities has increased with time, very few women are retained within institutions of higher learning and even less of them progress to senior positions of decision making.

4. Most institutions of learning have old and patriarchal ways of operating. It is difficult to challenge these structures from lecture rooms only. For real change to occur, it is necessary to address gender issues at the highest levels of institutions by involving women in decision making in teaching, management and union activities.

5. The persistent lack of senior female academics is a reflection of serious gender disparities at all levels of education in Africa. There is a systematic bottleneck, based on gender which needs to be understood, addressed and changed.

The 2009 CODESRIA Gender Institute calls for papers from potential directors, resource persons and laureates addressing some of the following topics
i. Historical overview of women’s participation in higher education
ii. Time trends and levels of women’s participation in decision making in universities
iii. Factors influencing women’s participation in institutions of higher learning (papers can address sociological; cultural; psychological; economic factors; political etc.etc) .
iv. Country studies and statistics on current status of women’s participation in institutions of higher education
v. Future prospects, opportunities and challenges towards equal participation of females in decision making positions in African universities.
vi. Transformative studies challenging post colonial injustices in institutions of higher learning.

Eligibility and Selection
Director
For every session, CODESRIA appoints an external scholar to provide the intellectual leadership of the Institute. Directors are senior scholars known for their expertise on the topic of the year and for the originality of their thinking on it. They are recruited on the basis of a proposal and course outline covering a total of up to forty five days during which they are expected to:
- participate in the selection of laureates;
- assist with the identification of appropriate resource persons;
- design the course for the session, with specifications of sub-themes;
- deliver a set of lectures and provide a critique of the papers presented by the resource persons and the laureates; and
- submit a written scientific report on the session.
In addition, the Director is expected to (co)edit the revised versions of the papers presented by the resource persons with a view to submitting them for publication in one of CODESRIA’s collections. The Director also assists CODESRIA in assessing the papers presented by laureates for publication as a special issue of Africa Development or as monographs.

Resource Persons
Lectures delivered at the Gender Institute are not introductory courses, but critical think-pieces that are meant to help advance the reflections of participants on the main topic of the year, and on their own research topics. Resource Persons are, therefore, senior scholars or scholars in their mid-career who have published extensively on the topic, and who have a significant contribution to make to the debates on it.

Once selected, resource persons must:
- submit a copy of their lectures for reproduction and distribution to participants
not later than one week before the lecture begins;
- deliver their lectures, participate in debates, and comment on the research proposals of
the laureates
- review and submit the revised version of their research work for publication by
CODESRIA not later than two months following their presentation.

Laureates
African social scientists who have a minimum qualification of a Masters’ degree, with a proven research capacity and who are currently engaged in teaching and/or research activities are invited to send in their applications for consideration for admission into the Institute. The selection of laureates is done by an independent committee of renowned scholars.

Application
Applicants for the position of Director should submit:
- an application letter ;
- a proposal providing a detailed course outline, spelling out the issues to be covered under each sub-theme, and showing how the course would be original or responsive to the needs of prospective laureates;
- a curriculum vitae ;
- three writing samples.

Applicants for the position of Resource Person should submit:
- an application letter ;
- two writing samples ;
- a curriculum vitae and ;
- a two-pages abstract of their proposed lecture.

Applicants wishing to be invited as Laureates should submit:
- an application letter;
- a curriculum vitae ;
- a letter indicating institutional or organisational affiliation ;
- a research proposal (two copies and not more than 10 pages) indicating a descriptive analysis, outlining the theoretical interest of the theme chosen by the applicant, and its relation to the problematic and concerns of the theme of the 2009 Institute and ;
- two reference letters from scholars and/or researchers known for their competence and expertise in the candidate’s research area, including their names, addresses and telephone, e-mail, fax numbers.

The deadline for the submission of applications is set for 10th May, 2009. The Institute will be held from 1st to 26th June, 2009 in Dakar, Senegal.
Applications should be sent to:

The CODESRIA Gender Institute,
Avenue Cheikh Anta Diop X Canal IV,
B.P. 3304, CP 18524,
Dakar, SENEGAL.
Tel. (221) 33 825 98 21/22/23
Fax: (221) 33 824 12 89
E-mail : [email][email protected]
Website: http://www.codesria.org