Women in Teaching: A Study on Selected Public Universities of Bangladesh

Abstract

Low participation of women is visible in most professions around the world. Although the student participation rate has increased, the university teaching profession is not out of it. All the public universities in Bangladesh have the same scenario where female participation is low. The purpose of the study is to explore the participation of women in teaching in different academic focus areas and to identify the reasons for their unbalanced participation in university teaching as well as in different academic focus areas of public universities in Bangladesh. This study used an explanatory sequential mixed methods design. For quantitative data, 10 universities were purposively selected from 53 public universities in Bangladesh, and data on academic subject areas-based participation of female teachers was manually collected from their websites. Qualitative data are collected by in-depth interviews with 10 female teachers who are purposefully selected from different academic subject areas. Firstly, the results show different academic subject area-based participation of female teachers. Secondly, qualitative data were analyzed thematically to understand the reasons behind the low participation of women. The findings reveal that female teachers in Business Study and STEM are lower compared to Arts & Literature and Social Science. One of the reasons for this low participation is social stereotypes. Other reasons include lack of personal interest, lack of role models, family pressure to choose a subject area, cost-benefit analysis of parents, perceived less efficient by society, unable to balance family and working life, less involvement in lab work and extra activities, and the influence of hidden curriculum. The findings have important organizational and policy implications regarding gender equality and women's empowerment.

Keywords

• Gender
• Women in Teaching
• Public University
• Low Female Participation