Mentoring as a transformative process of gendered academic structutes. The pilot Programme by GENOVATE@UNINA

  • Maria Carmela Agodi Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
  • Ilenia Picardi Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Keywords: mentoring, engendering processes, gender awareness, academic careers

Abstract

Intervening in current debates about the effectiveness of mentoring as gender equality interventions in the academia, the paper argues for the need to move beyond an individual-structural dichotomy of such interventions. Drawing on previous literature and on the action-research case-study of the Mentoring Pilot Programme GENOVATE@UNINA, the idea that individual/single-actor interventions serve only to reinforce underlying inequalities is challenged. Only-women schemes have the potential to achieve a degree of transformation at individual, cultural and structural levels when such actions are designed with an understanding of how individuals embody the gendered and gendering social structures and values that are constantly being produced and reproduced within society. The case study highlights the benefits of supporting individuals as “gendered actors in gendering institutions” - following a bi-focal perspective already implied in the project Through the Glass Ceiling of the University College of Cork – while facilitating the development of critical gender awareness. It suggests that interventions are most effective when properly tailored as part of an integrated and institutional equality agenda.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Maria Carmela Agodi, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Maria Carmela Agodi is professor of Sociology at the Department of Political Sciences, University of Naples Federico II (UNINA). She is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Ph.D. Programme in Gender, Mind and Languages at UNINA and the Chair of the Research Network Women’s and Gender Studies of the European Sociological Association (ESA).
Ilenia Picardi, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II
Ilenia Picardi was awarded a PhD in Physics in 2003. Subsequently, her research interests focused on Science and Technology Studies and Gender Studies in Science and Technology. Currently she is a post-doc research associate and Ph.D. studend of Programme in Gender, Mind and Languages at University of Naples Federico II. She From 2013 to 2016 she has been project manager of GENOVATE@UNINA.
Published
2016-12-26
How to Cite
AgodiM., & PicardiI. (2016). Mentoring as a transformative process of gendered academic structutes. The pilot Programme by GENOVATE@UNINA. La Camera Blu, (15). https://doi.org/10.6092/1827-9198/4030