more focus group findings - Cardiff U

Cardiff University Focus Groups: Lecturing Staff

At Cardiff University we undertook focus groups with lecturing staff and graduate students. Karin has summarised the graduate student groups [Editor: see previous post], but we found some different results amongst the lecturing staff.

We conducted two focus groups with lecturing staff:

* Female only group of six participants, ranging from senior professors to researchers on fixed-term contracts, and including staff from the practical as well as the academic degree programs.
* Mixed group of eight participants with two women and six men. Staff represented different levels of seniority, and both ‘sides’ of the department.

Both focus groups were very successful with all participants talking freely and openly about their experiences within the department. In the female only group, participants were initially hesitant to bring up any concerns, explaining how the situation within the department was much more supportive than previous places of work. However, as the discussion progressed, more issues arose. Everyone felt that major problems surrounding gender inequality did not exist, but they were concerned about more subtle instances – for example feeling their views were being ignored in meetings. Similarly, participants cited the influence of ‘male dominated social groups’ such as fantasy football leagues, which acted as informal networks within the department.

In the mixed group, there was a consensus that the department had little to worry about in terms of gender, and instead the conversation focused on the way that gender influences the students they teach. Participants discussed how students still mainly interact within gendered groups in the classroom, and how female students speak out less than their male colleagues. When the moderator fed back some of the concerns shared by the female only group, the discussion started to consider how these issues intersect with age and seniority. A couple of male participants who have been at the department for less than five years said they shared some of the feelings of invisibility at meetings and in the corridor. They emphasised the need to consider how gender intersects with age, race and sexuality, rather than seeing it as an isolated factor.

The main conclusion to be drawn was the importance of the research, and how much participants had enjoyed the focus group, after some initial scepticism about its usefulness.