Women in higher education and academia in Iran
This article addresses women's contemporary position in academia in Iran. By systematically reviewing available academic and official databases on women's positions in academia published online or in print, the question is raised if women's current position and role in academia is the result of personal choice making or an existent systematic discriminatory social structure. To address this issue, available Iranian research and data on female recruitment in universities are analyzed. The results show that there is a general accordance on two findings in the research addressing women's position in academia. First, gender discrimination is restricting women's choices by systematically excluding them from educational, managerial and administrative positions. Second, in spite of the substantial increase in women's enrolment in tertiary education, significant development in women's position and role in scientific and educational institutions has not taken place. After discussing the data, I will try to compare two sets of sociological theoretical approaches that offer explanations for women's lower levels of participation in the academia; namely, theories of exclusion and theories of participation. I suggest that the former is more effective in analyzing women's position in Iranian academia, because of being based on recognition of the existing structural discriminations. Although women's participation in higher education is gradually growing and gender boundaries are being stretched on a daily basis, there is need for fundamental structural changes in social and educational spheres, and widespread implementation of positive discrimination.