Sheppard, Laura;
Reades, Jonathan;
(2025)
Examining the 'gendered' places and spaces of UK doctoral education using multilevel modelling.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
, Article e12745. 10.1111/tran.12745.
(In press).
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Abstract
Research on gender in higher education frequently focuses on micro- or macro-scale factors—power relations and working practices, or disciplinary norms and the educational ‘pipeline’—overlooking the meso-scale of ‘place’ embodied in departments and institutions. This study bridges that gap by applying data science and multilevel modelling within a quantitative feminist geographical framework to analyse gendered PhD completion patterns in the UK from 1990 to 2020. Using the British Library's E-Thesis Online Service (EThOS), we identify ‘department-like units’ as pivotal, accounting for 10.7% of the variation in the likelihood of a PhD student being female—more than any other grouping. Overall, STEM fields remain male-skewed, while the Arts and Humanities, and Social Sciences show a female skew. Institutional histories and geography also matter: in Scottish and Northern Irish universities students are more likely to be female compared with English universities, while the likelihood in Wales is lower. The use of statistical methods through a feminist lens offers a foundation for targeted interventions: our results suggest a greater focus on departments in equality initiatives like Athena SWAN and adjustments to funding policies to enhance diversity in PhD cohorts, particularly in male-dominated disciplines. Future work should integrate intersectional approaches to deepen understanding of these dynamics, but these findings emphasise the value of place-based analysis in addressing gender disparities and guiding policy.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Examining the 'gendered' places and spaces of UK doctoral education using multilevel modelling |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/tran.12745 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12745 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Disciplines, equality, gender, higher education, institutions, multilevel modelling |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment > Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10203004 |
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