Research

Ongoing, 2023 – 2026: Intersectional Analyses of Academic Careers „Attitudes toward Diversity, Objectivity and Meritocracy in Science (ADOMiS): Multiple barriers to academic excellence” (ZtG Humboldt University of Berlin, PI: Prof. Mirjam Fischer)

Class-specific and racist differentiations have hardly been taken into account in regard to academic careers in Germany (Möller 2015; Laufenberg et al 2018), although they play a decisive role and especially factor into issues of mental health (Zimmer et al 2021). In addition, hardly any basic data on academics at German universities covers axes of discrimination such as race or sexual identity. In the German academic landscape, academics of color, (post-)migrant, trans* and inter* academics as well as academics from social classes distant from higher education are underrepresented (El-Mafaalani 2012; Gutiérrez Rodríguez et al. 2016; Heitzmann 2019; Ha et al. 2018; Lind et al 2008). As intersectional perspectives have shown that categories of difference can be reinforced in practice (Crenshaw 1989), it is important to examine how these categories affect academic careers, especially because corresponding data has so far only been gathered on the subject group of students (Röwert et al 2017) and social inequality among researchers has primarily been researched with respect to the category gender.

 My current research project aims to identify inequalities in career patterns and investigates discrimination within scientific careers and at the workplace. The main aim is to develop an understanding of who is successful in science, how careers differ according to categories of difference and which structural, social and individual barriers can influence career development. To understand discrimination, it is necessary to develop an intersectional approach in quantitative research and in methodological approaches and to refer to intersectional methods for analyses and interpretation. On this basis, key questions are: In which way does diversity affect the leaky pipeline in academic careers? Which influencing factors, i.e. multiple barriers, can be found in this regard?