The future of the teaching profession in academia is closely linked to the prevailing model of research-intensive universities. It also depends on the ways in which institutions choose to navigate this ideal—either by promoting positions that combine teaching and research or by separating the two into distinct career paths. In this paper, we argue that teaching plays a central role in shaping experiences of academic citizenship, understood as membership, recognition, and belonging (Sümer et al. 2020). The paper is based on an empirical study involving 16 interviews with researchers and associate professors in permanent teaching-related positions at a technological university in Sweden. Participants were asked about their work environment, career prospects, and views on teaching. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using content analysis, with particular focus on how teaching relates to inclusion and a sense of value in academic settings. The findings show variation in how teaching is perceived in relation to academic citizenship, especially its role in fostering or limiting a sense of belonging and recognition. We argue that these dynamics are likely to influence the future standing of teaching in academia. These insights are relevant not only for the academic community and higher education research but also for policymakers, given the central role of universities in society.

Research on gender equality projects underscores the critical role middle managers play in translating organisational policy into practice. However, studies also reveal that resistance to gender equality can be pervasive in men-dominated organisations and that this often stems from a lack of a deeper understanding of how organisations and practices within them are gendered. Special workplace interventions are thus necessary to advance gender-equality work in fields dominated by men. This chapter presents findings from one such intervention – an action research project conducted at a science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) faculty within a Norwegian university. Specifically, we focus on a four-day training program designed to involve men-dominated management teams in the organisation's gender equality work. Using the framework of threshold concepts, we explain how the design of the program may have worked as a ‘portal’ to help some participants cross the threshold of understanding the organisation as gendered.

This Special Issue brings together contributions from contrasting contexts to explore ways in which higher education learning and teaching is affected by precarious working conditions and ways in which this is gendered. The articles here address precarity in three different geographical contexts: Western and Northern Europe, represented by the United Kingdom and Sweden; Central-Eastern Europe, illustrated by Hungary; and South America, exemplified by Colombia.

The purpose of the article is to explore, through comparative analysis, how different objectives within the universities influence the process when implementing programmes with a gender-theoretical orientation for women researchers and leaders. In the Nora programme, with an indivi- dual objective, gender theory is repeatedly rejected by the participants, as the structural perspective in the theories collides with the participants’ idea of themselves and their organization. In Svea, with a structural objective, gender theory instead becomes a useful tool for the partici- pants. The objective also has a significant effect on the participants ability to cope with resistance from the academic environment. In both pro- grammes, participants experienced resistance that triggered frustration. In Svea, the frustration that arose could be repaired by connecting to gender theory, whereas in Nora the participants could not interpret the resistance from a power perspective and were trapped in frustration. When objec- tives focus on the individual, the problem of inequality is interpreted at the individual level, i.e., that the problem is women, and that women are still to blame. With objectives focusing on the structure, inequality is interpreted as stemming from a gendered organization which opens up for organizational change.