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Qualifications and GenderIt is a myth that the universities as a system unconditionally recruit the academically best-qualified researchers. The priorities in the research system is determined by a range of - partly externally given - system requirements, which include a specific distribution of positions and research grants with regard to academic disciplines and research topics together with a set of institutional and geographic constraints. The system requirements predetermine at all times which kind of academic qualifications are in demand and determine who may altogether come into consideration for a research position. Fulfilment of the system requirements has both currently and historically justified that less qualified researchers with a specific academic profile are preferred to academic positions. The article offers examples of what is presently considered to be legitimate system requirements. Among these is not a more equal representation of the sexes in academic positions. The article argues that a more equal representation of the sexes could lead to an increase in the overall academic quality of the research system.

Inge Henningsen and Lis Højgaard: The Leaking Pipeline: Snapshots of gendered processes of in- and exclusions in the academic world.

Debates on the reasons for the well documented low participation of women in scientific research tend to follow two lines of argument: one that maintains that the low percentage of women in research is a result of few women in recruitment positions and that this will change as more women enter these positions, and one that maintains that a closer look at the statistics does not support this optimism because women's percentage in recruitment positions is not increasing as the pool of potential female researchers increases, or to put it metaphorically, "the pipeline is leaking women all along" (Alper 1993). This article investigates the mechanisms perpetuating the low participation of women in academic sciences, inspired by Alper's methaphor. It begins by describing the Danish educational system and structure of science education including gender ratios in the various disciplines. Second it identifies and describes a Danish verion of 'the leaky pipeline' from analyses of the ratios of women in science from high school through tenured positions. Finally it illustrates the cultural mechanisms at play in this process, based on the results of three studies. The first two analyze the educational cultures in physics and chemistry, and the third illustrates the gendering mechanisms at work in the institutional culture of medicine. The analysis shows that there is no single cause of the problem and no single point along the career path where women are excluded. Rather more women than men are excluded at all steps on the academic ladder. The problem is no longer manifest exclusion, but rather the working of subtle mechanisms, unintended consequences and the stubborn ingenuity of the symbolic order of gender. The 'leaks' are the result of the intersection and interaction of individually mediated negotiations of cultural prescriptions of gendered subjectivity and identities, organizational understandings and procedures embedded in specific university cultures, traditional of different science disciplines, and the systemic logic and political rationale of the education and research system.

The article takes up the discussion about qualitative and quantitative research methods as ostensibly incopatible approaches to empirical studies - an understanding which is broadly disseminated within a range of academic disciplines. The authors trouble this dualistic understanding through concrete discussions of methodological approaches conducted by as well qualitatively as quantitatively oriented reseachers. It is argued, that difference and potential incompatibility must be seen in relation to the metatheoretical basis for the studies and thereby in relation to the research ambitions, in which the studies are involved.

Inge Henningsen: "Mainstreaming inden for naturvidenskab - også et spørgsmål om fag", Karen Sjørup: "Mainstreaming af køn i forskningen med udgangspunkt i samfundsvidenskaberne", Nina Lykke: "Hvordan kan kvinde- og kønsforskningen navigere mellem magtens centre og periferiens monstre?"

I dette nummer er følgnde bøger blevet anmeldt:Hilda Rømer Christensen, Beatrice Halsaa, and Aino Saarinen (eds.): Crossing Borders. Remapping Women's Movements at the Turn of the 21st Century. University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004.Drude Dahlerup (red.): Women, Quotas and Politics, Routledge, 2006.Jørgen Lorentzen och Claes Ekenstam (red.): Män i Norden. Manlighet och modernitet 1840-1940. Gidlunds förlag, 2006.Cecilie Nørgaard og Bonnie Vittrup: Skolens bog om køn og ligestilling. Informations forlag, 2006.Helle Poulsen: The Elusive Gender. The International Labour Organization and the Construction of Gender Equality. Ph.d.-afhandling, Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet, 2006.

I dette nummer er følgnde bøger blevet anmeldt:Hilda Rømer Christensen, Beatrice Halsaa, and Aino Saarinen (eds.): Crossing Borders. Remapping Women's Movements at the Turn of the 21st Century. University Press of Southern Denmark, 2004.Drude Dahlerup (red.): Women, Quotas and Politics, Routledge, 2006.Jørgen Lorentzen och Claes Ekenstam (red.): Män i Norden. Manlighet och modernitet 1840-1940. Gidlunds förlag, 2006.Cecilie Nørgaard og Bonnie Vittrup: Skolens bog om køn og ligestilling. Informations forlag, 2006.Helle Poulsen: The Elusive Gender. The International Labour Organization and the Construction of Gender Equality. Ph.d.-afhandling, Statskundskab, Københavns Universitet, 2006.

I dette nummer anmeldes følgende: "Islam i europæisk klædedragt (Aminah Tønnesen Echammari)", "Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Family Violence" (Renate Klein (ed.)), "Filmdivaer. Stjernens figur i Hollywoods melodrama 1920-1940" (Bodil Marie Thomson), "Se min kjole. De første kvindelige præsters historie" (Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen (red.)), "Mannlighetens muligheter" (Jørgen Lorentzen), "Lady Hamilton og hendes tid" (Maria Helleberg), "Kvinder on-line" (Britt Sallingboe), "Industrious Children. Work and Childhood in the Nordic Countries 1850-1990" (Ning de Coninck-Smith, Bengt Sandin, Ellen Schrumpf (eds.)), "Rødstrømperne. Den danske Rødstrømpebevægelses udvikling, nytænkning og gennemslag 1970-1985" (Drude Dahlerup), "Fantasien til magten" (Kirsten Hyldgaard), "Kvinder og mænd i dansk universitetsforskning i 1990'erne" (Bertel Ståhle), "Folk og Forskning. Danskernes opfattelse af forskning" (Rapport fra Analyseinstitut for Forskning 1998/1. 54 s.), "Forskning i forskningsmidler. Ansøger til Statens Sundhedsvidenskabelige Forskningsråd" (Rapport fra Analyseinstitut for Forskning 1998/2. 94 s.), "Aviser om forskning. Indholdsanalyse af avisernes omtale af forskning og udviklingsarbejde" (Rapport fra Analyseinstitut for Forskning 1998/3. 70 s.), "Kørekort til Kaos - en samtidshistorie om folkeoplysning" (Tove Bendtsen), "Women in Science and Humanities - the difference that makes the difference" (Isabel Hoving m.fl. (red.))Konferencerapporter: "Har Forskerne brug for de studerende (Helle Reedtz-Funder og Mie Andersen), "Stockholm tur/retur" (Rikke Sanderhoff)