Li Wei, Director and Dean of IOE, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, at the launch event for Punnett Hall. He stands in front of a slide with a picture of Margaret Punnett and the text “IOE Events”. Credit: IOE Communications.

22 October 2024

By Georgina Brewis

As IOE celebrates one of its founding leaders, Margaret Punnett, in the naming of its space, Georgina Brewis, Professor of Social History, reflects on the path of pioneering women in the early 1900s and their recognition in the fabric of university campuses today.

Margaret Punnett (1867–1946) was born in Lincolnshire in 1867. She was born just at the right time for middle-class women to receive a better education than their mothers – she was educated at South Hampstead High School and went on to take a University of London BA in German and Mathematics in 1889. Again, this was good timing, as the University had only opened its degrees to women in 1878. (more…)

 
Ginny Brunton. 
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that women in academic careers earn on average some 16% less than men. The Times Higher Education reported that 30 institutions had mean average pay gaps in excess of 20 per cent per hour, noting that  more men than women occupy higher-paying senior roles. While the gap has gradually been decreasing, there substantial questions about career advancement for female research staff remain.
Many of these challenges are well-known: women take breaks to have children, and often return part time. When women do pursue higher education to advance their career, they report doing it later in life, for intrinsic satisfaction, and not usually as part of a research group. So women’s trajectories and motivations for undertaking a PhD may not fit in with the standard paths currently on offer at higher education institutions. This situation is not helping to narrow the gap.
Since researchers without a PhD lack the necessary qualifications to apply for more advanced faculty positions, one question we should be asking is: (more…)