Awards offer an important insight into what is considered ‘excellence’ in the social science disciplines.
The GESS project has traced ways in which the value placed on women’s contributions can be measured: as fellows of learned academies, as recipients of academic awards; and as recipients of public prizes. In addition, it looked for recognition of scholarship using a gender lens in its approach.
We conducted a website survey of some of the most prestigious academic prizes awarded by professional associations in economics, history, political science, philosophy, and sociology in Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States. This is not an exhaustive survey of all the awards in the social science disciplines studied in this project. We focused on awards that had a research emphasis, covering books or articles as well as awards for lifetime contribution.
Most of the counts were undertaken manually by assigning gender to a name. Where there was doubt or ambiguity, an online search of the person was made to resolve the question. If no resolution was possible, that name was assigned as ‘unknown’.
Academy fellows
Academies are national institutions that have among their activities an aim to recognise and promote excellence in the disciplines that they represent. Fellows of Academies are acknowledged experts elected by their peers in recognition of the impact of their scholarship and practice. Read more ...
Awards and prizes winners
Economics
Two patterns emerge from an analysis of the data on awards and prizes in the discipline of economics: first, women remain significantly under-represented amongst the most prestigious awards in economics well below the share of women in the overall population of the discipline; second, there is some suggestion of gender segregation with women very poorly represented in strong mathematical analysis such as econometrics. Read more ...
History
Analysis of awards made in the discipline of history shows that there are a number of prizes that specifically recognise women historians and works in the area of gender history. It also reveals that women are more likely to win awards for teaching, service and non-traditional research outputs than for ‘distinguished scholarly achievement’. Read more ...
Philosophy
In the discipline of philosophy, there are also a number of awards that specifically recognise women philosophers. Women, however, are significantly under-represented in most prizes and are more likely to win awards for teaching, service and public-facing activities, than for scholarly excellence. Read more ...
Political Science
There is great diversity in awards in the disicipline of political science. Overall, analysis suggests that women remain marginal as recipients of awards that recognise lifetime achievements and fare better in awards for dissertations. This reflects patterns of the presence of women in academia and their over-representation in lower and less prestigious ranks. Read more...
Sociology
In the discipline of sociology women are better represented in awards for students and early career researchers than in awards considered as important accolades for research and academic contributions to the discipline. Women, however, receive around 50 per cent of the prizes awarded by the British Sociological Association. Read more ...