Gender Equality Challenges and Higher Education Reform: A Case Study University of Dortmund

Abstract

With the expansion of higher education, women have gained access to German universities and are seeking the opportunity to learn and ascend the professional ranks. It is still in dispute whether their access to higher education has developed owing to democratic expectations of cultural forces or to market strategies responding to the demand for a highly skilled labour force (Morley, 1999; Scott, 1999). Both factors attest to modernization and social change. Within these developments, it seems as if German higher education has taken over the role of social stratification. The universities’ knowledge, traditions, cultural codes, and hierarchy of decision making have remained unchanged in spite of the differentiation of students and their educational needs. Thus, the German higher education system has not integrated the new student groups in a qualitative way; instead, it produces and perpetuates inequality by sorting out rather than integrating non-traditional ideas and aspirations as students pursue their academic careers. Consequently, a great amount of human resources, creativity, and potential to further scientific and university development are lost. This wasteful trend threatens the goals of science in achieving excellence (Osborn et al., 2000).