Involvement of Women in the Production of Doctoral Dissertations in Education in Andalusian Universities ()
1. Introduction
Research on educational issues is not only a constant in university systems, but it is also a huge source of data and provides to the society and the educational system itself ideas, proposals, and diagnostics on various aspects of education. All this is because education is the fundamental pillar of any society and for the integral development of individuals. Education is an instrument that society uses to foment the coexistence and to promote scientific, technological, and humanistic development.
There are various techniques and methodological strategies to carry out effective research of all types, and this is also applicable to educational research. Bibliometrics is a technique used to observe research in general, the relationship between whom makes science and the influence of this scientific research [1] . Bibliometric studies are common in both classical sciences [2] [3] [4] and social sciences [5] [6] [7] and more recently in the field of arts and humanities [8] [9] .
On the other hand, it is an accepted fact in the academic field that the completion of a Doctoral Dissertations is a crucial aspect for the formation of new researchers, because in this way they put into play the knowledge and skills acquired to plan and carry out scientific research in or about education. They not only acquired concepts, techniques, strategies and research methodologies, but they must also be put to the test in order to achieve certain objectives.
Doctoral dissertations are a source of data in bibliometric studies both internationally and nationally. As an example, Alikina et al. [10] analyzed doctoral dissertations on translation that were developed in Russia. In the results, they observed a predominance of references to classical works, especially Russian linguistic theories of translation. Wang et al. [11] analyzed Chinese doctoral dissertations on librarianship and information science using and, in this case, they focused the study on analyzing the co-occurrence of terms and content to identify the different clusters and the networks that are generated. Haque & Khan [12] analyzed doctoral dissertations on agriculture to carried out at Bangladesh Agricultural University over a period of twenty years (1994-2014).
In Spain, studies on doctoral dissertations are a recurring theme in scientific journals in many areas of knowledge. For example, Repiso et al. [13] studied 404 doctoral dissertations on television carried out in Spain during the period 1976 to 2007. Fernandez-Guerrero [14] analyzed 347 dissertations on medical scientific information. Machan & Portero [15] studied 1036 doctoral dissertations on radiodiagnosis carried out between 1976 and 2011. Duarte Martinez et al. [16] identified the networks generated in Spanish doctoral dissertations registered in the TESEO database, and their analysis included 237,187 dissertations carried out between the years 1976 to 2016.
In a particular form of education in the national context, several studies have been carried out on Mathematics Education doctoral dissertations [17] [18] [19] .
Thesis about pedagogy was analyzed by Fernández-Cano et al. [20] , who investigated the Spanish production over thirty years, verifying that they come to terms with some recognized bibliometric indicators.
Some studies have been carried out on educational research from a gender perspective. Muñoz-Ñungo et al. [21] analyzed the presence of women in educational publications in Colombia. They found that the percentage of articles with participation of women is 47.7% and that the articles signed only by women represent only 28.40% compared to those signed only by men, which represent 35.84%.
In gender studies on doctoral dissertations, Fernández-Guerrero et al. [22] analyzed those carried out by women in Medicine in Spain between 1882 and 1954. According to these authors, there is evidence of a glass ceiling for women in this field, with only 1% of the total number of dissertations written by women. On the other hand, Cáceres and Díaz [23] , in their study on women’s leadership in communication research in Spain, reviewed the participation of women in the authorship and direction of doctoral dissertations in this field. They analyzed 27,484 dissertations and found that men have directed 66%, almost twice as many dissertations as those directed by women (34%).
Maz-Machado et al. [24] reviewed the doctoral dissertations in mathematics education carried out in Andalusian universities, they found that the dissertations directed only by women were in the majority with 48.39% compared to those directed only by men (29.03%) or those in mixed co-direction (22.58%). Hernández et al. [25] analyzed the production of doctoral dissertations in foreign languages in Andalusia, focusing on gender aspects. They found that there was almost parity in the direction of dissertations between men (48.55%) and women (51.45%), furthermore, it was observed that 70% of women preferred to be directed by other women more than by men or mixed directions.
León-Mantero et al. [26] found that at the University of Córdoba women had only directed 23.3% of the doctoral dissertations carried out at this university, which shows a bias.
If we consider that in the academic year 2021/2022, 11606 students enrolled in the autonomous community of Andalusia in order to study some type of Master’s degree related to education and that 921 students enrolled in doctoral studies in the Andalusian framework (EDUCAbase), there is a large base of people researching in educational fields, and therefore it is possible to identify some patterns in relation to the gender of the authors of university research as well as those who direct them.
In Andalusia there are 11 universities and the study of degrees related to education in the Autonomous Community of Andalusia can be carried out in 9 of the universities. In them there are departments related to education under different names. It is a fact that the faculties of education are among those with the highest number of students enrolled and with numerous PDI teachers. During the academic year 2021/2022 in the Andalusian universities there were 1253 PDI in the areas of knowledge related to Education.
The objective of this study is to know and describe the production of doctoral dissertations on Education from a bibliometric point of view in the period 2010 to 20221. In conclusion, the aim is revealed to light the achievements of women in educational research at the doctoral level in Andalusian universities.
2. Materials and Method
Firstly, all the websites of Andalusian universities were consulted so as to identify the education departments. Consequently, the TESEO database was visited. Such database belongs to the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport. This contains data regarding all the PhD dissertations defended since 1976. The names of the departments for the 2010-2021 period were reviewed to control possible name changes. (https://www.educacion.gob.es/teseo/irGestionarConsulta.do).
All doctoral dissertations written in the departments identified were downloaded from TESEO to ensure that all dissertations to be analyzed were from education departments. In those where there were doubts, the abstract was read. These readings were carried out by the authors of the study and supervised by two experts in the areas of Didactics of Mathematics and Educational Research Methods. Variables under study are university, authorship, direction, gender of authors and directors, year of defence, and descriptors. The data searching process is displayed in Figure 1.
The information was downloaded in an Excel file to assign the biological gender of each of the authors and thesis directors according to their name. This assignment was done manually. For the analyses, the gender of each of the participants in the doctoral theses was counted and the behavior was observed at the level of each of the universities, as well as at the global level of all of them. Figure 2 shows the example of data collected.
3. Results
The analysis of the information by means of frequencies has allowed us to observe some patterns in the production of doctoral theses in education in Andalusian
universities according to the gender of both authors and directors. During the period 2010-2021 Andalusian public universities recorded 951 doctoral dissertations in the departments of education. The annual average is 79.25 dissertations per year. The highest number of dissertations took place in the years 2015 to 2017, in these two years 47.2% of the total were produced 2017 was the most productive year with 170 dissertations produced (Figure 3). The information was downloaded in an Excel file to assign the biological gender of each of the authors and thesis directors according to their name. This assignment was done manually.
The analysis of the production reveals that there is not a continuous growth pattern in production, after 2010 there are three distinct cycles, between the years 2011-2014, the number of doctoral dissertations is almost stable swinging between 85 and 93, then between 2015 and 2017 there is a gradual increase and finally between 2018 to 2021 there is a decrease. This decrease in the number of doctoral dissertations in education in Andalusian universities in recent years is quite remarkable, and the number of dissertations has reached a number that is lower than those defended at the beginning of the period analyzed.
The University of Granada (UGR) consists of the leading Andalusian institution in terms of production of doctoral dissertations in Education (Figure 4). This university produces 48.9% of the total, followed by the University of Seville (US) with 17.9%. Of the 10 public universities in Andalusia, 8 of them have produced dissertations in this field.
The 951 dissertations were written by 525 women (55.32%) and 424 men (44.68%). Table 1 shows the evolution of thesis production in the period analyzed, according to the gender of the author.
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Figure 3. Diachronic production of doctoral dissertation in education.
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Figure 4. Production of dissertations on education in Andalusian universities (2010-2022).
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Table 1. Diachronic production of doctoral dissertation in Education in Andalusia according to the gender of the authors.
The maximum dissertations production by women occurred in 2017 with 96 dissertations. In the case of men, the lowest number of dissertations produced occurred in 2020 with 6. The year 2021 was the only one where men produced more dissertations than women 11 by men compared to only 7 by women. The average number of dissertations defended by men was 35.3 per year, while the average for women was 43.7 per year.
At the level of universities women have been in the majority in almost all except those with an almost anecdotal production (UCO and UAL). However, in the universities of Jaén, Cádiz and Málaga there are almost similar values between men and women (Figure 5), while in the University of Seville women double men as authors of doctoral dissertations in education departments.
If the direction of doctoral dissertations is analyzed, it can be female if it is only one or more women, male if it is only one or more men and mixed if there are both men and women sharing the role of directing the same thesis [25] . The direction of doctoral dissertations of only men triples those directed only by women (Figure 6). A total of 1433 researchers participated in the supervision role, of which 72.99% were men compared to 27.01% women.
During the period studied it is observed that in all the years the directors are mostly men. Female directorships have become lower than mixed ones in the years 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2018 (Figure 7).
At the University of Cordoba all its dissertations in education have had mixed direction, in all the others the direction of only men has been in the majority (Figure 8). In percentage terms, in the universities of Huelva and Cadiz, women-only supervisors are minimal, if not almost testimonial, and in Cordoba they are non-existent.
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Figure 5. Doctoral dissertations in education departments in Andalusia according to the university and gender of the authors.
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Figure 6. Typology of dissertation direction according to gender.
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Figure 7. Evolution of dissertation direction according to type of direction in terms of gender.
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Figure 8. Type of dissertation direction according to gender and university of completion.
In the dissertations analyzed, 300 different descriptors were used, the most used being Education Organization and Planning in 155 dissertations (16.29%), followed by Higher Education and Education Sector in 113 dissertations each one (11.88%) (Table 2).
These descriptors according to the co-appearances in the doctoral dissertations are grouped around some thematic axes such as: languages, health, history and arts, educational planning and teacher training. In addition, we find that certain themes such as software, algebra or ethics are interrelated with some of the above.
When separating the descriptors according to the gender of the authors, although the descriptor organization and planning of education is the most used by both men and women, some differences are also observed. Women have done research in higher education in 16.57% of the dissertations while men only in 6.135. The descriptor Pedagogy is used in 15.65% of the dissertations by women while men only do so in 3.3% (Table 3).
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Table 2. Most frequently used descriptors (n ≥ 21).
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Table 3. Descriptors most frequently used in the dissertations according to author’s gender.
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Figure 9. Keywords are related according to the co-appearances in the doctoral dissertations.
Figure 9 allows us to identify how the keywords are related according to the co-appearances in the doctoral dissertations. If we look at the resulting network, we identify some groupings occurring around languages, health, history and arts, educational planning, and teacher training. In addition, some themes such as software, algebra or ethics are interrelated with some of the previous ones.
4. Conclusions
This study presents a balance of the production of doctoral dissertations in education departments of Andalusian universities in the interval between 2010-2021. Among the results, it stands out that from 2018 onwards a significant decrease in the production of doctoral dissertations is evident, this data should lead to future studies that allow us to explain what the reasons are. One possible explanation may be due to the creation of the so-called doctoral schools by many of the universities, so that the departments are no longer the biddings of doctoral programs. Also, in some cases it may happen that, although the Doctoral Dissertations corresponds to educational topics, its director does not belong to a department of education, but the university assigns the thesis to the director's department, as for example happens at the UCO.
The University of Granada emerges as the leading university institution in the production of doctoral dissertations in education in Andalusia, producing almost half of all those produced in this autonomous community.
In relation to the gender of the authors, it was observed that the majority of the dissertations on education were written by women. At the individual level, the University of Seville clearly shows the feminization of doctoral research in education, as it outnumbers men by a ratio of two to one in favor of women. If we look at the type of direction, we see that the participation of women is minimal (19%) and there is a bias in favor of the directions of only men (63.7%). In absolute terms, women only represent 21.01%.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by 1381149-R research project of the Andalusian Research Plan and FEDER funds.