How Heads of Departments Find It Meaningful to Engage with Gender Balance Policies

Abstract

This article investigates how heads of department (HoDs) understand and implement gender balance policies in Norway, considered to be among the most gender-equal countries in the world. Previous studies have found that HoDs often resist enacting gender equality policies. This interview-based study provides a more optimistic and nuanced picture. Employing domestication theory and narrative analysis, this study shows that HoDs understand gender balance as an important goal and responsibility in principle. However, to actively engage with implementation, HoDs needed to see how improving gender balance would benefit their departments and help reach other goals. This sense-making was pivotal for motivation to enact measures and change their practices. The article brings new knowledge on how HoDs may work to improve the gender balance among faculty and generates deeper insight into the critical co-production of sense-making and enactment of practices related to improving gender balance.