Women in the Field of Educational Sciences in Toruń. Analysis of Employment and Scientific Advancement in the Years 1945–2006 in the Context of Gender Inequality

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the employment and academic advancement of women working at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in the field of educational sciences, from its inception until 2006. This article presents the specificity
of women’s work at universities, especially the difficulties accompanying it. It also presents a historical outline and the functioning of this field at the University, which is divided into five periods: from the Department of Pedagogy to the Institute of Pedagogy and Psychology; towards the Institute of Pedagogy;dynamic development towards independence – the idea of establishing a new faculty bringing together representatives of educational sciences; the Faculty of Educational Sciences; again the Institute of Educational Sciences located in the organizational structure of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. The research covered the first three stages. The desk research method was used in them, and the main research questions were: How did the number of employed women change in comparison to men in the individual periods of functioning of Toruń educational sciences in the years 1945–2006? What was the dynamics of women’s scientific advancement compared to men’s in the individual periods
of Toruń educational sciences in the years 1945–2006? The data obtained were categorized and divided into statistical data related to the employment structure and data regarding the history of Toruń educational sciences. The research results and conclusions are presented in the following section. The analyses conducted covering the highly feminized field of pedagogy reveal a picture of gender inequalities in the employment of women and men and their scientific advancement.