The Dynamics of Difference in Higher Education: How gender intersects with class, race and ethnicity in management and business schools in England

Theories of intersectionality have been used since the 1980s to explore the complexities and contingencies of identities, relationships and behaviours, and so could be insightful in developing better understanding about organizations and their management. However, as they are rarely drawn on in organization and management theories, we know very little about how, in organizations, gender intersects with ethnicity, race, religion, non-heteronormative forms of sexuality or age and other attributes, and what might be the impact of these intersections on working lives. Marianna Fotaki will talk about the dynamics of difference in higher education in England. She will present the findings of an exploratory study looking into how gender intersects with class, race, ethnicity, foreignness, age and sexuality in the context of management and business schools. She will put forward some counter-intuitive arguments about how various markers of otherness offer certain advantages along with specific disadvantages to women entering academic careers by drawing on narrative methodologies.

Marianna Fotaki is Professor of Health policy, organization theory and ethics in Manchester Business School, the University of Manchester. She teaches business ethics in society and organizational behaviour and researches the role of the markets in public policy, the creation of the new user consumer of public goods and the ethics of diversity in organizations and society. Before joining academia Marianna worked for seven years as a senior advisor to governments in transition for the European Union in Russia, Georgia and Armenia and as a medical doctor for the humanitarian organizations Doctors without Borders and Doctors of the World in Turkey, Iraq and Albania.

Part of the Institute’s Visiting Fellows’ Programme.

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