The Paula Principle

Paula learning

Women achieve higher levels of competence than men through education and training

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More

An unusual glass ceiling

Here's a rather unusual story of someone hitting the glass ceiling, recounted to me recently by John himself.  No further comment needed.  But if anyone can point me to a good pictorial representation of the glass ceiling, I'd be really grateful. John was a miner in the Llynfi valley in South Wales.   After ten years of working with machinery he became a fitter, “a spanner being lighter than a shovel”.  Then he hit what he called a glass ceiling - an unusual application of the image, given firstly that he’s a man and secondly that he was working underground... Anyway, he applied for a job teaching first aid, at a…
Read More

women, science – and music

Yesterday, during the interval of an inspirational concert commemorating the 45th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, I had a chance conversation with Frances Lynch of the Electric Voice Theatre.  She told me about her project linking young women to science through musical stories.  It sounds a wonderful initiative, and very PP-relevant, so I'm passing on the link.
Read More

An avalanche in education?

ippr with Pearson recently published a stimulating discussion of  future challenges to  universities, by Michael Barber and colleagues. I found it both elegantly and accessibly written, and radical without being shrill as too many futurist accounts are. It contains a wealth of examples of interesting innovations (though I have the sneaking feeling that all the authorshave a primary emotional bond to their backgrounds in highly elite institutions). More importantly, it identifies a range of developments which are already discernible and which might well combine in the near future to trigger a highly destructive landslide in our current university set-up (hence the title, An Avalanche is Coming). These include changes in the price-quality relationship…
Read More

(old) lags, and continuing gaps

What is a 'reasonable' pace of change?  This is a more basic political question than it might appear. Classically it separates out the revolutionaries from the gradualists. After all, the literal origin of the Fabian movement lies exactly in its gradualism - but Fabians would still see gradual steps as a route to radical reform. On any given issue, there might be quite a lot of consensus on the direction of progress, but serious disagreement on how quickly things can happen (cf the Church of England's recent writhings on women bishops). As Carolyn Heilbron observed, reflecting on a different institution: “Women have legally transformed the marriage relation in under 150…
Read More

Women’s colleges/colleges for women

It's International Women's Day tomorrow, but there'll be no Paula post as I'll be under the surgeon's knife (nothing dramatic).  In the run-up I notice particularly a major report from Warwick University analysing the salaries of 17000 recent graduates in full-time work (part-timers again slide out of the picture...).  It notes how persistent the gender pay gap is, but also how it varies, from 28% in law to 4% in education.   This is at the outset of their careers, remember - things will only get wider. However I thought I'd write on something a bit different.  I've just finished Rosemary Ashton's story of Victorian Bloomsbury.  I'm lucky enough to be a Bloomsbury…
Read More

Korea: a case study

Korea's first female president, Park Geun-hye, takes up office today.  This is a big step forward for the country, and for the wider political scene.   I've never been to Korea, but I've been thinking of using it as a case study for the Paula Principle, for the folllowing reasons. Koreans have made extraordinarily rapid educational progress over the past two decades.   15-20 years ago they were near the foot of the OECD league table on achievement at secondary school;  now they are at or around the top. It is a truly remarkable transformation. Their tertiary system has expanded in consequence, very rapidly, so that there are now large numbers of…
Read More

Paula as philosopher

Men still outperform women in a small number of subject areas.   It's common knowledge that these include maths and physics (I'm still looking for someone who will explain why this should be so).  But it was a surprise to me to find that philosophy is much closer to these subjects than to the humanities subjects with which it is most commonly grouped. I learnt this from a pamphlet published by the British Philosophical Association and the Society for Women in Philosophy in the UK. At undergraduate level 45% of philosophy students are female. This is much closer to Maths' 40% than it is to History's 58%, let alone English Studies'…
Read More

Makula

This post is a little different.  I want to introduce my cleaner - and friend - Makula. Makula went to school in Uganda, up to O levels at S4 (16 years).  She was unusual in that as a girl in a poor family, with 3 brothers, she would have been expected to leave school at the end of primary school, get married and go to work.  In Uganda school costs money, and she would normally have gone to earn money as early as possible.  But she was visibly a bright student, and her brothers said that they wished to leave school themselves, so the family agreed she should stay on. She…
Read More

Elite gaps

I've just received an update on the data which I commissioned from HESA on the gender breakdown of students ot Britain's elite universities.  I asked for this because one argument which I've heard against the idea that women are now dominant amongst HE students is that this was happening outside the so-called Russell Group institutions.  Men were supposed to be still numerically superior in elite universities, and so still had as firm a grip as ever on top qualifications.  If that had been the case, it might have done something to explain why women's increased overall competences have had such a low impact on senior professional careers. But the data last year showed…
Read More