Feminist Perspectives on Higher Education and Social Capital

Feminist scholarship on higher education increasingly foregrounds the interplay between gendered power structures and the cultivation of social capital within academic institutions. Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Bourdieu and intersectional theory, researchers examine how networks, norms and institutional practices enable or constrain women’s access to resources, recognition and influence. Emphasis is placed on the ways in which gendered dispositions shape students’ and staff members’ opportunities to build mentoring relationships, secure leadership roles and navigate masculine‐coded disciplines. At a global level, this work highlights persistent disparities in STEM fields and professional training, while also showcasing successful strategies—such as cohort‐based support schemes and peer‐network interventions—that strengthen collective agency. By investigating both micro‐level habits of interaction and macro‐level policy environments, feminist perspectives chart pathways for transforming higher education into a more equitable terrain for knowledge production and social mobility.

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Feminist Perspectives on Higher Education and Social Capital publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in feminist perspectives on higher education and social capital across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Social capital: The resources and support individuals gain through their networks of relationships, including trust, information and reciprocal obligations.

Cultural capital: The knowledge, skills, dispositions and credentials valued by an institution, which can confer status and facilitate access to opportunities.

Habitus: The system of embodied predispositions and tendencies developed through socialisation, guiding perceptions, behaviours and expectations in institutional settings.

Gender regimes: The dynamic configurations of power, norms and practices that structure gender relations within specific social fields, such as academic disciplines or departments.

References

1. Gender regimes and gender relations in higher education: The case of a civil engineering course. Transformation in Higher Education (2023).
2. Gender Habitus: tensioning the concept of habitus in Bourdieu. Pro-Posições (2023).
3. Experiences of women students in Engineering studies at a TVET college in South Africa. Journal of Vocational Adult and Continuing Education and Training (2020).