The production of gender-specific scholarly literature in Romania: the weak institutionalisation of Gender Studies in higher education

Abstract

This article examines the predictors of gender-specific literature production in the field of social sciences and humanities (SSH). The research used bibliometric information on 1132 gender-related articles by authors with Romanian affiliations. Binary logistic regression shows the individual and institutional factors of a paper’s likelihood of including gender-related words in its title. Weak institutionalisation of Gender Studies marks this national context, reflected in the marginal and discontinuous integration in the curriculum of higher-education institutions. Our findings suggest that the female gender of the first or a single author, as well as the authors’ affiliation with Romanian universities running master’s programmes in Gender Studies, are positively associated with the outcome variable. Likewise, single-author articles have greater odds than co-authored articles of including a reference to gender in their titles. Conversely, articles published in journals in the JIF third quartile of the JCR hierarchy have less chance of having a title that conveys an orientation towards gender-specific research. The implications of our findings suggest that the decision-makers at the level of faculties and research institutes in SSH must focus on creating a facilitating environment for scholarly interest in feminist research. We propose tackling the negative stereotypes regarding feminism’s ideological underpinnings and its ostensible lack of epistemological foundation. Romania is a country still facing significant domestic violence and poor gender equality, so these findings have further implications at the societal level.