PhD Position: Gender Inequality in Dutch Secondary Education

PhD Position: Gender Inequality in Dutch Secondary Education

Why do boys underperform in education? What is the role of the gender culture in secondary school? Does students’ socioeconomic and migrant background play a role? Does the school context matter? If you are eager to answer these questions during a four-year PhD project, check out this opportunity!

Why boys perform less well in education than girls in most Western countries is a hotly contended question among scientists, policymakers and educational professionals. Boys, for example, repeat grades, get suspended and drop out of school more often than girls. Achievement differences between girls and boys typically arise in secondary education where boys develop more anti-academic attitudes and behaviours and eventually receive lower grades than girls. Explaining what causes this inequality in attitudes, behaviour and achievement in secondary education is therefore a pressing issue.

This PhD project is part of a project entitled ‘Gender inequality in Dutch secondary education: how the peer and school context influence students' anti-academic attitudes, behaviour and grades’ funded by the Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO) within the framework of the Netherlands Cohort Study on Education (NCO). This project aims to provide new insights into the determinants of gender gaps in Dutch secondary education by quantitatively assessing the role of gender cultures in schools. To this end, the new round of the NCO will consist of an extensive survey data collection on gender cultures in Dutch secondary schools. This dataset will be linked to register data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

In the PhD project ’An intersectional and contextual perspective on gendered peer influence in secondary school’ you will specifically zoom in on variations in gendered peer influence among students from different socioeconomic and migration backgrounds and between schools. You will answer questions such as: Do gender gaps in attitudes, behaviour and achievement vary according to student background and school composition and quality? To what extent can variations be explained by gendered peer cultures? Are some students more susceptible to the gendered peer culture in school than others? You will answer these questions by analysing newly collected survey data, which you will link to CBS register data, using advanced statistical methods. The data collection will be executed by KBA in collaboration with NCO, but you will be involved in the process (e.g. development of questionnaires). You will present the results at scientific conferences and in peer-reviewed scientific journals. At the end of the project, you will help organise a workshop for teachers, school principals, curriculum developers and educational policymakers. Besides scientific research, you will spend 10% of your time on teaching within the Sociology programme at Radboud University.

You will work closely with Dr Margriet van Hek (Assistant Professor of Sociology, daily supervisor) and Gerbert Kraaykamp (Professor of Sociology, PhD supervisor) and Mark Levels (Professor of Sociology and Technology at Maastricht University, PhD supervisor). You will also collaborate with Mieke van Houtte (Professor of Sociology, Ghent University).

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Contact margriet.vanhek [at] ru.nl for more information.

Profile

• You have a Master’ or Research Master’s degree in Sociology, Psychology, Educational Sciences, Pedagogics or a related discipline.
• You have strong analytical skills and experience with complex quantitative analytical methods (e.g. multilevel and/or structural equation models).
• You are proactive, have good communication skills, and are able to work independently.
• You have an excellent command of spoken and written English and Dutch (Dutch needed for collecting and handling data).
• Affinity and/or experience with the topic is a plus.

We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).
• You will receive a starting salary of €2,901 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,707 in the fourth year.
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus.
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20.

Additional employment conditions

Work and science require good employment practices. Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions reflect this. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself. For example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports membership. In addition, you receive a 34% discount on the sports and cultural activities at Radboud University as an employee. And, of course, we offer a good pension plan. We also give you plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

We are

You will be embedded in the Sociology department of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The central research themes of the Sociology department are inequality; family and social relations; and processes of inclusion and exclusion. About 25 researchers work at the department and the atmosphere is informal and supportive. You will receive your PhD training at the renowned ICS graduate school together with fellow PhD candidates from Utrecht, Groningen, Amsterdam and Nijmegen.

The research in this position will align with the research on ‘changing inequalities’ of the Radboud Social Cultural Research (RSCR) institute. RSCR is a research institute at the Faculty of Social Sciences and consists of the groups of Sociology, Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies, and Gender and Diversity Studies. The overall aim of RSCR is to improve our understanding of the processes leading to inequalities in various societies by investigating the societal phenomena of social inequality and inclusion.

Faculty of Social Sciences
At the Faculty of Social Sciences, humanity and society are our focus; we study how people behave, think and feel. Within this context, we look at themes such as human behaviour and the human psyche, education and upbringing, communication, society and culture. The faculty provides education to 6,000 students and employs 700 staff. Education is organised into six programme clusters: Psychology; Artificial Intelligence; Pedagogical Sciences and Educational Sciences; Communication Science; Sociology; and Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology, and the Radboud Centre Social Sciences as an institute for post-master education have been merged into the Social Sciences Education Institute. Our research is carried out within three research institutes: the Donders Centre for Cognition, the Behavioural Science Institute, and Radboud Social Cultural Research. Radboud University
At Radboud University, we aim to make an impact through our work. We achieve this by conducting groundbreaking research, providing high-quality education, offering excellent support, and fostering collaborations within and outside the university. In doing so, we contribute indispensably to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. To accomplish this, we need even more colleagues who, based on their expertise, are willing to search for answers. We advocate for an inclusive community and welcome employees with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives. Will you also contribute to making the world a little better? You have a part to play.