Gender, Space and Time: Women and Higher Education

Dorothy Moss, Gender, Space and Time : Women and Higher Education (Lexington Books, London and Lanham, MD: 2006), 273 pp., ISBN 13:978-0-7391-0997-7.This book represents a departure from much of the research on women in contemporary higher education in that it focuses less on practices within institutions and more on the ways in which women manage and experience their studies as a part of their lives. Moss explores the diverse ways in which women's physical, social and emotional approaches and reactions play out in the spaces and times of home and family, paid work, leisure and their communities. The research was set in a small town in the north of England, and the women were in or had just completed their final year of programs in social, community, health or leisure studies. They represent a range of personal characteristics in terms of age (early 20s to mid-40s), social class (though they tended to self-identify as working class), color and "geographic origin" (some specified Asian or Afro-Caribbean), sexuality, and marital and parental status. About half had entered higher education directly from school, the others from colleges of further education. About 80 percent were in paid work at the time of the study; some reported small grants, social benefit payments, loans or parental financial assistance; and about 20 percent had financial support from a male partner. I detail these attributes since the make up of the study group has bearing on the findings. So too, do the place setting and type of institution, although these are not aspects of "space" that are central in the discussion.Moss's research dates initially from the late 1990s, a time when the larger political- economic and social policies were leading to changes in higher education that had considerable implications for priorities in research, curricula and academic calendars and for students' daily lives. Among these were restructuring of the annual time organization of courses and the availability of affordable housing on or off campus. These contextual changes were relevant for women's management of their daily lives and studies.The first half of the book offers detailed reviews of literature. Chapter 2 examines feminist approaches to research on women, with Moss favoring "critical realist" perspectives and the complementarity of structural and post-structural theoretical positions rather than adherence to one or the other. In Chapter 3, she reviews multiple theoretical approaches to understanding "space" and "time"; in Chapter 4, theories on spatial and temporal relations in women's everyday lives; and in Chapter 5, spatial and temporal relations in higher education. From these reviews she advocates approaches to conducting research that will address conjunctions of space and time (Chapter 6). Together, these chapters take up almost half the book. They explore many perspectives, including those of widely known social and spatial theorists (for example, Anthony Giddens, Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey, John Urry, Nigel Thrift) and scholars who have examined time from the perspective of its social dimensions and feminism (such as Barbara Adam). It is not possible for me to summarize the complex perspectives of these writers-and reading these chapters does leave one wondering when Moss will present her own research on women students. The chapters are a reminder that the book is a published version of Moss's doctoral dissertation. As such, it has the extended literature review to justify the research approaches. Still, these chapters could serve as useful assessments of perspectives to bring to bear on space/time, at least as these were articulated by the late 1990s. Moss draws on them in developing her research methodology and research questions.For me, the empirical study in the second half of the book is more interesting. Moss employs two main strategies. The first engaged 44 women students with whom she had contact as a teacher. They were asked to complete a written survey that enabled open-ended responses. …