Factors facilitating or hindering intersectional equality policy making: An explorative European multiple-case study
Creators: name: Van Laer, Koen
name: Zanoni, Patrizia
name: Beeckmans, Joanna
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: subject: intersectionality
subject: Policy Making
subject: GEP
subject: EDI
subject: Inclusive gender equality plan

description: The European Commission recently adopted an intersectional approach to its (gender) equality policies with the aim to address multiple, interlocking forms of inequality and discrimination that remain invisible in current gender-focused policies (Garcia and Zajicek, 2022; European Commission, 2020a). Therefore, one of the most important mandates of INSPIRE is to generate knowledge to support Higher Education and Research (HE&R) organizations in moving from gender-focused equality policies and/or Diversity, Equality & Inclusion (DEI) policies towards more integrated and inclusive – intersectional – policy making. This explorative study fits into this ambition and aims to:

1. Explore the design, governance and implementation of intersectional equality policies2. Identify organizational and extra-organizational factors that facilitate or hinder intersectional policy making in HE&R organizations in Europe.

Relying on intersectionality as a critical methodology, this study adopts an inductive approach that looks for intersectionality in existing equality policies of HE&R organizations. Specifically, we systematically focus on policies that simultaneously meet two criteria, which we consider as the core of intersectionality: 1) they are designed, implemented and/or governed in ways that overcome siloed or single-identity policy approaches, and 2) they address power inequalities.A multiple-case study was conducted of nine HE&R organizations – universities and research institutes – located across Europe. To maximize the likelihood of finding intersectional policies, we sampled ‘extreme cases,’ which have relatively developed equality policies addressing multiple grounds of discrimination and inequality. In each organization, empirical data was collected through interviews with multiple key stakeholders (policy designers, implementers, and potential beneficiaries), document, and, where possible, observations.

On the one hand, the analysis revealed the limited presence of equality policies that are intersectional in terms of their design, governance and implementation. On the other hand, in these organizations, we could observe a wide array of manifestations of emergent intersectional policy making, offering an initial repertoire of possible strategies and actions that can be enacted to advance equality and social justice. Regarding policy design, we found a variety of policies designed intersectionally, although not consistently across the nine different cases and not always formally labelled as intersectional. Independent of their label, existing intersectional policies often address inequalities resulting from the intersection of a limited set of axes of inequality, overlooking other potentially relevant ones. Regarding policy governance, we found multiple governance structures and mechanisms that, by enhancing the coherence and coordination among single-axis policies and enabling wide consultation with multiple stakeholders, render these policies more intersectional. Regarding policy implementation, we found that intersectionally designed policies were often not (consistently) translated into practice, but also, conversely, that single-axis policies were sometimes implemented in a more intersectional way.

Comparing all nine cases, a number of factors facilitating and hindering intersectional policy making – in terms of policy design, governance and implementation – in HE&R organizations were identified. We distinguished between organizational and extra-organizational factors. Although both co-shape organizations’ intersectional policy making, organizational factors are factors that fall under the authority of the organization, whereas extra-organizational factors originate outside of it, and can in principle not be easily changed by the organization. Accordingly, we classified all identified factors in four categories: facilitating organizational factors, facilitating extra-organizational factors, hindering organizational factors, and hindering extra-organizational factors.

Our analysis has revealed how multiple external factors play an essential role in stimulating HE&R organizations across Europe to move towards intersectional equality policy making. These factors are key to envisioning EU policy fostering the adoption of intersectional equality policies in HE&R. They include equality-related eligibility criteria for EU funding, national equality legislation, equality certifications, and dedicated networks for sharing knowledge and expertise on equality policy. They are key because these regulations, incentives and support structures open up possibilities for organizations to build the organizational factors, or the organizational capacity, that is needed to move towards intersectional equality policies and policy making.