Doctoral improvement policy with a gender perspective: a mechanism to reduce the existing gap in the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the University of Antofagasta (Chile)

Abstract

The present study aims to determine the need to incorporate a gender perspective in the doctoral improvement policy of the Faculty of Legal Sciences of the University of Antofagasta. For this purpose, the situation of women in academia was studied at a general level, and it can be shown that there is a gender gap in universities worldwide. In this context, the objective of this research was defined in the selection process of the academics of the Faculty of Legal Sciences to continue doctoral programs. It was found that the University of Antofagasta from its first development plans declared as one of its strengths to have academic doctors, setting strategies, objectives and indicators to increase them, and regulated, as of 2002, access to post-graduate studies, setting the process and criteria of selection of academics. As a result, the implementation of the doctoral improvement policy in the Department of Law in the Faculty of Legal Sciences was reviewed, noting that there is no gender focus in the selection of academics who have continued doctoral studies, since only men are the beneficiaries, therefore, it is proposed as a mechanism to reduce this gap the incorporation of a gender perspective in the qualification improvement of these academic units.