ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an exploratory research analysing the values, experiences and practices of women academics who occupy academic management roles in a variety of higher education institutions in the UK. The backdrop to the study is a period of rapid, uncertain and externally imposed policy changes in UK higher education, including declining public funding, demands for greater public accountability with respect to research and teaching activities, pressures for enhanced efficiency and intensification in working practices, worsening staff to student ratios and considerable diversification in the curricula and the purposes of higher education. Social diversity is also threatened by widespread student poverty. The women managers determined to develop and retain diversity and equity in their institutions may find either that achieving diversity and equity is impossible or that diversity and equity are more a function of the market than of social justice.
