ABSTRACT
In May 1925, the first School of Social Work in Latin America opened in Chile. During its initial years, it served only women, a practice that has had lasting implications for the ongoing feminization of the profession. One hundred years later, females are over-represented among undergraduate (80%) (https://www.mifuturo.cl" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://www.mifuturo.cl), and graduate (68%) social work students in Chile. The feminization of social work is observed across the Global North and South yet, among social work academics, only 65% of faculty are female, with lower proportions as rank increases (e.g., lowest proportion among Deans and full professors). This chapter explores the trajectories of social workers who opted to enter academia, with a focus on gender gaps across academic careers. Utilizing a longitudinal biographical approach, we explore distinct stages of academic careers in Chile, covering initiation, mid-career, senior status, retirement, and overall merit. We pay special attention to the impact of gender disparities, and barriers on academic social work trajectories across generations. Implications for equitable decision-making and social work formation are explored. We ground our analysis in diverse feminist perspectives, including decolonial and intersectional feminism. Specifically, we focus on the intersection of gender, generational status, race, and socioeconomic segregation; and the tensions related to neoliberal academia and university space from an approach of geopolitics and colonization of knowledge production. In addition to individual women’s experiences navigating academia in social work, we also explore structural factors such as demand for production, prioritization of a positivist framework, and the neoliberal policies that have shaped higher education in Chile.
