Studies on women academics in Chinese academic journals: A review

Abstract This paper explores how women academics in Chinese higher education have been understood as a topic of research by conducting a comprehensive review of publications on the theme in Chinese national academic journals, that is, national journals written in Chinese. The study identifies publication trends and key research issues concerning academic women in China, adopting a knowledge mapping perspective that unveils research and methodological choices, including data collection methods used in Chinese national journals since the mid‐1980s, when the first publication on women academics was identified. The study finds that despite the rapid expansion of the population of women academics in the Chinese higher education system, this topic has been intermittently researched: interest in it peaked in the early 2010s but has declined since then. Past interest in the topic would be largely activated by governmental policy considerations and changes, but would become relatively dormant during periods of lower policy activity. The research has been mainly focused on policy and practice, and has lacked long‐term perspectives; it has not always acknowledged societal and structural challenges that academic women face, and has not engaged in theory building. The latter is probably because much of the knowledge production has been based on personal opinions and views, and has suffered from a lack of critical thinking, a reliance on largely unsophisticated methods, and findings that are not generalisable.