Mujeres académicas y el reto de la internacionalización

Abstract

The international mobility of university lecturers and researchers has not been studied much by social scientists, and it was analysed even less from a gender perspective, using qualitative methods. The objective of this article is to explore the experiences of the first generations of women academics in Spain who went abroad in order to spend time in leading research institutions. We look at the motivations for spending time in other countries, at how they perceive this period and in what way it has shaped their professional career. We carried out semi-structured interviews and analysed their discourses. This analysis shows the social origin as well as the incentives of international mobility of these women, their practices abroad, their difficult return and the impact on the consolidation of their academic careers.