Gender perspective in teaching and research
Integrating gender perspective in teaching means reviewing the androcentric biases in our fields and questioning concealed assumptions and gender stereotypes. According to Donoso, Montané and Pessoa (2014: 158), “the processes of knowledge production cannot be disconnected from the gender cosmovision”. This means:
- Including knowledge produced by female scientists and experts, often invisibilised.
- Incorporating critical perspectives that uncover androcentric conceptualisations.
- Reviewing the causes and social and cultural mechanisms that sustain gender inequality.
Gender Perspective in Research
The aim of Gender-Sensitive Research is to overcome the implicit androcentrism in research projects. According to Avramov (2011: 11) and Schiebinger and Schraudner (2011: 155), quality research must:
- Eliminate gender bias from its design, content and results.
- Be socially inclusive.
- Build inclusive scientific communities where men and women participate equally at all levels of decision making, policy, and defining and carrying out research.
How does the UAB’s IV Gender Equality Action Plan encourage this perspective?
The UAB’s Fourth Gender Equality Action Plan (2019-2023) encourages gender perspective in teaching and research through eight key measures, some of them outlined here:
- Integrating and monitoring general gender competence in syllabi and theses.
- Offering the teaching staff resources and training .
- Publicising teaching and research with gender and LGBTQ+ perspective.
- Designing informative material.
- Encouraging academic recognition of the inclusion of gender perspective.
Guide to UAB Competences, including gender equality competence: “Acting in one’s area of expertise, evaluating inequalities due to sex/gender.”¿ You will find proposals of learning results and activities to work on in different subjects.¿
Vives Network
The guides for university teaching with gender perspective are a collection of 11 works from different subjects and areas of expertise. The guides offer guidelines to review subjects from a gender perspective based on recommendations and indications relating to objectives, content, examples, language use and sources, as well as teaching and evaluation methods and learning environment management and its results.
The aim of this collection is to offer resources that allow the university teaching staff to pay attention to gender dynamics that take place in learning environments and to adopt measures ensuring that students’ diversity is taken into account. This way, students will have new tools to identify gender stereotypes, norms and social roles, develop their critical thinking and acquire competences that allow them to avoid gender blindness in their professional future.
More information on the guides here.
Guide by the Equality and Diversity Service (formerly Observatory for Equality) and the EGERA Project with the aim to provide the teaching staff with theoretical support in including gender perspective in their subjects and syllabi, as well as coordinating the implementation of line 3.8. “Expliciting gender perspective when making the Teaching Guide and syllabus for a subject from an inclusive university model.”
Document (Catalan) by the Equality and Diversity Service showing the key points to include gender perspective on the design and inclusion of research projects, from team making, research design, result sharing and evaluation of gender impact.
Avramov, Dragana. (2011). Initiating and sustaining Structural Change. Reflection on the outcomes of the workshop on Structural Change in order to improve Gender Equality in Research organisations in Europe. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/document_library/pdf_06/structural-changes-workshop-report_en.pdf
Donoso-Vázquez, Trinidad.; Montané, Alejandra; Pessoa, Maria Eulina. (2014). Género y calidad en Educación Superior. Revista Electrónica Interuniversitaria de Formación del Profesorado, 17 (3), 157-171.¿
European Commission (2009) Toolkit Gender in EU-funded Research. Available at: http://www.yellowwindow.be/genderinresearch/downloads/YW2009_GenderToolKit_Module1.pdf
European Comission (2013). Factsheet Gender Equality in Horizon 2020. Available at: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/sites/horizon2020/files/FactSheet_Gender_2.pdf
Leduc, Brigitte. (2009). Guidelines for Gender Sensitive Research. Nepal: Icimod (International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.
Schiebinger, Londa¿i¿Klinge, Ineke. (2013). Gendered Innovations. How Gender analysis Contributes to Research. Directorate General for Research & Innovation. European Comission. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/genderedinnovations/index_en.cfm
Schiebinger, Londa i¿Schraudner, Martina. (2011). “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Achieving Gendered Innovatons in Science, Medicine, and Engineering”. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, vol.36. No 2. June, 2011, 154-67. Available at: https://genderedinnovations.stanford.edu/ISR_07_Schiebinger.pdf
United Nations-INSTRAW. (2007). Gender research: A how-to guide United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of women. Available at: http://www.iiav.nl/epublications/2007/gender_research_a_how_to_guide.pdf