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- Volume 19, Issue 2, 2016
Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies - Volume 19, Issue 2, 2016
Volume 19, Issue 2, 2016
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Gender in het curriculum: marginaal of integraal?
Authors: Conny Roggeband, Saskia Bonjour & Liza M. MüggeAbstractIn this special issue, we evaluate the integration of gender in academic education in the Netherlands, focusing mostly on disciplinary study programmes. We show that while gender has become a permanent feature of Dutch academic teaching, there are substantial differences between disciplines and universities. We observe that the integration of gender in compulsory core curricula is weak. If gender is discussed at all in basic courses, it is too often merely as a descriptive category, rather than as an analytical perspective on power and social relations. As a result of poor institutional embeddedness, the integration of gender in academic education depends entirely on individual teaching staff. Sustainable integration requires a cultural shift away from the perception of gender as a (marginal) specialisation, towards the recognition that gender is an integral part of the basic training in each academic discipline. We conclude with recommendations for a step by step strategy to promote the integration of gender in academic education in the Netherlands.
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Politicologie 2.0: Gender in het kerncurriculum
Authors: Saskia Bonjour, Liza Mügge & Conny RoggebandAbstractOver the past decades, gender and politics has become a vibrant and recognised international research field. Scholars have shown that gender is central to politics. Gendered equalities and inequalities are shaped and reproduced in political processes and institutions. In this article, we examine to what extent gender perspectives and insights are currently integrated in Dutch political science education. Based on a systematic analysis of the Bachelor programmes offered by the four Dutch political science departments, we demonstrate that gender is marginal in the foundational compulsory part of the curriculum. Additionally, students read very little scholarly work written by women. We argue that a gender perspective should be part of the analytical toolkit of anyone trained as a political scientist. Therefore, we collected suggestions of internationally renowned gender and politics scholars. This resulted in a comprehensive list with key concepts and readings that can be readily integrated in the core courses of political science on: comparative politics, international relations, methodology, political theory, and public policy.
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Gender in het huidige sociologieonderwijs: Thema en/of perspectief?
Authors: Niels Spierings & Marie-Louise JanssenAbstractIn this educational memo, we will explore in which measure and form gender and sexuality studies is a part of the Dutch sociology curriculum, and in particular the present situation at the University of Amsterdam and Radboud University. Both universities have a rich history in gender studies, but represent different perspectives within sociology. Looking at both curricula, a general image emerges of social-cultural man-woman differences and sexuality as themes, but these are not anchored in the final attainment level, which makes the individual role of the lectures quite big. In the required readings there is hardly any attention for a gender perspective in which students learn to apply gender as an analytical category. However, both universities offer a wide selection of specialisation courses to interested students. Here, opportunities seem to be missed to apply gender studies within sociology as a bridge between different disciplines and methodological approaches. This exploration ends with a brief outline of the further anchoring of gender and sexuality studies in the sociology curriculum on basis of three educational strategies.
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Genderstudies in de opleidingen Antropologie in Nederland
Authors: José van Santen, Gerdien Steenbeek & Marion den UylAbstract1The article contains three paragraphs. The first section is a historical retrospective. After reminding the audience to the content of the discipline and its specific methods, we describe how the efforts to include women’s worlds as a subject of study became slowly accepted at the various universities and how, thereafter, due to theoretical developments, ‘women studies’ turned into gender studies.
In a next paragraph, we give an overview of the actual gender courses and the way gender is mainstreamed in the anthropological curricula. Only in two out of five departments, gender is still a compulsory course, while in most other courses gender is considered to be mainstreamed. In reality, gender is often wrongly or improperly treated; many colleagues still equal gender and women, that is studies about women for women, or neglect the theoretical contributions of feminist anthropology.
In a last paragraph, we pay attention to the present student population and their perception on ‘feminism’ and/or gender studies. Students may enter a gender course believing women’s emancipation is completed in European societies while much is still to be gained with immigrant or Muslim women. We then discuss what it does for students to receive education from a gender perspective. We conclude that gender in higher education still needs a dual policy: an intersectional gender perspective should become an integrated part of the whole curriculum, and it must explicitly be addressed in separate courses by gender specialists. However, while gender specialists were appointed at all existing institutes in the past, most of these specialists have other teaching obligations and/or were not replaced after retirement. Nevertheless, many marvellous researches concerning gender and anthropology have resulted in exiting theoretical insights. The Netherlands Association for Gender Studies and Feminist Anthropology (LOVA) has also already existed for 37 years, and is still very much alive due to the efforts of gender specialists and a new generation of students.
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Integratie: Toverwoord of verdwijntruc?
Authors: Mineke Bosch, Margriet Fokken & Rozemarijn van de WalAbstractIn this article, we evaluate the integration of gender as a category of historical analysis within the curriculum of history programmes at seven Dutch universities. We do so as ‘integration’ was the term used by most of our informants to characterise the inclusion of gender in the curriculum. We understand integration to mean attention for gender in all courses or wherever appropriate, which – we suggest – does not exclude courses that specifically focus on gender history. Throughout the article, gender history is used in a broad sense as including ‘women’s history’. We have interviewed lecturers and students at the different universities and analysed their programme brochures for the year 2015-2016. Furthermore, we have studied how, in history theses for the year 2015, gender as a category of analysis is used. Many of the lecturers we spoke with stated firmly that ‘integration’ is aimed for at their university. But, how exactly is this idea of ‘integration’ understood and effected in practice? Is it a case of wishful thinking, a magic solution, or is it rather a disappearing act? We conclude that, while integration is a noble ambition, in order for this to be truly successful it is necessary to make such policies more explicit.
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Gender en diversiteit in het geneeskundeonderwijs
Authors: Petra Verdonk, Maaike Muntinga & Gerda CroisetAbstractAddressing biological sex and sociocultural gender differences in health and illness is essential to deliver high quality of care to both men and women. Sex and gender issues should therefore be structurally integrated in medical education. An often-used strategy to implement these issues is gender mainstreaming, which aims to reduce gender bias and change existing practices by involving regular actors in education. While gender mainstreaming projects have been carried out throughout medical schools in the Netherlands, and despite reports of success, evaluations also demonstrate gender mainstreaming’s limitations. We therefore critically analysed the projects using Squires’ three gender mainstreaming strategies: inclusion, reversal, or displacement. We conclude that the projects mainly applied inclusion and reversal, and hardly used displacement, suggesting that structural change has not been fostered. Increasing implementation efforts at a management level, an additional focus on other aspects of diversity (diversity mainstreaming), and establishing larger coalitions may offer new opportunities for change in medical education.
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Tweesporendenken in tijden van brede bachelors
Authors: Iris van der Tuin & Berteke WaaldijkAbstractGender Studies have reached their institutionalised status at universities in the Netherlands by working along the tracks of integration and autonomy. The first track consisted of integrating gender into existing monodisciplinary science and scholarship in order to gender sensitise them. The second track entailed setting up a discipline of one’s own. Women’s Studies, now Gender Studies, built feminist academic infrastructures, and did so in multi and interdisciplinary veins. Early feminist academics at Dutch universities were recent graduates. Such young teachers, their students, and their shared questions were crucial for Women’s Studies to develop. Nowadays, Dutch Gender Studies are characterised by an ‘integrated autonomy’, given that many feminist stakes have been taken over by the mainstream. Multi and interdisciplinarity in particular are no longer special at all! They are governmental and university policies. This article asks to what extent encounters with a diverse student body in broad bachelor programmes such as Liberal Arts and Liberal Arts and Sciences assist in ensuring that academic feminism does not lose its critical edge. Such programmes embrace critical and creative reflection on academia because students are to discover or develop their scholarly interests while studying. Given integrated autonomy, feminist teaching, learning, and research can only gain from a diverse student population.
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