ATGENDER

Information about the Tuning Brochure

Dear Reader,

 Here you have the introduction of the Gender Studies Tuning Brochure, the result of over a decade of intensive cooperation and exchange in Gender Studies in Europe. Brought together by shared interest in the interdisciplinary field  of Gender Studies, educators, researchers, students, activists and professionals involved in gender equality have formed at the end of the 20C an network in advanced Women’s Studies. The network was called ATHENA and was funded for over 10 years under the Erasmus/Socrates financing of Thematic Networks. These scholars from almost every European country (EU and non-EU) have taken up the challenge to explore, define and improve what Gender Studies can be in education. Bridging the gap between universities and civil society, involving students and researching education, as well as teaching research, the network produced expertise in Gender Studies at a truly transnational scale. At the same time the results were deeply rooted and embedded in different locations: interdisciplinary classrooms, international educational exchange, ngo’s and governmental policy making as well as political activism directed at strengthening women’s position.

 By choosing the Tuning format we have decided to participate in a European project that invites professionals in education throughout Europe and beyond to think across national boundaries, to reflect on the global location of their programs and to formulate their learning goals in a language that will allow potential students to understand what is being offered, thus allowing educational mobility.

 The text of the Gender Studies Tuning Brochure has been produced by the ATHENA-network.  The ATHENA3 Taskforce has appointed an editorial committee (the Tuning Project Group) assisted by the executive editor Dr. Edyta M Just that prepared a text that has been presented to all ATHENA3 partners. The critical assessment has been performed by academics who teach Gender Studies, students and graduates who have taken courses, and activists: women who are active in governmental & nongovernmental organisation aimed at improving women’s position. Their feedback has been integrated in the text offered here.

 The Gender Studies Tuning Brochure is based on the work on education done in the ATHENA network. The text published here is to a large extent composed of results and reports written in the course of ten years cooperation. In this Gender Studies Tuning Brochure texts produced within ATHENA network have been re-integrated (for a full list of sources quoted and used, please, see Part 6: Bibliography). Furthermore, two questionnaires have been offered the stakeholders in Gender Studies, academics teaching Gender Studies, students in Gender Studies, graduates from Gender Studies, women and men active in organizations and institutions dedicated to gender equality, women’s emancipation and equal opportunities (in this brochure they are called activists). The questionnaires were also sent to people who might be considered to be Gender Studies employers but this category was seen by too few respondents to describe their position. Hiring researchers is done by academics, and those professionals in gender equality rarely call themselves employers. The questionnaires asked respondents to rate the importance of different competences in Gender Studies Programs and assess the degree they were implemented. One questionnaire was dedicated to generic competences, the other to specific Gender Studies competences. The second list was based on careful scrutiny of the ATHENA reports on education. In addition to rating the competences, the respondents were also asked to rank them.

 Despite the differences that exist between the terms Gender Studies/Women’s Studies /Feminist Studies and the politics of naming in different context there is a consensus between these programs. This consensus is recognized in SIGMA-Report (1995) and regards the definition of this field of study that is “(…) a process of making explicit the lives of women and the gendering of social relations in the widest sense among individuals and collectives” (SIGMA, 1995, 169, Volume 0). This consensus has been confirmed by the fruitful cooperation within the Athena, the Advanced Thematic Network in European Women’s Studies. Therefore, in this Gender Studies Tuning Brochure, for the sake of clarity and brevity the term Gender Studies has been adopted. The headings that refer to Gender Studies in the following parts of this brochure also refer to Women’s and Feminist Studies.

 The Gender Studies Tuning Brochure contains the reference points for the design and delivery of degree programs in Gender Studies. It is an outcome of carefully combined reflections on what competences might be acquired in different Gender Studies programs: undergraduate first cycle courses, MA- or second cycle programs preparing students for a professional life and the third or doctoral cycle where students train for scholarly research.

 The most important will be the conclusions that professionals in education draw from it. The Reference Points that are offered here are intended to help those involved in design and delivery of degree programs in Gender Studies to reflect on their own norms for quality, their choices and decisions and the needs of their students – wherever they are and from wherever they’ve come.

 We are extremely happy that the final phase of this project has been sponsored by new association for gender, ATGENDER, the European Association for Gender Research, Education and Documentation.

 

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