[ Up ] [ Next ]
Gender Agents at Pedagogical Academies
Prepared by State College of Education in Vienna,
Austria
This article describes the National project of awareness, reflection,
consultancy & guidance on gender equality issues. The “Gender Agents at
Pedagogic Academies” represent the Austrian way to implement Gender
Mainstreaming (GM) in all institutions in Austria. Gender Mainstreaming
must be implemented as a top-down strategy, where experts’ knowledge
accompanies implementation at institutional level. Experts work on a
voluntary basis, but have a legal basis for their activity. You can find
more information via the project’s web-site (www.bmbwk.gv.at/gleichstellung-schule).
Introduction
As a consequence of the ratification of the treaty of Amsterdam,
Gender Mainstreaming (GM) has become one of Austria’s obligations in the
European Union (Article 2 of the EC directive says that the support of
equality between men and women is one of the European Community’s key
tasks. Article 3 of the EC directive implies that it is important - in
all of the community’s tasks - that dissimilarities are cleared away and
equality between men and women is supported.)
Politically and legally, Austria is obliged to implement the GM’s
strategy in national policy. As a first step, the ministries established
an Inter-ministerial Working Group for Gender Mainstreaming (IMWG-GM) on
July, 11th 2000. Its aim is to support and accompany the enforcement and
implementation of the GM’s strategy at national level (more details:
www.imag-gendermainstreaming.at).
When thinking about the GM’s actual
realisation within an educational context, it was considered sensible to
proceed gradually by implementing single pilot schemes. The Pedagogic
Academies were chosen for one of these pilot schemes, which were
presented at an Austrian-wide conference in autumn 2001. Regarding the
GM’s implementation as part of a top-down strategy, experts who (using
their knowledge and experience) assist the implementation at
institutional level are of great importance. Additionally, they support
senior management teams.
Aim and objectives The central aim of the
project is to implement GM within all Academies. In order to help
achieve this, two persons-gender-agents- were nominated at each Academy
(a woman and a man) who may be contacted for questions arising around
the area of Gender Mainstreaming. This group of people receive the
appropriate information from the ministry’s project leader, which
enables them to ensure the project’s implementation within their
institutions.
The main objectives of the project are:
- to inform all
teacher trainers about the goals of Gender- Mainstreaming
- to maintain
a good balance between male/female representation on committees
- to implement GM within programmes of study
- to support research projects on
gender-related topics and especially support women to conduct research
themselves
- to encourage all persons to observe women and men in their
daily speaking and writing (This is very important for the German
language because of the tendency to use “he” even if meaning the “she”)
and to establish guidelines to reduce gender stereotypes in everyday
language
Target group
- Male and female teacher trainers working
within Pedagogic Academies
- Students from the Pedagogic Academies
Topics
and description
The representatives of GM at the Pedagogic Academy Vienna have
decided to take a new and unconventional approach to the
implementation of GM.
As the ministry has worked out sufficient informative material
about this topic there is no
need to organise this information autonomously. Rather, they try
to make contact with single
professionals through meetings and action. In small groups of 5
to 10 persons, matters of
concern can be clarified more easily. These meetings are
connected to a social event and
take place approximately every two months. For example, one of
these meetings was held
under the title “Evil Ironing”. Under the textile handicraft
teacher’s instructions various
experiments on the sector of ironing were tried out. In the
course of these activities it was
possible to reflect on one’s own ironing-habits and thus also on
role habits. There is also an
international competition for “extreme ironing” where,
interestingly enough, mainly men
participate.
A special column has been established in the Academy’s internal
communication medium
“pa-intern” where the gender representatives’ information can be
published monthly. Reports
about the events can also be found there. Generally, this
information is quite well received.
Additionally, the two representatives are available for support
and advice at any time.
Training methods
In order to reach the project’s goals, a combination of methods
will be used, such as:
- meetings
- discussions
- reflections
- consultancy
- exchange of experience and information
Implementation in Austria
All 14 Pedagogic Academies have gender agents.
At the moment the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and
Culture is evaluating this
pilot project. After having discussed the positive results
(let’s hope so), the further aim is to
implement “Agents in gender questions” within all schools.
Sources/references
www.bmbwk.gv.at/gleichstellung-schule
The Project Leader:
The Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture
Dr. Doris Guggenberger
Minoritenplatz 5
A-1010Vienna
Phone: +43/1/53120/2820
Fax: +43/1/53120/2829
doris.guggenberger@bmbwk.gv.at
|
