Teaching Gender in Social Work European Women's Studies in International and Interdisciplinary Classrooms

Vesna Leskosek, "Teaching Gender in Social Work: European Women's Studies in International and Interdisciplinary Classrooms"
English | 2009 | ISBN: 9187792451 | PDF | pages: 196 | 2.4 mb
How can educators address issues of gender, and gender equality? The ATHENA thematic network brings together specialists in women's and gender studies, feminist research, women's rights, gender equality and diversity. In the book series ' Teaching with Gender' the partners in this network have collected articles on a wide range of teaching practices in the field of gender. The authors discuss the pedagogical, theoretical and political dimensions of learning and teaching on women and gender. The books contain teaching material, reflections on feminist pedagogies and practical discussions about the development of gender-sensitive curricula in specific fields. They address the crucial aspects of education in Europe today: increasing international mobility, the growing importance of interdisciplinarity and the many practices of life-long learning and training that take place outside the traditional programmes of higher education. The need for a book on teaching gender in social work arises from the fact that social work education often fails to incorporate gender, even though most of the people that use social work services are women, a majority of social workers are women, and women have had throughout history a significant role in the establishment of social work. The profession of social work started to emerge early in the twentieth century, when femininity was constructed in a way that supported the public/private division. This applied, in particular, to a woman's body and her appearance, to her morality, sexuality and motherhood, which in turn determined her social opportunities. Social work played a role in these processes in various ways, depending on the prevailing beliefs about women and femininity. For social work it is important to understand primarily the mechanisms that produce and reproduce social inequalities, and in our case the inequalities between the genders.