Suchergebnisse

The Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC-BarcelonaTech (UPC), is currently doing significant steps towards the gender mainstreaming in teaching. Indeed, some years ago some teachers already started individually to introduce gender dimension in their teaching, but it is not until the pilot project named Gender Dimension in Teaching, when a cooperative approach was adopted to reach such mainstreaming in all Bachelor and Master degrees at UPC. Within this project a group of 35 lecturers worked during one semester focusing on the four pillars of teaching (i.e. contents, classroom management, methodology and assessment), which were revised from a gender perspective. Within each pillar, gender issues were identified according to the experienced perception of the project participants. However, uncertainties aroused concerning the reliability of such a perception. Indeed, teachers' perception might be influenced by stereotypes and prejudices that could alter the identification of gender issues. Hence, it became obvious that more reliable data concerning students' perceptions was needed. In order to assess this issue, a survey design, test and improvement process was carried out [1]. The first consensual version of the survey was answered by 548 students, 30% of which are women, from 3 Bachelor and 4 Master STEM degrees. The percentage of women was similar to that of the UPC students' community (27,2% in 2018-2019) but significantly higher than 20,70%, what corresponds to the women's proportion in the 7 studied degrees. This first comparison already makes evident the different degree of awareness related to gender issues, where women capture more biases than men. Indeed, these differences have been found in most of the survey's answers related to the students' observations on attitudes and facts in the frame of UPC degrees. Within the survey, different aspects such as teacher's gendered attitudes, gendered roles in the teamwork and male and female referents are analysed. Surprising results are found, such as the fact that 76% of students have frequently detected one of the following issues: different treatment by the teacher, use of sexist language, use of stereotyped images or a biased assessment. Also, the results regarding referents are interesting, showing a significant gender bias in both the number and type of referents. Indeed, despite the number of male referents is low (54%), the number of female referents is really scarce (24%) and, to our opinion, devoted actions to provide female referents are required. Moreover, women have more referents in the personal circle whereas men have more internationally known and actual referents. All these aspects have been analysed for each of the participant degrees providing valuable information to define degree specific actions to improve gender mainstreaming in teaching. Moreover, the detailed data analysis has allowed to identify the correct wording of the key questions and the type of available answers in order to build a new survey to assess students' perception all along UPC experience. ; This work has been carried out within the framework of the Gender Dimension in Teaching project, at UPC-BarcelonaTech, and GEECCO project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 741128. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official point of view of the UPC-BarcelonaTech nor the European Commission. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)

This study assesses the development process of a tool to measure students' perceptions of gender mainstreaming in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) studies. Within the framework of a pilot project named Gender Dimension in Teaching implemented at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya · BarcelonaTech (UPC), a group of 35 teachers worked during one semester on how to introduce the gender perspective in their teaching. This aim is especially relevant when considering STEM studies, since they have traditionally been defined as gender-neutral when, in fact, they are gender-blind. The teachers that participate in the project cover a wide range of STEM studies, including Architecture, Civil Engineering, ICT Systems Engineering, Naval Systems and Technology Engineering, Aerospace Systems Engineering, Applied Telecommunications and Engineering Management, Industrial Engineering and Environmental Pathways for Sustainable Energy Systems. The project is part of the III Gender Equality Plan at the UPC and is supported by GEECCO project, which receives funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation programme. The Gender Dimension in Teaching project focuses on the four pillars of teaching (i.e. contents, classroom management, methodology and assessment), which were revised from a gender perspective. Within each pillar, gender issues were identified according to the experienced perception of the project participants. These gender issues included, for instance, gender differences in classroom participation, the stereotypical roles adopted in teamwork activities, the use of female references as models for students, the adoption of a gender-inclusive language by both teachers and students, the use of stereotypes in teaching materials, gender bias in assessment, etc. However, uncertainty aroused concerning the reliability of such a perception. Indeed, teachers' perception might be influenced by stereotypes and prejudices that could alter the identification of gender issues. Hence, it became obvious that more reliable data concerning students' perceptions was needed. To this end, a first set of questions was collaboratively defined and a first survey was developed using Google Forms. The survey was tested at the beginning of the semester in 8 different UPC degrees, both at Bachelor and Master level, obtaining more than 500 answers. Despite some interesting preliminary results, a detailed revision of the questionnaire was conducted in order to remove some acquiescence bias and formal errors, thus improving the quality of the survey for a more global study. The improvement process included discussions among the members of the Gender Dimension in Teaching project, and discussions with the Feminist Assembly of the Industrial Engineering School at the UPC. As a final step, this revised survey was tested and discussed with a small sample of students. As a result, an improved survey to assess student's perceptions of gender mainstreaming in STEM studies has been collaboratively obtained, which may become an essential tool for further studies extended to all the university community. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)