Research Information System
7th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION, Ankara, Turkey, 9 - 12 October 2019, pp.185-186, (Summary Text)
United Nations (UN, 2019) indicate Gender determines what is expected, allowed and valued in a woman or a man in a given
context. Gender equality is defined by WHO (World Health Organization) as the absence of discrimination on the basis of a
person's sex in opportunities, the allocation of resources and benefits, or access to services (WHO, 2019). It is obvious that
there is a big gap between men and women regarding many fields (bussiness, education, health, etc.). In Global Gender Gap
Report, it is seen that among 149 countries, only 17 countries succeeded to choose women as heads of a state and women
take a back seat compared to men in many positions. When it comes to education, there are 44 countries with 20% of women
illiterate and globally the numbers get lower when education level gets higher even with men (World Economic Forum, 2018).
Accordingly, it is seen that throughout the recent years, educational acts and social projects related to gender equality
increased in number in our country just as all around the world. It is one of the sustainable development goals determined by
United Nations (UN, 2019) for 2030 Agenda as well.
At different levels of education, gender equality started to be a part of curricula. In fact, it is very beneficial to start at earlier
ages with gender equality education for children as it is both easier and more effective in terms of developing a more gender
equal society and destroying the stereotypes. To overcome these stereotyped views, education has a strong effect when it is
emphasized through the whole curricula. For higher education, there could be considered two dimensions of gender/gender
equality education within higher education. It is significant as it is mostly the last organized education for an individual to change
the stereotypes or gender biased views. The second dimension could be indicated as people mostly reflect what they learn
through education within their social life and get a life vision during higher education. Therefore, it can be useful to have courses
or programs about gender/gender equality within higher education curricula as well.
In this respect, the aim of this study was to analyze the courses regarding gender or/and gender equality in different faculties
in terms of the curriculum dimensions (aims, content, methodology/materials, evaluation) and also the views of instructors
teaching these courses regarding their courses' curricula and effectiveness.Qualitative method was used through this study.
Qualitative studies use direct observations, interviews and documents to analyze (Patton, 2005). It was designed as a
descriptive study. It was aimed to describe the gender/gender equality courses taught in a state university in the southern part
of Turkey within all curriculum dimensions and in terms of their effectiveness. All elective and compulsory courses regarding
gender in 18 faculties and one high school were analyzed. The data collection methods were document analysis and interviews.
After a detailed analysis of documents regarding the syllabuses of gender/gender equality courses, semi-structured interviews
were conducted with the instructors of these courses in different faculties. Semi-structured interviews are useful for two-way
communication and to form an open framework using detailed questions prepared beforehand (Pathak & Intratat, 2016).
Document analyses were completed. Interviews are still going on with instructors.
Through data analysis, document analysis was based on syllabuses and the information on websites of each faculty and
department. For interviews, after the interviews are completed, they will be transcribed and analyzed via content analysis.
Reached code and themes will be compared to the ones found by another coder. In order to provide reliability and validity, the
inter-coder reliability coefficient will be counted. The codes disagreed upon will be discussed. The gender or/and gender
equality courses mostly were found to be taught as elective courses in faculties. As the analyses still go on, it is not possible
to see what instructors generally think about the effectiveness and general outline of these courses. However, it was seen that
there are few faculties teaching gender or/and gender equality courses and therefore their effectiveness will not be that high.
In some faculties and departments, these courses might be taken seriously, while in some other not. Also, the instructors could
have some stereotyped views as well and then there should be taken some precautions to prevent the adverse effects of
instructors’ beliefs on students’ egalitarian views. Hence, it is possible to say that, gender or/and gender equality field has still
a long way through higher education and many other courses and effective curricula should be included to increase the
awareness of students and instructors as well.