Women's and Gender Studies > Introduction

 

Introduction

The general task of Women's and Gender Studies is to design, organize and develop gender sensitive, gender aware and critical education and research. With it's multidiciplinary outreach Women's and Gender Studies serves the whole university. In practice this means that education is provided in collaboration with various faculties and units. Collaborations in research and development are done within the university but also in a national and international level by taking part in mainly Nordic and European networks and by actively creating new projects and professional collaborations world wide.

 

Multidiciplinary education

In the University of Oulu Women's and Gender Studies is a minor subject. Students can take basic and subject studies. Additionally Women's and Gender Studies offer separate study programmes in English and in Finnish. Women's and Gender Studies has approximately 20 new students each year. In the study programmes offered online the number of students has been more than 100.

As a minor subject Women's and Gender Studies gives the possibility to study the key concepts and theoretical starting points in women's studies. Gender sensitive studies are included in the studies in Educational Sciences. Also an optional litterature package is offered. In the future Women's and Gender Studies should be entwined more thoroughly to the degree requirements in varous fields and make gender sensitivity visible throuhout the studies.

The lecturer in Women's and Gender Studies is responsible of the curriculum. Curriculum development is also done in collaboration with researchers and teachers in other faculties and units. Courses on history, litterature, mediaculture, environment, philosophy and relgion etc. have been arranged together with the respective departments. The theories and methodologies of Women's Studies are used in teaching and research in other subjects as well.

 

Developing education and teaching

The Women's and Gender Studies in the University of Oulu has built it's competence in projects where research, education and work on the societal level meet. Women's and Gender Studies has a long history of research on gendered and sexualised violence (e.g. Academy of Finland), developing learning materials and curriculum based on research (AWARE, AWARE ll, SINNI startti, APROPOS) and piloting and further developin them for example in e-learning.

Connections with working life has been maintained as well. An equality training has been dveloped for the university students, third sector and working life. Also a training was developed and piloted for students in arts and MA's to facilitate their employment (SINNI-startti).

Women's and Gender Studies follows in it's curriculum development the EU recommendations e.g. CM/Rec (2007)17 and CM/Rec (2007)13, which call for the mainstreaming of gender in education.

Women's and Gender Studies has developed non-violent and gender sensitive pedagogy consistently e.g. with the support of European Commission's Daphne funds, and this work is continued also in the future. Projects with a focus in developing education include also projects focusing on e-learning and mentoring online (Campus Futurus). Education has also been developed to tackle the questions of segragation in work life in WomenIT- and UNICAFE-projects.

 

Focus on gendered and sexualised violence

Women's and Gender Studies has been doing systematicaly gender sensitive research on the themes of gendered and sexualised violence and the prevention of violence. Research is followed by learning materials and new curriculum. In the Apropos-project piloted in 2007-2008 a 25 ects multisectoral and multidisciplinary study programme on violence prevention was developed together with national and international expert organisations. The programme is unique because of it's multidisciplinarity, it's extent and availability. The programme is developed for e-learning and it is available in finnish and in english.

The special expertice of Doc., D.Ed. Vappu Sunnari, lecturer in Women's Studies, lies in gender sensitivity in education. She has researched schools and teacher education from the perspective of gender and gendered and sexualised volence in educational environments.

The research group in Women's and Gender Studies has as main focus areas and interest inthe research on gendered and sexualised violence in educational settings, peace education and conflict handling.

 

Seminars, publications and networks

During the years Women's and Gender Studies has coordinated and participated in several projects, networks and collaborations in aim to develop the work against violence and to prevent violence nationally and internationally. The fruits of collaborations in projects and seminars has been also collected in publications.

 

International network was invited in December 2008 to participate the international conference "From Violence to Caring - gendered and sexualized violence as the chllenge in the life-span". Around 150 professionals, students and activists participated. The discussions were collected into a conference proceedigns. Additionally during the conference an abstract book was published.

In 2008–2009 Doc, DEd Vapu Sunnari, together with PhD Seija Jalagin arethe editors of national academic journal for Women's Studies.

The publications of the Women's and Gender Studies staf can bee seen in their personal cards in this website (under staff). Personal publications include academic articles, articles in edited publications and monographs.

 

Women's and Gender Studies 20 years

Year 2009 celebrated the 20th anniversary of Women's and Gender Studies in the University of Oulu. To celebrate this and to challenge for new, current discussions, Women's and Gender Studies organized an international lecture series "Gender in Equality and Inequality" bringing 17 lecturers to discuss and present their recent work in the University of Oulu. Titles and pictures from the lecture series have been collected here.