Gender Audit showed that few instructors integrated gender-related issues in their teaching and this might not be adequate to raise the gender equality awareness among students.
Specific courses relevant to sex/ gender in their study curricula
Problem (evidence)
Aims/objectives
To make students more gender-sensitive in their daily lives and education.
To ensure that a gendered perspective is used in teaching in all scientific areas.
Resources
A background in gender studies is needed. The instructors for the abovementioned courses meet this criterion to varying degrees. Yet, these skills must be offered for all interested instructors and OzU is committed to doing so by organizing relevant workshops and activities.
Brief outcomes
More courses are offered with an emphasis on sex/gender-related topics and gender equality.
Key area
Integration of sex and gender dimension in teaching curricula
Type of action
Training
Organization
Özyeğin Üniversitesi
Higher education institution
Action level of implementation
Departments, staff, students
Implementation
In the Fall semester of AY 2018-2019, the undergraduate students from a variety of academic programs were offered an elective course titled “HUM323-325 Feminist Theory: Culture, Literature and Society,” which was taught as two separate courses by two different instructors. The courses were taught in Turkish and in English. OzU has committed itself to offering “Feminist Theory” consistently and also to increasing the number of such gender-oriented courses in different scientific areas.
In the Fall semester of AY 2019-2020, the Psychology Department offered an elective course titled “PSY412: Selected Topics in Cognitive Psychology.” The course is designed to analyse and critique the gender-biased conceptions of science as well as the gender-based inequalities seen in the practice of science and research. PSY421: Human Sexuality and PSY430: Relationships and Families are just two other such courses with a clear gender/sex focus alongside courses offered in the fields of Language and Literature and Sociology. As regards the latter fields, ENG101, ENG102 and SOC201, university-wide mandatory courses for all undergraduates, now have gender-related texts, cases, examples and frameworks strongly embedded in their course programmes.
Some of the courses with a clear focus on gender-related subjects in the Faculty of Law are:
LAW128: Methodology of Law II (Cases include gender-related situations and parameters.)
LAW203: Administrative Law I and LAW204: Administrative Law II (Cover gender and cases of temporary special measure –positive discrimination—as part of the principle of equality.)
LAW234: Gender and Law
LAW310: Human Rights Law
Several of such courses offered by the School of Applied Sciences (Programmes of Gastronomy and Culinary Arts and Hotel Management) are:
GARM224 and 480: Food and Sustainability
GARM481: Food Culture in Film
SAS452: Senior Thesis
HMAN132: Room Division Management and Technologies (Cases and examples studied as well as management and staff roles discussed are designed from a gender-sensitive perspective.)
Some of the courses with sex and gender parameters offered by the Faculty of Business are:
MGMT202: Organizations (All undergraduate business programmes mandatory)
MGMT505: Business Ethics (MBA mandatory course)
MGMT801: Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility (Executive MBA mandatory course)
In the Spring semester of AY 2019-2020, Faculty of Engineering will offer the following course focusing on ethics and gender-related questions encountered within the field:
FE101: Being an Engineer
Challenges
Some instructors initially tended to think that gender was irrelevant to their academic fields, and that they could afford to pay little or no attention to it.
Coping strategies
Gender Equality Awareness Workshops held with academics illustrated how gender-awareness was a multifaceted issue covering all components of the teaching activity and how gender-sensitivity was important both pedagogically and in terms of excellence and impactful teaching.
Tips/strategies – Lessons learnt
Gender Equality Awareness Workshops held with all academic staff proved to be very helpful in making a case for the integration of sex/gender perspective into teaching.
More detailed Outcomes/Impact
Students are expected to become much more sensitive and knowledgeable about gender equality and gender-related issues.
Unintended consequences
Student evaluations for the Feminist Theory course were very positive, also indicating that more courses with a similar scope in all areas might be demanded by the students themselves.