Gender approach in education: the search of methots and ways of implementation in Ukraine

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Gender approach in education: the search of methots and ways of implementation in Ukraine

Zemzyulina Natalia

Doctor of Historical Sciences

Professor at The Department of World History

and International Relations

at The Bohdan Khmelnytsky

National University of Cherkasy

The state policy of Ukraine in the filed of education requires its adaptation to the level of the developed countries through strict reformation of conceptual, structural and organizational basics («Education. Ukraine XXI century»), that is through plane leveling of national education system with modern world standard. The implementation of the mentioned thesis demands solid reformation of the state functioning system with a new democratic principles that are free of any form of discrimination (in particular - gender). These principles may be found in the government policy of European Union that announced gender mainstreaming policy as one of the ways of society democratization that proclaims systematic strategy of creating equal opportunities for men and women, tackling gender asymmetry in all spheres of society's everyday life. Ukraine undertook a commitment to reach gender equality by 2015, thus a significant amount of regulatory acts has been adopted lately, that state the main principles of inner state policy about overcoming gender asymmetry and form gender balanced society. Moreover, these principles influence the development of scientific thoughts by identifying its practical focus. The relevance: that is why, in the context of European direction, the problem of incorporating the gender component into the education system of young people becomes a special issue in Ukraine. Nevertheless, the essence of gender education, theoretical and methodological principles and strategies of implementation of this innovation is still a subject of scientific discussions.

The purpose of the article is to analyze the ways and methods of introducing special technologies into the educational process that take into account the specifics of women's and men's psychology, provide a balanced gender component in education.

The problem of gender education and upbringing has cross disciplinary character, thus methodological basis of the investigation of the problem includes scientific-theoretical experience of philosophy, political science, sociology, psychology, pedagogy and culturology. Achievement of gender equality in education requires the necessity of using social technologies that take into account peculiarities of male and female psychology and provide balanced gender component in education.

Today, taking into consideration the modern level of gender research in the world and in Ukraine, we should consider gender approach as a specific field of social science that is focused on forming and approving the policy of equal, free of gender discrimination, opportunities for self-realization of an individual in various spheres of social practice [4].

Gender approach gives a chance to evaluate the results of existing paradigm of socioeconomic development of society and change the system of social differentiation and gender inequality for better in the process of transition of the state to the sustainable development.

Despite, the rising difference between male and female lifetime, misbalance in the number of men and women in managing and governing spheres, double occupation of women, lack of self-realization of men in upbringing and everyday household functions of a family, and double moral standards demonstrates the existing obstacles that are caused by traditional stereotypes on the place of each gender in private, professional and social spheres. These stereotypes control the consciousness of youth and cause them follow particular regulations, principals, and standards of behavior.

Ukrainian scientists made a big step in solving the problem of gender pedagogy but even more questions are still unanswered and are in the state of scientific discussions. The problem of gender education and youth raising in national education institutes is one of those problems. After analyzing results of theoretical works of researchers and practical conclusions that were introduced by education institutes about gender education, several contradictions may be highlighted:

between world's experience in implementation of gender ideology in education and national-cultural peculiarities of attitude towards gender theory, traditions of gender-role education / raising in Ukraine;

between intense development of gender investigation in modern science on one hand and lack of distinct formulated theoretical and methodological principals of these investigations in pedagogy on the other;

between proclaimed principal of gender equality in education and orientation of national education system towards traditional gender stereotypes etc.

Analysis of psychology-pedagogy and sociological literature, analysis of foreign countries experience, positive criticism of using gender part in different fields of knowledge prove the necessity of implementation of gender approach in education as general and in organization of educational process in particular.

The main point of gender education is in omitting of sexism, softening gender stereotypes, forming the experience of interaction between genders based on egalitarian principals, preventing comparison based on gender in family, school or any other social institutes, creating equal conditions and opportunities for development, self-growing and self-realization of each individual. The following authors analyzed gender education in theirs works: K.P. Veselovska, T.V. Hovorun, O.M. Kikinezhdi [3], A.H. Khrypkova, O.M. Sharhan, T.I. Iuferova, V.O. Vasiutynskyi, I.S. Kon, H.M. Laktionova, M.Kh. Meltsas, A.A. Palii, A.A. Rean, T.A. Repina, T.M. Tytarenko, V.P. Kravets [6], A.V. Mudryk [8], S.T. Vykhor [1, 2], L.V. Shtylova [10] and others.

J. Scott in her «Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis» identifies four components of the term «gender»: «1) complex of cultural symbols that carries social models of genders' behavior; 2) standard statements that are in religious, pedagogic, scientific, law and political conceptions; 3) social institutes and organizations that covers not only systems of family relations, family itself and household but also such sexually-determined institutes as labor force market, education system and government system; 4) self-identification of an individual» [11]. The split of terms «gender» and «sex» targets the goal to divide biological and sociological sex, while the latest is considered to be defined by social-economic, cultural and historical factors. T. Hovorun and O. Kikinezhdi highlights the fact that sex and gender are dimensions, sides of a human being that are connected and fulfill each other and are not absolutely independent features [3].

The majority of investigators by dividing terms «sex» and «gender» consider that sex connected only to physiological aspects, while gender is influenced by psychological, social and cultural differences [4]. The correlation between biological and social in the process of sexual socialization has different interpretation in foreign psychological theories that has moderate influence on pedagogic science. Moreover, the majority of definitions that describe the process of establishing and formation of sexual independence, theirs uncertainty demands more thorough analysis of terms and studying of theirs interdependence [1].

Problem of gender in pedagogic science is marked in three main aspects: as the one that take place in education; implementation and realization of gender approach on different levels of education; development of gender pedagogy programs for universities.

A new area of study emerges in pedagogy, which is ought to connect psychological theories of sexual socialization and gender researches. Gender pedagogy is presented by the investigations of V. Kravtsia, O. Lutsenko, O. Tsokur, L. Shtylovoi. V. Kravets set the process of individual socialization as the basis for building the structure of gender pedagogy, outlining two aspects: gender socialization and sexual socialization [6]. Gender socialization marks the influence of social-cultural factors on formation and development of individual, while sexual - highlights sexual awareness and raising as well as forming sexual culture. Clear separation of sex, gender sexual helps to understand common terms deeply. O. Lutsenko states that «the main goal of sexual education is sexual socialization of an individual, that is related to the search and obtaining of own sexual identity» [7].

A term «gender education», its context, goal and mission are not stated clearly in pedagogic literature. The attention is paid more to the actualization, necessity of gender raising, demand for integration of gender part such as cross-disciplinary category into pedagogic science [2]. A. Mudryk connects the necessity of gender raising with: «1) feminization of educational system; 2) need to restrain, edit the process of men feminization and women maleness; 3) gender approach may become some form of family feminization compensation as around 50% of kids live in a families with no parent and in great number of other cases it is better if there were no parents at all» [8]. L. Shtylova states that the main problem of pedagogy is the fact that standard model of sociosexual (gender) education that serves as precondition for executing individually- oriented approach for democratizing the society in general. She thinks that gender education differs from traditional sexual education in the following ways: theories of sexual education, that have biological focus, considers development of male and female identity, as defined by reproduction function and natural division of labor, according to the sex; gender identity is not the same for all men and women in the frame of own sex; it is complex, flexible and changeable; researchers of gender identity focus on studying subjective definitions and models of individual identity and not on objective functions and statuses of sexes in society; transition from sex education in medical-biological meaning is being replaced by psychological-pedagogic and social-pedagogic models of subject investigation [10].

Gender education is a purposeful and systematic influence on consciousness, feelings, behavior of students with a purpose of developing egalitarian values, respect for the individual, regardless the sex, level of development of individual qualities and skills for their selffulfillment, promoting tolerant behavior and building civil society [1].

The targets of gender education are: implementation of gender approach on all levels of educational process; realizing the problems of gender parity; obtaining knowledge on biases concerning each sex and their understanding; softening stereotypes in the sphere of family, professional and social roles and correcting the conception of masculinity/femininity norms; enriching emotional world, establishing conditions for individual skills development with the purpose of self-fulfillment; amassing and forming experience of egalitarian behavior. The means of implementing gender education in educational activities are to include gender element into educational process and to use a self-oriented approach in interactions between teachers and students.

Gender education may also be implemented through: corresponding legislative acts; various behavioral approaches, as a part of national, moral, family, legal, intellectual, labor; inclusion in humanitarian disciplines; cooperation of educators and public organizations; psychological, educational and methodological preparation of educators for implementation of gender education, propaganda of gender enlightenment [2].

The efficiency of educational work with students depends on the level of gender culture of the teacher himself, on the way the latter implements the reconstruction of traditional cultural limitations in personality development of youth, and if she/he creates optimal conditions for maximum self-fulfillment of girls and boys in the process of educational cooperation.

Implementation of gender approach in the educational system includes: development of courses, separate modules, establishing educational and methodological basis for training and retraining of teachers; inclusion of gender researches themes into educational programs of educational establishments; gaining international experience of implementing gender education; engaging public organizations to cooperate in implementation of gender approach into educational process; conducting discussions of main problems of gender education in mass media and scientific conferences, roundtables [5].

Conclusions. Key tendencies in development of theory and practice of gender education are: democratization of Ukrainian educational system and gradual implementation of gender ideas in it; the presence of significant discrepancies in scientists' understanding of methodological basis of gender education of youth complicates practical implementation of gender ideology; modern educational system in Ukraine is still under influence of hidden educational plan for executing present (dominant) gender relations in society and, therefore, requires profound development of modern foundation for education and mentoring with a compulsive consideration of gender component; gender education and mentoring are vital elements of European integrational process of reforming domestic educational system and is one of the principles of sustainable growth of modern society, complete personality development.

The implementation of gender education will result in forming gender self-consciousness among youth that materializes through: understanding of equality of both sexes in social and political life; active position regarding implementation of gender transformational changes in Ukraine; ability to compromise, tolerance in different real-life situations.

Referenses

educational gender inequality

1. Vykhor S. (2005). Education of school students of different sex and gender approach in education process at school. Pedagogic search. Scientific-methodological reporter of Board of education and science of Volyn oblast state administration and Volyn Institute of Pedagogic Postgraduate Education, 1 (45), 6-9 (in Ukr.).

2. Vykhor S.T. (2003). Gender education: parallels through century. Science and modern days. Science and modern days: Collec. scient. papers of National Pedagogical Dragomanov University. Kyiv: Logos. Vol. XLI, 82-90. (in Ukr.).

3. Hovorun T.V. & Kikinezhdi O.M. (2003). Gender ideology in education process. Education and management. 6, 4, 56-68. (in Ukr.).

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5. Theoretical-methodological and sociocultural aspects of gender policy: world's and national experience (study guide) (2013) / edit: N.I. Zemziulina. Cherkasy, 80. (in Ukr.).

6. Kravets V.P. (2003). Gender pedagogy. Study guide. Ternopil: Dzhura, 406. (in Ukr.).

7. Lutsenko O.A. (2004). Educational program «Gender pedagogy». Anthology of educational programs on the problem of gender development. Kyiv: PTs Foliant, 45-105. (in Ukr.).

8. Mudryk A.V. (1999). Social pedagogics: Textbook for students of pedagogical universities. Under editorship of V.A. Slastenin. M.: Publishing Center «Academia», 184. (in Ukr.).

9. Muntian I.S. (2004). Gender approach in professional preparation of students in higher pedagogical establishments: Dis. ... candidate of pedagogical sciences: 13.00.04. Odesa, 192. (in Ukr.).

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11. Scott J. (1986). Gender: a useful category of historical analysis // The American Historical Review. 91, 5, 1067.

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