UNIGENERE

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Objectives of the Initiative

This project was aimed to:

1. promote and reinforce gender and equal opportunities approach in University’s curricula (long term objective).
2. create a “gender oriented” educational offer at University of Torino (short term objective.

Which barriers in the career stages of females does the initiative address?

The lack of gender perspective in the university of Turin’s classes. The lack of knowledge among professors and students about gender studies.

Demonstrable success of the initiative

The response from the target group was very high. For example many professors added the gender approach to their classes’ programme. We can say that the short term objective has been reached.

The course is online, and until last year the implementing organization was able to monitor the profile of users (internal and external). From 2004 to 2008 750 persons asked to have access to the online training. In 2009 90 persons were external users. The project organized also 2 conferences about “sexuality & gender” and “work&gender” that gave the opportunity to add new modules to the e-course, the participation was very active.

They created and still publish a three months online magazine “Quaderni di Donne & Ricerca”, that is a collection of gender studies publications.

Motives for launching initiative

• To create a new way to promote “gender oriented” educational offer in the University of Torino based on free information and documents available not only for students but also for professors and other people outside the university.
• To have an interdisciplinary approach of gender studies, showing the extent of gender perspective in different university’s subjects.

Equal opportunity measures in the organisation before the initiative

CIRSDe was born as a Centre for Women and Gender Studies, so it was already engaged in promoting equal opportunity. CIRSDE is the frame of reference for research initiatives, advanced teaching and experimental training and cultural discussion between male and female academics and scholars, researchers and educational workers.

Moreover CIRSDE has always worked in close cooperation with the Committee for equal opportunities of the University of Turin.

Target group(s) of the initiative

• Female and Male students (direct)
• Researchers and teachers (direct)
• Citizens (direct /indirect)

Implementation of the initiative

The person responsible of the initiative was the director of CIRSDE (prof Chiara Saraceno).In Turin 3 employees worked to implement the initiative. In general 20 work contracts have been signed for the implementation of the activities.

The main activities have been: re-styling of CIRSDe web-site, the on line course with several e-learning modules and tutoring, seminars and meetings, creation of a gender oriented magazine, research report. These activities were organized when a research or a professor wanted to deeply analyze some topics (of very various sectors) from a gender perspective.

The modules are:

First level: law, development and environment, economics, sociology

Second level: more specific programmes related to literature, anthropology, discrimination and law, masculinity, art & representation, gender in society.

The total amount of money for UNIGENERE was 100.000,00 Euros for one year. This initiative was part of FSE – POR Regione Piemonte – Ob.3 – Measure E.1 – Interventio line n° 3 e 4: a program of European Union aimed to the promotion of equal opportunities.

The initiative has been well accepted by the target group: the number of people asking an account to follow the on line programme is very high.

Factors of success

The fact that the online course was (and is) open source played a key role for the success of the initiative because that meant freedom of information and availability material.Moreover,also professors can easily find material on gender, adding in this way a gender perspective in their classes.In add,the interdisciplinary of the gender approach course has been important to reach a wide range of interested people.

Obstacles, barriers to implementation

Some activities have been realized on late, because of the slow bureaucracy of university.

Lessons Learned

Users are not obliged to fil in a feedback questionnaire. This was a choice in order to leave the online tool easy to use but at the same time they are thinking of ask some questions about the satisfaction or more likely a self evaluation test.

Benefit for the organisation

• Introduction of gender perspective in different classes of the university of Turin
• Creation of “Quaderni di Donne & Ricerca”, that gathers and publishes thesis on gender studies once the scientific committee has approved them.
• Gender modules and gender perspective have been added to the normal educational programmes of the university’s classes. Gender is more and more considered as cross cutting issues in higher education.

Sustainability of the initiative

The on line course of CIRSDe is still active on the website.Today CIRSDE’s activities are financed by the university’s budget and also they use money from research projects and funds from different research funders, (local authorities and EU). So the initiative was able to broaden its funding basis, which makes it much more sustainable.

Transferability

The project could be adopted by other subjects operating in Piedmont area. Some teachers and researchers coming from other Italian Universities were interested in the project and were considering possibilities to reproduce it in other context.

Systematic Approach

Gender balance is surely an overall objective for the university of Turin, but it has become more important thanks to the project UNIGENERE. It brings different university’s subjects in the same centre promoting and supporting the multidisciplinary of gender. Of course that allows to have a systematic overview of gender in the higher educational patterns offered by the university.

Innovation

This initiative had a strong innovative component in the e-learning and interdisciplinary approaches of the university of Turin.

Innovation comes from the presence of a gender perspective in university curricula that before was not considered.

Monitoring / Evaluation

Summary: This initiative is good practice because...

The initiative UNIGENERE meets 5 criteria out 5. It has been very well organized not only during the one year it was meant to last, but also afterwards. It helped the university of Turin to create a “gender oriented” educational offer, to mainstream gender among people.

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