GENDER AND DIVERSITY

The terms gender & diversity are usually seen as two different categories, having different origins of theory and social movements. We approach gender & diversity as one common theme, taking into account its irresolvable connection with education:

We consider diversity as a concept of acknowledgement and appreciation of pluralities and varieties. Thus, diversity is for us as well an important aspect of education [link]: On one level, it implies acknowledging the differences between learners and their learning styles. On other level, diversity is a subject of education in its own right.


The term gender focuses on social inequality and discrimination, which result from the perceived differences between men and women in society. Education is a mayor key for understanding how social inequality arises from gender differentiation and how discrimination based on gender can be abolished.

However, discrimination is never fixed to only one attribute. Usually, it is based on a complex entanglement of dimensions (e.g.: man/black/homosexual/unemployed; or immigrant/woman/academic/single parent). It is this entanglement, which constitutes the individuality of each biography.

Taken together gender & diversity, we take into account these two sides of a coin: the appreciation of individual diversity as well as the refusal of culturally and institutionally manifested discrimination because of diverse biographical and social attributes.



Consequently, our vision is to integrate gender & diversity into education processes and, coming along with that, to critically scrutinise social structures and power relations.