GENDER PERSPECTIVE IN UNIVERSITY TEACHING. SOME CASES FROM LATIN AMERICA AND SPAIN

Feminism and the gender perspective in Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Panama and Spain have some common aspects but other are specific. Its social and political genesis is close related in most cases to the awareness of social movements. The visibility of these movements has determined the general adoption of advanced legislation in all cases, although there still are great socio-political constraints in its application towards full gender equality. This contrasts with an unquestionable objective fact: during the last years the percentage of women who graduate at the university far exceeds the percentage of men, which is determining a higher level of general education among women than among men. In short, there is an emerging higher qualification of female than male. Taken that into consideration, it is urgent to face the challenge of introducing and / or developing a gender perspective in university studies.

The purpose of this communication is to analyse the introduction of the gender perspective in the university teaching of the aforementioned countries with the aim of identifying which are the specific elements as well as which are the common ones. In general, there are different degrees of similarity between the different countries and / or universities; thus, in the majority of cases, the specificity has been more frequently adopted than transversal approaches, through the introduction of subjects or specific subjects on gender in the degrees, and masters. In any case, there is a coincidence that the introduction of the gender perspective in university teaching depends to a large extent on the voluntarism of the participating teachers and on the awareness of the students, given the huge weaknesses or lack of an active institutionalization of the academic authorities. We aim to identify the strengths and weaknesses in the introduction of the gender perspective at university in the Hispanic and Latin American region, in order to design joint actions to improve their implementation and to go further t the modernization of the teaching plans and the curricular itineraries.