Abstract:

Gender hardly appears explicitly in the syllabi of undergraduate courses at Spanish universities. It has been relegated to postgraduate or master's specialization studies, and some optional subjects. In this communication, we focus on the particular case of the gender approach applied to the teaching of macroeconomics, in the second year of the Administration and Business career at the University of Barcelona. To do this, we modify the conventional approach to teaching this subject by introducing contents and a gender perspective. It implies addressing and questioning the interpretation of economic aggregates and public policies and highlighting how the distribution of time and work in the domestic and care sphere contributes to gender inequality and affects economic growth. To recognize the effects of our new approach, a questionnaire was designed in which the students had to show their knowledge about the position of women in economic contexts and about the gender bias in macroeconomic aggregates. The questionnaire was carried out twice: at the beginning and in the last sessions of the course. It was answered by 360 students. The results show that this innovation makes it possible to improve students' knowledge of gender, who seem to be more sensitive to: the role and importance of domestic and care activities and recognize their contribution to economic production, to the existence of inequalities in the labor market, the false neutrality of public policies, the differential gender effects of the crisis and, finally, we also observe the improvement of critical thinking skills and a greater awareness of the role of gender in the economy and the gender bias of the conventional approach to economics teaching

Keywords:

Gender awareness, syllabi, gender inequality, feminist economy, gender policy effects.