Comparing social representations of feminism among education and engineering majors

Insights for developing feminist pedagogies

Bibliographic Data

ID12259124
AuthorsPatricia Fernández Rotaeche (0000-0003-3682-0660, University of the Basque Country, corresponding author), Nahia Idoiaga-Mondragon (0000-0003-0345-8570, University of the Basque Country), Joana Jaureguizar (0000-0001-5289-5967, University of the Basque Country)
Year2022
Volume33
Issue2
Pages256-275
Publication date2022-09-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminism & Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0959-3535 • E-ISSN: 1461-7161
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09593535221126101
OpenAlexW4297235529
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited56

The present study uses Social Representation Theory to explore students’ representations of feminism with a view to informing principles for developing feminist pedagogies that can help foster egalitarian values among college students. The aim is to identify how Spanish students (n = 366) represent feminism and how these representations are shaped by participants’ gender, identification with feminism, or by studying feminized or masculinized disciplines. Students from Education ( n = 192), a feminized qualification, and Engineering ( n = 174), a masculinized qualification, completed a free association task using the Grid Elaboration Method to collect representations of feminism. A lexical analysis was conducted using the Reinert method. The results showed that a positive representation of feminism was the broadest (75.8%), with feminist-identified students defining feminism as a struggle for freedom. Feminist women emphasized the importance of achieving equality, and education students emphasized the importance of education in the process of women's empowerment. In contrast, 24.2% represented feminism negatively, as an extreme movement, especially engineering, non-feminist, and male students. These findings suggest that efforts aimed at developing feminist principles among students consider not only gender and feminist identification but also the context of feminized or masculinized disciplines as key spaces of gendered socialization. The study was carried out in the Basque country, Spain

Context (archaeology · Empowerment · Feminism · Feminist movement · Political science · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology

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Open DOIOpen Access