Gender competences in undergraduate studies in Spanish public universities. Case study of the University of Seville

Abstract

Purpose

Accordingly, this paper aims to perform a diagnosis on the inclusion of gender skills in all of its official degree programmes, for the purpose of drafting a best practices guide that may serve as motivation to include mainstreaming and specific skills in “teaching practice”.

Design/methodology/approach

This research analyses how European standards have been transferred to the teaching programmes of a Spanish university with more than 60,000 students, the University of Seville (US), the third largest in Spain. A content analysis of 4,643 undergraduate degree programmes has been carried out for all branches of knowledge.

Findings

The authors have established the scant presence of the gender perspective in the teaching projects of the US. Over 80% of them do not comply with the regulations in this regard. The second hypothesis, namely, that there are differences between fields of knowledge when complying with the mandatory transversal application of the gender perspective, has also been substantiated. This is especially the case in the natural sciences and engineering and architecture.

Originality/value

The results illustrate the little echo of the regulations in the teaching projects and the existence of important differences when it comes to the gender perspective according to the branches of knowledge. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to carry out a study of this nature in all the degrees taught at a university and provide evidence of the need to modify equality policies in the university environment.

Citation

Caro González, F.J., Guarinos, V. and Cobo-Durán, S. (2021), "Gender competences in undergraduate studies in Spanish public universities. Case study of the University of Seville", Journal for Multicultural Education, Vol. 15 No. 4, pp. 358-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/JME-05-2021-0057