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Gender Curricula Psychology

Course: Psychology
Group of courses: Law, Economics and Social Sciences

Course objectives:

Knowledge: The roles of biological, social, and psychological gender in experiencing one’s own identity and the perception of others.
Analysing: Recognising the attribution of roles and status in different life contexts and how biographical processes in interaction with gender structures are shaped.
Applying: Strategies, measures and rules of interaction to create gender-sensitive and gender-equitable contexts.

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Teaching content/subject-specific gender studies content:

Developmental Psychology: The importance of gender for identity development.
Differential Psychology and Diagnostic Psychology: Attribution of gender-specific characteristics in connection with measurement methods and societal contexts.
Social Psychology: Focusing on contexts in which gender structures play a role, the importance of contexts and interactions for the formation and effects of gender-specific constructions and stereotypes.
Biological Psychology: Interweaving physiological findings with context conditions with regard to gender stereotypes (e.g. stereotype threat).
Pedagogical Psychology: Gender-specific notions of talent and their impact on school performance. Reattribution of academic self-concepts.
Work and Organisational Psychology: Leadership and gender as a constructed dichotomy; contextual career barriers.
Clinical Psychology: Context-related relationships between mental disorders and gender.
Intercultural Psychology: Gender as a cultural dimension and the consequences for constructions of identity and interaction as well as biography development.

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Integration of gender studies content into the curriculum:

Women and gender studies are a cross-sectional issue in psychology and are not considered as an own discipline. It is advisable to draw up the content of the various disciplines for students. Since gender is best understood in context with other factors, it is advisable to consider it as a cross-sectional theme and to combine it with other cross-sectional themes such as social origin, age and culture to help students to develop an intersectional perspective. It is recommended to encourage students to make own suggestions on gender-related topics they want to deal with in depth. Many topics that are important for access to gender research can be integrated into seminars through exercises (e.g. self-experiments such as cross dressing, behaving like a male/female person for one day or observations, e.g. observing parent-children interactions on a playground).

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Degree Stage:

Psychology students are usually introduced to the basic subjects, i.e. Developmental Psychology, Differential Psychology, Social Psychology, Biological Psychology, at Bachelor’s level. Often applied perspectives such as Work and Organisational Psychology, Pedagogical and Clinical Psychology are introduced in in-depth modules. Therefore, thematic references should follow a coherent structure. At Master's level students can place a strong focus on gender research, e.g. as part of a specialisation module.