Assessing gender mainstreaming in the education sector: depoliticised technique or a step towards women's rights and gender equality?

In 1995 the Beijing Conference on Women identified gender mainstreaming as a key area for action. Policies to effect gender mainstreaming have since been widely adopted. This special issue of Compare looks at research on how gender mainstreaming has been used in government education departments, schools, higher education institutions, international agencies and NGOs .1 In this introduction we first provide a brief history of the emergence of gender mainstreaming and review changing definitions of the term. In the process we outline some policy initiatives that have attempted to mainstream gender and consider some difficulties with putting ideas into practice, particularly the tensions between a technical and transformative interpretations . Much of the literature about experiences with gender mainstreaming tends to look at organizational processes and not any specificities of a particular social sector. However, in our second section, we are concerned to explore whether institutional forms and particular actions associated with education give gender mainstreaming in education sites some distinctive features. In our last section we consider some of the debates about global and local negotiations in discussions of gender policy and education and the light this throws on gender mainstreaming. In so doing, we place the articles that follow in relation to contestations over ownership, political economy, the form and content of education practice and the social complexity of gender equality

Gender Mainstreaming and Sustainable Post Disaster Reconstruction,

Gender inequalities are barriers to achieve sustainable post disaster reconstruction. Mainstreaming gender equality within post disaster reconstruction process can enhance sustainability of reconstruction. Based on a detailed literature review on post disaster reconstruction, this paper identifies pre-requisite conditions for mainstreaming gender within sustainable post disaster reconstruction as ; awareness of gender needs and concerns, a strong gender policy framework, women participation and leadership as an agent of change, gendered institutional capability, flexible and decentralised structure of gendered policy planning

Gender mainstreaming and EU climate change policy

This article uses feminist institutionalism to examine how gender mainstreaming has been sidelined in European Union (EU) climate change policy. It finds that, with a few exceptions largely emanating from the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, EU responses to climate change are gender-blind. This is despite the Treaty obligations to gender mainstream policy in all areas and despite the intersections between climate change and development policy, which is renowned for having taken gender equality and women's empowerment seriously and for instigating gender mainstreaming and specific actions as a means to achieve them. The persistent invisibility of gender can be attributed to various forms of institutional resistance

Gender mainstreaming in disaster reduction: Why and how?

The significant losses in human life and livelihoods, the destruction of economic and social infrastructure and damage to the environment caused by disasters in the past decade has increased the necessity for proper disaster reduction and risk management strategies. A disaster is shown as a combination of a trigger agent and vulnerabilities. Since vulnerabilities are the dependant component of a disaster, they should be managed and minimised in order to reduce disasters. Disaster reduction policies and measures, which ensure a decrease in vulnerabilities, need to be formed and implemented to achieve a sustainable and consistent plan of disaster management. Since women are more vulnerable in a disaster, their needs and concerns should be widely integrated into risk reduction plans and procedures from both perspectives of women as beneficiaries and decision makers. Gender mainstreaming is considered an important element in disaster reduction policy making to integrate a gender equality perspective in all policies at all levels. Gender mainstreaming in disaster reduction refers to promoting awareness about gender equity and equality, to help reduce the impact of disasters and to incorporate gender analysis in disaster management, risk reduction and sustainable development to decrease vulnerability. This paper reviews literature on disaster reduction and gender mainstreaming to emphasise why gender mainstreaming has become a necessity in disaster reduction attempts and to highlight the ways in which it can be achieve

Bridging rhetoric and practice: new perspectives on barriers to gendered change

Contains fulltext : 167537.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)This article presents a new methodology, Gender Knowledge Contestation Analysis, and uses it to examine the processes under way when transformative gender equality policies, such as gender mainstreaming are implemented. Drawing on data gathered in the European Commission, the findings show the processes linking high-level rhetorical policy statements, strategic policies, and daily working practices. This analysis enables exploration of the mechanisms through which indifference to and nonawareness of gendered policy problems are collectively constituted and methods through which they can be challenged. Findings thus deepen our understanding of barriers to the implementation of gender mainstreaming and the steps required for its effective implementation.20 juli 201

Gender mainstreaming active inclusion policies

The aim of this report therefore is to inform and help develop gender mainstreaming in active inclusion policies. In order to do this, the report at first reviews gender differences and inequalities in the risks of poverty and social exclusion and it provides a close look at the connections between active inclusion policies and gender equality strategies (Chapters 2 and 3). It then analyses examples of concrete gender mainstreaming in each of the three pillars of active inclusion, i.e. income support (Chapter 4), labour inclusion (Chapter 5) and access to services (Chapter 6). Under each heading, the report summarises available information on the actual policy developments and looks at the results of the policies in terms of gender equality. Finally, Chapter 7 draws some conclusions. The information in this report is mainly provided by the national experts of the EGGSI network of experts in gender equality, social inclusion, healthcare and long-term care and covers 30 European countries (the EU-27 Member States) and the three EEA–EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway)

Mainstreaming Gender-Training? Stellenwert in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit

Der vorliegende Beitrag skizziert zunächst die Einführung der Kategorie Gender in den Entwicklungsdiskurs und widmet sich dann dem Thema Gender-Training. Dabei geht es einerseits um eine Fassung von Gender-Training als Raum für geschlechterpolitische Reflexion und Auseinandersetzung und andererseits um den Stellenwert von Gender-Training sowie weiterer Instrumente im Rahmen der geschlechterpolitischen Strategie Gender-Mainstreaming. Die Autorin geht hierbei auch beispielhaft auf die konkrete Umsetzung von Gender-Mainstreaming innerhalb von Organisationen der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZ) ein. Dies führt sie abschließend zu einer doppelten These: Einerseits kann Gender-Training am besten im Rahmen von Gender-Mainstreaming Wirkung entfalten. Andererseits garantieren sowohl das Vorhandensein einer Gender-Mainstreaming-Strategie als auch die Durchführung entsprechender Bildungsmaßnahmen noch lange nicht, dass Entwicklungszusammenarbeit wirklich zur Geschlechtergerechtigkeit beiträgt. (DIPF/Orig.)First of all this article outlines the introduction of the dimension ‘gender’ into the discourse on development and then dedicates itself to the issue gender-training. In the course of this it deals on the one hand with the setting of gender training as a possibility for reflexion on politics on gender and for discussion and on the other hand it deals with the status of gender training and with other possible instruments within the frame of the strategy on gender politics ‘gender mainstreaming’. The author also gives concrete examples realizing gender-mainstreaming within organisations of development cooperation. At the end the author arrives at a double theses: on the one hand gender training can best be developed within a framework of gender-mainstreaming. On the other hand neither the existence of a gender mainstreaming strategy nor the realisation of corresponding educational measures guarantee that developmental cooperation contributes unavoidably to gender fairness. (DIPF/Orig.

Gender in Water and Sanitation

The report highlights the experiences of mainstreaming gender at various levels in the water and sanitation sector. It begins with a discussion on gender responses to policy and its requirement for analysis and clear policy objectives to guide operations. The report touches on experiences of mainstreaming gender within sector operations, beginning with the importance of mainstreaming in the workplace, and describes how gender can be addressed within service delivery in urban water, in sanitation, in small towns and rural water operations. The report also addresses gender responses to monitoring and evaluation processes, examines responses to gender issues within accountability and voice initiatives, assesses gender responses within hygiene and behavior change programs, and examines the linkages between water, sanitation and HIV/AIDS

Gender mainstreaming in Nordic development agencies: Seventeen years after the Beijing conference

The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995, was critical in making gender equality a development goal and adopted gender-mainstreaming as its primary mechanism to achieve this. Effective implementation of gender-mainstreaming involves changing both the internal organization and the external operations of development agencies to ensure that gender is integrated throughout the life cycle of all policies, programmes and practices. This paper assesses gender-mainstreaming in the development co-operation strategies and activities of three Nordic countries - Denmark, Finland, and Sweden - in two aspects. The first aspect focuses on the central level of development agencies in terms of strategies, operations, and structures while the second component examines gender-mainstreaming at the embassy level, in terms of gender-mainstreaming in implementation and interventions for advancing gender equality

Resource capability for local government in mainstreaming gender into sustainable post disaster reconstruction : Evidence from Bantul Indonesia

Understanding how local government responds to gender vulnerability and gender capacity is important to make cities safer both for women and for men. However, little is known on how local government is empowered in terms of provision of capacity, resources and abilities to mainstreaming gender into disaster risk reduction and community resilience. The case of Bantul post-earthquake reconstruction Indonesia pinpoints district government capability is vital to promote gender equality within local disaster risk reduction and resilience. The district government capability means the ability of local government to organise resources, competence and knowledge to meet the needs and concerns of women and men within disaster risk reduction process. This capability has been transformed into their ability in institutional and human resources policy and for providing financial, technical and leadership capabilities to promote gender equality into local disaster risk reduction and resilience. Experience of Bantul earthquake reconstruction shows an achievement has been made by this district in terms of local capability in mainstreaming gender. Among the most important factors related to district capability are women leadership, support from non-government organisations, women participation, financial resources and capacity of local gender institutions. The findings highlight the value of mainstreaming gender for disaster risk reduction, but policymakers should aware key resources capabilities that are needed to achieve effective implementation