Narrating gender cultures, creating social change. The sociological experience of the experimental workshop Genere, cultura, società of Sapienza University of Rome

Aims of the contribution Our paper aims at contributing to the debate on the promotion of gender awareness among undergraduate students by presenting the outcome of a multi-year workshop carried out within two courses in Sociology of Culture and Communication at Sapienza University. Based on the evidence from this activity, we put forward some reflections on the following aspects of the inclusion of gender education at university level: • the importance of integrating gender issues and intersectional perspectives into teaching curricula in the field of social sciences; • the effectiveness of the sociological approach for promoting gender consciousness; • the persisting resistance to gender equality that Italian young women and men face in their lives. Description of the case study/research/experience/best practice Introduction We intend to present the experience of the workshop Genere, cultura, società that took place at Sapienza University. The need to develop this activity emerged as the result of the following considerations: • Despite recent efforts to include gender equality at all education levels (i.e. the "Buona Scuola" law), there is still scarcity of institutional occasions for young Italians to acquire gender competences and awareness. • There is an urgent need for public universities to commit to promoting a scientific approach to gender. • Gender awareness must be understood as a competence for global citizenship and as transversal to all academic curricula, rather than as a stand-alone subject. The workshop proposes gender cultures as a site for analysis within the sociology of culture. Because the tension between culture and nature is central to studying gender, the sociological approach proves especially useful, since among its primary objectives is the de-construction of informal, taken-for-granted cultural norms (Bourdieu 1998). Gender cultures represent a relevant subject to develop the students' sociological eye (Hughes 1971) and apply the theoretical concepts they acquire. The workshop was carried out as part of two courses in Sociology of Culture within two separate degree programmes, one in communication and one in fashion. The activity began in 2017-2018 and has been repeated for three years. The students were asked to write a “social autobiography” that focused on the dimension of gender in their lives. The topic was introduced through lectures and key readings on gender studies (Connell 2011), with the aim of providing a theoretical overview and competences to deconstruct the experience of gender. They were thus able to analyse the social construction of gender, the pressure and expectations of gender norms, and the persistence of inequalities. The workshop served a two-fold purpose. It represents a formative process for the students, who gained new competences in gender education and applied them to their everyday lives. The workshop also functioned as action research, since it allowed to collect evidence on the students’ new awareness of gender. Materials and methods The 250 social autobiographies make up the corpus for our analysis. The authors are between 19 and 25 years old, equally divided between men and women, reside in the Lazio region, and mostly come from central/southern Italy. Around 10% of them have immigrant background. Although this population is not statistically representative, it offers valuable access to individuals who are expected to occupy high-level positions. Due to the quantity and heterogeneous nature of the corpus, we examined the texts through thematic analysis as a qualitative “method for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns” of meaning across a data set (Braun & Clark 2006:6) and re-constructed recurring trends and processes of meaning-making across the students' experiences. Results The workshop Genere, cultura, società is currently in progress, and we plan on continuing the activity in the coming years. The existing corpus already constitutes a significant outcome, especially in light of the fact there is little empirical research on young people’s gender perceptions in Italy. Our analysis provides an important insight into the gendered lives of young Italians in a number of areas: stereotypes on gender roles; prejudice against equality; the role of family and school in reproducing disparities and discrimination; the gaps within national cultures between centre/periphery, urban/rural contexts, natives/migrants. The material shows that, through education and training, young people can be made aware of the influence of societal pressures on the construction of individuals’ gender identity. This offers a number of suggestions for the effective integration of gender issues within teaching curricula: • The social autobiography is a valuable tool for introducing young people to gender studies. • The sociological perspective is useful for understanding the cultural dimension of gender identity. • The relational approach to gender stimulates participants to see themselves from new points of view. Lastly, the workshop has created new relationships with different institutional subjects and external actors (e.g. the publishing house for Il bias del gender; see Peruzzi, Bernardini & Lombardi 2019). Conclusions The main takeaway from our experience is the immediate reactivity of the students to a moderate stimulus. Their pre-existing interest in gender, combined with a short introduction to the subject, led to insightful reflections and new awareness. This offers promise for obtaining similarly favourable results in learning activities related to gender in the future.