Gender issues, inclusion, diversity and equality - topics that constantly accompany social work teaching and research practice in the Department of Social Work.
It is relevant and important to our team of qualified social workers, health managers, planners and social scientists that solutions for gender equality find their way into teaching and from the university of applied sciences into practice. We prepare and support these paths through research projects and students' qualification theses, but also by providing impetus from a gender perspective in technical, scientific and IT projects in other departments at the university.
In general, a variety of methods are used in teaching to make gender aspects understandable for students, to encourage them to reflect on their own gender role and to find their own professional positioning on this topic. This requires information and reflection in order to transfer knowledge and experience on a well-founded approach to gender issues from studies to social work practice. The didactic and methodological preparation is guided by the "know - recognise - act" framework from gender studies. This three-step approach is particularly helpful in cross-departmental research and teaching activities in the field of "Technology and Society" and also helps to consistently integrate the gender perspective into all fields of action.
In this teaching area, the focus is particularly on examining the design of technology, which is often not free of discrimination for all genders. For a comprehensive understanding, the emphasis is placed on the presentation of historical, scientific and social developments and the effects on gender relations in each case. For example, women's, men's and diversity research are presented comprehensively and related to industrial revolutions and the associated social and gender-related changes. Through this combination, students learn about the interactions between these areas of gender research, recognise the connections between social struggles and negotiation processes that affect science and research, and the achievements of gender research in terms of enabling social empowerment processes.
The intersection of social issues with gender issues is at the centre of the research projects of the Department of Social Affairs. These projects clearly show that the theoretical approach of intersectionality can lead to a differentiated analysis of research questions, as multiple points of concern can become visible. In the recently completed "Women's Strategy Burgenland" project, this aspect was addressed in all scientific steps with targeted methods and questions. For example, the online survey revealed clear correlations between inequalities according to gender, age and place of residence, as well as dependencies between the social criteria of gender, origin and income. Quantitative figures are an essential basis for conducting gender research. However, qualitative methods that relate these facts and figures to the reality of people's lives are a relevant addition. Methods used by the Department of Social Affairs include pattern mining workshops, interviews and focus groups in order to offer the most diverse settings possible for collecting qualitative data. This makes it possible to involve diverse groups of people and to record their needs and requirements in a targeted manner. In the case of the surveys for the development of the "Women's Strategy Burgenland", more than 1600 people responded to the online questionnaire, more than 50 people took part in pattern mining workshops and 25 people took part in focus groups as a steering board. The diversity of those involved is now also reflected in the results and in the measures developed.
Work is also carried out in cooperation with other departments on topics such as social entrepreneurship and technology assessment in research and development projects. These cooperation projects demonstrate the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in order to specifically integrate gender aspects into analyses and development steps. The methods used in the courses and the sound knowledge of aspects of gender research make it possible to ask questions and, in co-operation with other disciplines, to develop answers to gender issues in relation to technology development and economic activity. One example of this is a model developed to assess the risks and sources of error between humans and machines in automated cyber systems. The results of this discourse can be found, for example, in an integrated catalogue of error correction measures, which contains technical and social measures to prevent accidents in automated systems. Gender issues as social issues also accompany questions on the acceptance of indoor farming or apps for citizen communication as well as energy and building technology issues from a gender and diversity perspective.
The Department of Social Affairs thus fulfils its own aspiration of combining gender research with the realities of life in social work and incorporating the results of gender research into technology assessment and impact assessments for economic issues.
DI Elke Szalai MA is a university lecturer and research associate specialising in gender research / university didactics / gender and technology assessment
