School and gender history: Together cannot be apart

Abstract

Goal: Is to analyze the possibilities of incorporating the achievements of gender history into school courses on the history of Ukraine, which will help students to form an understanding of the gender dimension of historical processes and social reality, and provide skills of critical and systematic analysis of historical phenomena and events. 

Methodology The application of general scientific principles of analysis and synthesis is combined with the methods of gender analysis, which is based on the denial of the androcentricity of scientific discourse as universal, recognizing the multiplicity and variability of the impact of historical events, phenomena and processes on men and women. 

The scientific novelty of the study is to determine the impact of the scientific achievements of gender history researchers on the school history course, ways to apply the work of domestic scholars to develop students' skills of critical understanding of social processes in the past.  It has been established that educational texts, although they contain coverage of certain issues of gender history, do not allow tracing the continuity and mechanisms of reproduction of gender inequality, only partially represent women's experience, and form sporadic and non-systematic knowledge of the mechanisms of social stratification and the impact of women on the development of society.

In the context of building a civil society, it is important to develop in students an awareness of equal rights and opportunities for all citizens, respect for their rights, recognition of the rule of law and gender equality through the understanding of history. The textbook, which contains such a component as the gender dimension of historical processes and phenomena, helps to critically comprehend historical processes and develops skills in analyzing the present. 

Conclusions: Based on the analysis of the coverage of gender history issues in high school history textbooks, it was found that gender issues are gradually finding their place in school history. Women's experience is represented in educational texts through the inclusion of oral memories of historical events by women, and female figures are represented by biographies of famous cultural figures and widely used visual sources. Some textbooks contain excerpts from the works of scholars working in gender history, bringing in a professional perspective on certain issues, or contain certain definitions that give a theoretical character to the phenomena or processes under analysis. However, references to women are rather fragmented, and the idea of women as a separate social group is not systematic. The use of women's biographies or personal sources is often not accompanied by tasks to develop critical thinking and identify the root causes of gender inequality.