Transmitting Gender Competence in Biology Teacher Training

Abstract

Since 1981 the Swiss Conference of the Cantonal Education Directors (EDK) of the Swiss Cantons recommends a joint education for girls and boys. This aim is supported by the federal law of 24 March 1995 on the equality of women and men which includes a demand for targeted policy measures for the equal treatment of girls and boys in education. In 2005, integration of gender aspects in education became a clear political goal in the Canton of Geneva, after the governing council and the Director of Education had declared it a priority.2 The Geneva university teachers took the municipal authorities at their word and demanded, together with feminist associations and the Swiss equal opportunities office, that obligatory gender-relevant courses be introduced in the training of all teachers when the new secondary school teacher training was incorporated in tertiary education in 2007. In this way the subject of gender was integrated in the training of primary and second-