Gender Equity in Initial Teacher Training: Descriptive and Factorial Study of Students’ Conceptions in a Spanish Educational Context

Abstract

In recent years, progress has been made to integrate the gender perspective into university curricula. Despite this, the lack in university degrees for initial teacher training is especially remarkable. This is because, together with families, teachers have the co-responsibility of educating new generations for the future. Issues such as the low presence of concepts related to gender in teaching guides or the lack of interest of teachers regarding their inclusion in classes lead to defining research to know and understand the conceptions of a sample of 162 teachers in the initial teacher training of a Bachelor’s degree on Early Childhood and Primary Education and a Master degree of Secondary Education on the incorporation of feminist thought in education. This research is a part of a broader doctoral dissertation and a research and development project. In general terms, from a quantitative, non-experimental approach, a questionnaire is designed and sent. The analysis includes a descriptive phase and a factorial phase that allows researchers to discover latent relationships between variables. Among the main conclusions, despite showing a relatively high knowledge of feminist theory, they confuse equity and equality. Students recognize the importance of having female references with whom to identify and they consider that feminist thought is a transversal content in education.