Just Further Education for Women in Long-Distance Learning Courses

Abstract

In her dissertation presented at the Humboldt University Berlin in 2002, Gisela Pravda examines occupational long-distance learning courses in Germany from a feminist perspective. She considers the applied learning materials and analyzes to what extent the language and content reproduce traditional gender roles and, with this, the extent to which women are hindered or excluded as learners. Her results are depressing: Also at the turn of the 20th to 21st century, the language and content of long-distance learning are oriented toward traditional androcentric patterns, and the women’s movement and women’s studies of the last decades are ignored. Pravda not only offers analyses, but also develops concrete check lists that can be used to restructure learning material to adequately include gender.