The joint project "Materiality of Gender and educational authority - Interferences of bodies and things in educational institutions" compares in three educational institutions (primary school, high school, university) how do materiality stabilize or destabilize respectively gender and educational authority. Ethnographic case studies on the interplay of things' materiality (e.g. room, digital media, furniture) and bodies' materiality (e.g. facial expression, body language, clothing, posture, physical movement) will be created on the base of participatory observations and guided interviews. The aim is to analyse the material aspects of the interplay of gender and educational authority on-side, in situ and in actu, with reference to the theoretical frame of material feminism.
The subproject at Braunschweig focuses on teaching and learning situations in mechanical engineering. In this study program, men are highly overrepresented. We explore the constructions of maleness in this faculty culture, built on e.g. the paradigm of scientific objectivity, the success criterion of functioning or the structured educational relationships. For carrying out the planned case study, we will attend compulsory lectures in lecture halls and laboratories as well as conduct interviews with instructors and students.
The Ministry for Science and Cuture of Lower Saxony funds the subproject at the Maria Goeppert Mayer Professorship at the Technical University Braunschweig under the supervision of Prof.in Dr.-Ing Corinna Bath with a volume of 163.600 Euro from 01.02.2017 to 31.01.2020.