Design and Initial Validation of the Scales Epistemology, Methodology and Gender in Taught History (EMG), and Women in History (WH) for the Evaluation of Gender Competence of Social Science Teachers in Training

Delfín Ortega-Sánchez,Davinia Heras Sevilla

doi:10.13189/ujer.2020.080519

Abstract

In recent decades, it has been frequent to apply instruments and built ad hoc in studies oriented to the diagnostic evaluation of the inclusion of the gender perspective in the teaching of history and the degree of acquisition of gender competence in the initial teaching training. However, less usual has been the work dedicated to the analysis and validation of the metric properties of these instruments, with the specific purpose of guaranteeing the validity of the conclusions reached from the data obtained. In order to respond to this absence, the present study describes the initial validation of the scales Epistemology, methodology and gender in taught history (EMG) and Women in history (WH) in a sample of primary and secondary school trainee teachers from four Spanish public universities. With this aim, the reliability of each scale, the validity of its content and the construct validity are studied by means of an exploratory factorial analysis of principal components and varimax rotation. The results obtained inform about the general viability of both scales to be applied for the evaluation of the gender competence of trainee teachers, and the analysis of their social representations on the place of women in the taught history. The study shows the functional interdependence between scales and robustness for its joint application in the general assessment of gender as a category of analysis in social science teaching.

Highlights

The inclusion of the gender perspective and its strategic mainstreaming for equality in the teaching of history is one of the most recognized teaching and research concerns in the scientific field of social science teaching. This perspective, understood as a conceptual and methodological framework for the analysis of the causes and consequences of biases, inequalities and social differentiation based on sex, considers stereotyping, prejudice and the allocation of social roles in the deconstruction of “desirable gender models” [1], which are determining factors in the hegemonic duality of identity, and are directed towards the recognition of social plurality as a principle for the formation of multiple and diverse gender identities [2]
The school is presented as a priority center for the transmission of codes, imaginaries, and social rules that determine the ways of thinking and of being thought of in the society in which one lives
The linear item-total correlation coefficients report the existence of correlations greater than .30 in 13 of the 15 items (r ≥ .344), and of correlations lower than this value in 2 items (r = . 016; r = -.068). These results indicate the convenience of reviewing the operability of items 4 and 7, it was decided to maintain it in the construction of the scale, since its elimination would not lead to a substantial improvement in the level of reliability of the instrument (α = .86; ω = . 91) (Table 8)

Summary

Introduction

The inclusion of the gender perspective and its strategic mainstreaming for equality (gender mainstreaming) in the teaching of history is one of the most recognized teaching and research concerns in the scientific field of social science teaching. The uncritical maintenance of the androcentric bases in the history taught consolidates the invisibility of women as social agents, and the unequal hegemony of dichotomous social and identity values and models [6] These deterministic bases of the social prevent an integral and plural understanding of historical societies and of the way in which social knowledge and its relativity are constructed, Design and Initial Validation of the Scales Epistemology, Methodology and Gender in Taught History (EMG), and Women in History (WH) for the Evaluation of Gender Competence of Social Science Teachers in Training which is often absent in the textual and iconographic narrative discourses of textbooks and teaching materials [5,7,8]

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Conclusion