Using heroine film to promote gender awareness: a classroom-based study at an Indonesian university

Abstract

ABSTRACT Albeit many studies have promoted cultivating college students to develop their gender awareness, little work on heroine film-mediated gender education has been reported. Hence, this report presents a classroom-based study to examine how a heroine film is used as a medium to enhance gender knowledge. A total of 120 undergraduate students of the English Literature Study Program volunteered as participants (86 females, 34 males; 19–24 years old) in a cooperative manner. Data were garnered from students’ work artifacts, classroom observation, in-class discussion notes, and semi-structured interviews. Anchored in systemic functional linguistics (SFL)-based analysis, the findings show that the film could influence the participants’ perceptions of gender value that generates gender awareness, women’s efficacy, gender equality promotion, and social reality reinforcement. Developing these achievements for the participants will positively affect their attitudes towards gender equality. Furthermore, it is hoped that this project inspires film-mediated learning methods to promote other values such as morals, cultures, and the like.