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Raquel Sánchez and Pedro Miralles, from the research group of Didactics of Social Sciences at the University of Murcia (UMU), emphasize the importance of including the history of women in educational content, given their scarce presence in textbooks.
In addition, both researchers point out the need to teach thinking historically in order to develop critical awareness in students.
"The great advances in historical research on women have not reached the classrooms, nor the university ones, nor those of the institutes and schools, and even fewer textbooks."
It is an affirmation of Pedro Miralles, professor of the UMU, during the International Symposium of Didactics of the Social Sciences of 2004 celebrated in Alicante.
Fifteen years later, in the words of this same researcher, "there is no equality in the educational field, there is still much to be done".
The data corroborates this.
Different studies on the visibility of women in textbooks point to the great difference between the appearance of female and male characters in their pages.
But the solution, according to these researchers, is not to include the history of women in a curriculum already oversaturated in content, but to change the focus.
Raquel Sánchez, professor of Social Sciences Didactics at the UMU, emphasizes that "she has always been present, the question is the look you want to use, if you use only a certain historical approach, like the political one, the woman has no place. if you use society's, that of everyday life, there they are represented in equality. "
It is, in the words of Sanchez, "to achieve a holistic approach in the educational field, until that is understood we will not move forward".
Historical thinking and critical capacity
"To teach to think historically is to teach to think a history of men and women", they have indicated Miralles and Sanchez in the article published in the international magazine Tempo and Argument.
This addresses the state of the question of the role of women in history and in the educational field, showing different studies on textbooks.
The deficiencies found in the presence of the history of women in their interior "does not only redound to the detriment of the feminine gender, but it distorts the teaching in the classrooms of a historical thought", explain both experts.
Teaching should support the construction of a history that allows students to develop a critical conscience, says this article.
But this fact moves away from a reality in the classrooms that, according to the researcher, "includes a high presence of rote-type content that does not allow students to develop a critical capacity".
Sánchez, taking this fact to the news today, points out the case of the fake news: "Why do they believe it? Why do not they think that this news can be false? Because they believe everything they are told, they are used to that the textbook is what it is worth, the person does not criticize the source, who wrote it, why, if you do not know how to interrogate the sources of the past, you can not be able to reflect on what happens today. .
Miralles is clear, "the problem is an overloaded agenda, the more content you include, the less you learn, they are superficial and anecdotal and there is no meaningful learning that lasts."
Both experts consider essential, therefore, a selection of content that serves the students to develop a historical awareness.
As a consequence, the students "could value and question why we have arrived at the current situation, how, if it would be repeated and under what circumstances", considers Sánchez.
Challenges for the future in education
One of the challenges in Spain would be to correct the inequality in the treatment of women in the contents of the different areas of knowledge.
For this, from the university improvements are made in the study plans of the undergraduate degrees that qualify for teaching practice.
"We try to make sure that all the research done in the field of historiography and the didactic level is reflected in the classroom, the problem is that there is a series of teachers who finished the course a long time ago and, therefore, it is not updated", says Sanchez.
That is why these researchers bet on a permanent training of teachers.
The didactic resources play a leading role when it comes to making women visible.
Resources that are made, for example, from the Seneca Foundation, as a book of scientists that can be taken to the classroom to show its importance in the advancement of society.
"There are many resources in the CARM repository that also serve to teach women as a historical subject," says the researcher.
Another example would be to comment on news as a Nobel Prize awarded to a researcher with students.
"It's about giving normality to everyday situations, to women," concludes Sanchez.
The role of publishers
"There is a bet from publishers for wanting to improve, but there is still a lot to do," said Miralles.
They have made some changes, such as granting greater visibility to women in early childhood and primary education.
For example, to include female figures developing professions that were previously represented with men, such as police or mailman.
However, "in the language the editorials still need a bit to be filed," says Sánchez.
In addition, although teachers of Social Sciences Didactics are part of the editorial boards, "the truth is that publishers have a curriculum to adapt to, if the curriculum tells you that you have to teach such a thing, you have to stick to it. to that, "says Sánchez.
Source: Universidad de Murcia
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