Diversity in research and teaching

Taking the subjects of sociology, political science, economics, history and philosophy as examples, it will be worked out to what extent the contributions of women and their scientific achievements and potentials in connection with gender as a topic and category of knowledge are taken into account in the social sciences and humanities and what recognition they have received for this so far.

The project “Gender Innovations in the Social Sciences and Humanities: Focus on Organizations and Teaching (Gender Innovations)” will be funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 2023 to 2026 under the funding code 01FP22078.

The project is conducted at the Chair of Sociology/Social Inequality and Gender at Ruhr University Bochum.

• Read more at www.gender-innovationen.de

The Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender Studies fosters interdisciplinary collaboration between dedicated researchers.

In order to assess inequality structures in all their complexity, interactions with other categories such as class, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation or ethnicity are examined and taught in two interdisciplinary gender studies programmes.

• Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender Studies

Students develop a cross-disciplinary and intersectional understanding of the workings of power and inequality and the resulting consequences for individuals and society as part of the degree programmes International Gender Studies (1-subject Master’s degree) and Gender Studies – Culture, Communication, Society (2-subject Master’s degree).

With these qualifications, they get to initiate new processes in research and practice, develop instruments for creating equal opportunities and inclusion, and implement diversity measures.

At the Faculty of History, RUB additionally offers the Master’s degree programme MATILDA – European Master in Women’s and Gender History.

• Gender Studies

• MATILDA Master’s degree programme
  
• “Recht der Geschlechtergleichstellung und Genderkompetenz” module

The Marie Jahoda Fellowship Programme at Ruhr University Bochum continues the tradition of the Marie Jahoda Visiting Professorship, which was established in 1994 and is considered a beacon of gender research at RUB.

The aim of the fellowship programme is to promote international exchange on research and teaching in the field of gender studies and to establish sustainable international collaborations – all this closely linked to the research fields at the Marie Jahoda Center for International Gender Studies.

• The Marie Jahoda Fellowship Programme

RUB has been part of the EU-funded project RESET “Redesigning Equality and Scientific Excellence Together” since 2021. The project aims to promote equality in higher education policy strategies and, above all, to structurally anchor equality at higher education institutions that have not yet developed institutionalised equal opportunity strategies. The project will run until 2024.

• The RESET project

Professor Maren Lorenz’s project combines the dimension of gender and body history with the praxeological approach of recent administrative and state history.

The significance of the relational category of gender is examined for the constitution and stabilisation of domination and statehood in the sense of Foucaultian governmentality and biopolitics.

• The Körperbeherrschung research project. Confessionalised marriage jurisdiction in the Hohenlohe territories between (population) political practice and personal conflict, 1648–1806

For one day, students slip into the role of cultural researchers who deal with the subject of “sexual and gender diversity”.

• Alfried Krupp Experimental Laboratory for Young People

The project aims, among other things, to explore what ideas, perceptions and experiences of and with democracy and participation refugee and non-refugee students have in classes preparing for vocational training at vocational schools.

The Mercator Foundation funded the project until February 2022.

• The "Existierst du nur oder partizipierst du schon?" project. Notions of democracy and participation of refugee and non-refugee students in classes preparing for vocational training at ten vocational schools in the Ruhr region as a microcosm of the immigration community (DePaMi)

The “Zuwanderung aus Südosteuropa - Teilhabe und Zusammenhalt auf kommunaler Ebene ermöglichen” (“Immigration from South Eastern Europe – Enabling Participation and Solidarity at the Municipal Level”) project records the complex migration movements between Bulgaria, Romania and six selected municipalities in the Ruhr region, the participation processes that take place and the mechanisms of exclusion and stigmatisation. The study also examines the social conditions that promote or limit opportunities for participation.

The project will run until March 2024.

• Project: Zuwanderung aus Südosteuropa

Researchers from Ruhr-Universität Bochum, University of Osnabrück, LMU Munich and Hochschule für Jüdische Studien Heidelberg cooperate with the Muslim Avicenna-Studienwerk and the Jewish Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk: Together they launch the Research Training Group “Jüdische und muslimische Religionsgemeinschaften aus sozialwissenschaftlicher Perspektive” (“Jewish and Muslim Religious Communities from a Sociological Perspective”).

Funded by Avicenna-Studienwerk and Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk. The project will run until June 2024.

• The Research Training Group

The project will conduct a lesson observation study in schools on the critique of antisemitism in the subjects of economics/politics, social sciences, history, Catholic/Protestant religious education and Islamic studies.

In addition, teaching materials will be developed and teachers will receive further training.

Funded by the NRW Ministry of Education and the NRW Anti-Semitism Commissioner. The project will run until August 2023.

• Project: Antisemitism (critique) in schools (AkS NRW)

CERES has been conducting quantitative as well as qualitative studies to survey the religious landscape of the Ruhr region since 2005, for example in the project Religious Diversity – locally – regionally – globally.

• CERES

This RUB Academy course offers a space and opportunity for interested people from church, the diaconate and society to reflect on intercultural experiences academically, empirically and in exchange, and to deepen intercultural encounters.

• Certificate course: Migration and Religion

Prof. Dr. Ennuschat published a legal opinion on the accommodation of students with disabilities and disadvantages in academic examinations on 29.10.2019 on behalf of the German Student Union (Deutsches Studentenwerk)

• Legal opinion

RUB is part of the international university consortium UNIC – European University of Post-Industrial Cities.

It is an association of eight universities dedicated to promoting student mobility, social integration and diversity. By creating a European university, the aim is to increase exchange and cooperation in teaching, research and transfer. Students, researchers, teachers and administrative staff are to benefit from the opportunities offered by a European campus.

Through its “UNIC4ER – Engaged Research” unit, the consortium also focuses specifically on impact-oriented, systematic co-production of knowledge for and with society. In addition to RUB, UNIC includes universities from Bilbao, Cork, Istanbul, Liège, Oulu, Rotterdam and Zagreb.

• Go to UNIC

The Intersect project explores discrimination in mental health care.

People with mental health problems are at high risk of experiencing discrimination. Experiences of discrimination differ depending on which other social categories (e.g. gender, class, race/ethnicity, sexuality) are attributed to a person, i.e. whether they are subject to so-called multiple discrimination. Multiple discrimination affects the form and frequency of coercion in psychiatry.

Funded by the Faculty of Medicine at Ruhr University Bochum as part of the FoRUM program. The project will run until 2023.

• Project: INTERSECT - Heteronormativism, racism, classism, ableism and severe mental disorder. An intersectional analysis of unequal treatment and discrimination in mental health care

The ongoing work of the newly founded Diversity Think Tank has revealed that little meaningful data is available on experiences of discrimination at Ruhr University Bochum.

Professor Hans Alves (Social Cognition, Faculty of Psychology) is currently conducting a study among students, in collaboration with Junior Professor Karim Fereidooni (Didactics of Social Sciences, Faculty of Social Science) and Professor Katja Sabisch (Gender Studies, Faculty of Social Science).

The study systematically surveys the prevalence of experiences of discrimination on campus and provides a basis for the development of interventions.