A quarterly publication of AQU Catalunya
The proportion of women and men enrolled on a degree programme may influence perceptions of gender mainstreaming, particularly in relation to aspects such as the presence of women role models and the type of academic content.
For the past decade, the gender perspective has formed part of the regulatory framework governing Catalan universities. In 2015, Article 28.1 of Act 17/2015 on the effective equality of women and men stipulated that all university degree programmes must incorporate this approach, both in their academic content and in their quality assurance processes. This measure helped to mainstream the gender perspective as a criterion of academic quality, rather than a mere institutional commitment.
Against this backdrop, AQU Catalunya developed the General framework for incorporating the gender perspective in higher education teaching, which was subsequently integrated into the guidelines for the validation, modification and accreditation of degree programmes, as well as into the institutional accreditation framework.
To assess the extent to which this requirement is reflected in students’ higher education experience, the 2024 satisfaction survey conducted by AQU Catalunya in collaboration with the Catalan universities included a specific optional module on the gender perspective in university education.
The module covered six aspects related to the gender perspective, with graduates asked to rate their level of satisfaction with each one based on their experience as students. The aspects were the following: the ability to develop professional solutions from a gender perspective, recognition of contributions made in the classroom, the inclusion of women role models in course content, gender diversity in the publicly available information about the degree programme, the inclusiveness of teaching materials, and the distribution of the Equality Plan and the protocol for preventing harassment. The results were recently published on the AQU Catalunya website.
As shown in Figure 1, the results indicate an overall positive assessment of the incorporation of the gender perspective into both bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes. For each of the statements analysed, more than half of the graduates who took part in the survey reported a high level of satisfaction.
The highest-rated aspect is the recognition of contributions made in the classroom: 77% of bachelor’s degree holders and 84% of master’s degree holders believe that their contributions were appreciated by both teaching staff and fellow students. Gender diversity in the publicly available information about the degree programmes and the use of inclusive, stereotype-free content and language in teaching materials also received high ratings.
By contrast, the distribution of the Equality Plan and the protocol for preventing harassment, and, above all, the ability to develop professional solutions from a gender perspective, show the greatest room for improvement. The latter is particularly significant because it is directly linked to the teaching and learning process and reflects the extent to which the gender perspective translates into useful professional skills.
The results also show differences by field of study. Among bachelor’s degree programmes, the highest levels of satisfaction are found in Education, Social Intervention, Nursing and Health, and Psychology and Therapy. At the master’s degree level, the highest levels of satisfaction are found in the Humanities—particularly Philosophy and History, and Languages and Literature—as well as Economics, Business and Tourism.
By contrast, both bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes see the lowest levels of satisfaction in the Engineering subfields, particularly Architecture, Construction and Civil Engineering, and Industrial Technologies.
This pattern suggests that the proportion of women and men enrolled on a degree programme may influence perceptions of gender mainstreaming, particularly in relation to aspects such as the presence of women role models and the type of academic content.
Finally, the survey examined whether there are differences between men’s and women’s perceptions of how their contributions are recognised in the classroom, as a possible proxy for what is known as “impostor syndrome”.
In this case, the results show no statistically significant differences between men and women across any grouping of degree programmes in the Catalan higher education system, including in the most male-dominated fields.