Conference Agenda

One of the current global educational trends sees a shift towards competency-based education (CBE), emphasising the need for students to obtain skills and knowledge useful for future life. Competency-based education responds to accelerating production of knowledge, technological change, and evolving labour market demands by focusing on learning outcomes and attained competencies rather than on acquisition of knowledge (Mulenga & Kabombwe, 2019; Moon, 2007). In many countries, competency-based education is implemented within competency-based curricular documents which organise aims, content, and assessment around explicitly formulated key competences and expected learning outcomes (Curry & Docherty, 2017; Anderson-Levitt & Gardinier, 2021; OECD, 2018). At the same time, gender equality is increasingly highlighted as one of the key priorities of education with the focus on integration of gender dimension and gender perspectives within the education process and content. Gender equality is considered in national education and equality strategies and is debated in connection to curricular reforms and revisions (Donovalová, 2024). With the emergence of these trends, gender competencies are becoming important competences both for students and teachers.

The Czech curriculum has recently undergone a major curriculum reform, resulting in a new Framework Educational Programme for Basic Education. The revised curriculum is explicitly oriented towards competency-based education and states that developing key competences and basic literacies for the 21st century is a central aim of the reform, alongside a stronger focus on equality and gender issues. These declarations are aligned with strategic documents concerning education in Czechia: The Czech Strategy for the education policy of the Czech Republic up to 2030+ (2018) and Gender Equality Strategy 2021–2030, both of which highlight the development of competencies and gender equality to play a more prominent role within the education system.

This qualitative documentary analysis aims to map the approach towards gender competencies within the Czech education system and to thematize and conceptualize gender competencies. While previous research has documented an implementation gap between political and strategic commitments and their translation into educational practice (Nehoda et al., 2024), there is limited evidence on how this gap manifests within competence frameworks especially concerning gender competencies. The study aims to answer these research questions: (1) How do Czech political and strategic documents conceptualize gender competencies in education? (2) To what extent does the new curricular framework align with the aforementioned documents concerning gender competencies? (3) What expectations regarding teachers’ gender competencies are formulated and how do these expectations relate to the curriculum’s competency-based approach to gender equality?

The study employs policy borrowing which examines how global trends in education are adopted and adapted by local actors and conceptualises educational reforms as globally circulating agendas that are selectively translated and recontextualised in national contexts (Steiner-Khamsi, 2014). This perspective examines how competency-based education and gender equality appear as legitimising discourses in Czech policy and curricular texts, and to what extent they are translated education practise. The study draws on the concept of gender competence as an integrated configuration of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The initial deductive coding framework is based on the concept of gender competencies by Mahr et al. (2021), which conceptualises gender competence as (a) knowledge of gender-related issues and inequalities, (b) skills to apply this knowledge in educational practice, and (c) approaches/communication that enable gender-sensitive interaction and reflexive professional conduct.

This study provides an integrated analysis of how gender competence is operationalised – whether it is explicitly articulated, framed through broader concepts such as diversity and inclusion, or rendered invisible through generalised competence language. It presents implications for curriculum design and teacher education and provides a relevant example for other education systems undergoing similar reforms.

Pair work is widely recognised as one of the most effective and psychologically comfortable forms of organising the learning process in secondary education. It promotes active student engagement, cooperation, communication skills, and shared responsibility for learning outcomes. Through dialogue and joint problem-solving, students are encouraged to articulate their reasoning, negotiate meanings, and construct knowledge collaboratively. However, despite its pedagogical advantages, the organisation of pair work also presents challenges related to students’ individual characteristics, social interaction, and classroom dynamics. One factor that remains insufficiently explored in everyday teaching practice is the role of gender in shaping students’ experiences of pair work.
This study examines how gender dynamics influence classroom interaction, student comfort, participation, and perceived effectiveness of learning within pair work. While previous research has produced mixed findings regarding gender differences in academic achievement—particularly in science education—less attention has been paid to how gender affects interpersonal interaction, emotional comfort, and engagement during collaborative learning. The present research addresses this gap by focusing on students’ lived experiences of working in mixed-gender and same-gender pairs.
The central research questions guiding this study are:
1) How does the gender composition of pairs influence students’ interaction, comfort, and participation during pair work?
2) What challenges do students experience when working in mixed-gender pairs?
3) To what extent does gender-aware organisation of pair work contribute to more equitable classroom interaction?
The study is grounded in sociocultural theories of learning, which conceptualise learning as a socially mediated process shaped by interaction, dialogue, and shared activity. Gender is understood as a social and cultural construct rather than a purely biological category. This framework allows for examination of both differences and similarities between students while avoiding deficit-based interpretations. The relevance of this study extends beyond a single national context, as issues of gender, interaction, and equity in classroom collaboration are shared across European and international educational settings.

From a very young age, children are exposed to gender stereotypes through advertising, media and pop culture (Fine, 2010) to which educational materials such as school textbooks also contribute. Textbooks carry dominant social values and norms embedded within society contributing to the construction of gender norms through both textual and visual representations. Visuals are especially powerful in early childhood, as children often engage with images more directly and intuitively than with written text. Therefore, it can be said that visuals in the textbooks play crucial role in shaping gender norms in early schooling.

Turkey represents a particularly relevant case due to ongoing debates on gender equality, curriculum reform, and value education. In Turkish education system -which is highly centralized and one curriculum is applied nationwide- textbooks are centrally approved, published and distributed free of charge to students under the authority of the Ministry of National Education (MoNE). This ensures the same textbooks being used at the same grade levels throughout the country. Within this centralised system, textbook visuals constitute a particularly powerful medium through which gender norms and roles are represented and normalised for young learners. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the visuals containing gender findings in Life Sciences (Hayat Bilgisi) lesson textbooks provided by MoNE.

Life Sciences lesson was selected for this study due to its important role in supporting children’s adaptation to society by promoting learning through experience and providing essential knowledge for everyday life. It is only taught in first three grades and is a foundational lesson that provides the conceptual and pedagogical groundwork for later disciplines such as Science and Social Studies. As this subject plays a key role in shaping children’s early understandings of identity, belonging, and social relations, examining gender representation and normative gender roles within its content becomes extremely important.

Previous research conducted at international level has mostly focuses on either foreign language -particularly English as foreign language- textbooks (Handayini & Tungka, 2023; Parham, 2013; Xiong et al., 2017; Fithriani, 2022) or children’s books (Lestari & Yulindrasari, 2020; Adam & Harper, 2021). Similar to international literature, research focusing on language and children books can widely be found within the national literature (Kartal & Kocasavaş, 2024; Güney, 2016) In the context of analysing Life Lesson textbooks, researchers tends to prioritise textual analysis (Hatay Uçar & Çetinkaya, 2021) or earlier editions of textbooks (Güzel Candan & Ergen, 2014; Sarıtaş & Şahin; 2017; Karaboğa, 2020; Akcan & Türkmenoğlu, 2021), while current textbooks created under the Maarif Model and their visual content remain underexplored.

According to the given context he main research questions of the study are:

How are female and male figures represented in the visual images of Life Studies textbooks?

How are domestic and non-domestic roles distributed across genders in these images?

What types of activities, behaviors, and social roles are associated with which genders?

By addressing these questions, the study contributes to the international discussions about gender representation in educational materials by providing evidence from the Turkish context.