GENDER COMPETENT LEGAL KNOWLEDGE – Law and Gender Lifelong Learning Platform

Curriculum and syllabi for master study program “Law and Gender”

The main intellectual output (IO1) of the LAWGEM project is development of Curriculum for the future master study program “Law and Gender”. It contains four common mandatory courses, called: 1) Feminist Legal and Political Theories, 2) Human Rights Law – Gender Perspective, 3) International and EU Law and Gender Equality and 4) Feminist Judgements.The course Methodology and Practical Skills, consisting of Gender equality glossaries analysis, research methodology, English legal terminology, and Internet skills, is also mandatory. For all students will be also mandatory to attend the Legal Clinic called Gender Equality Legal Clinic. In the first semester the above mentioned five mandatory courses shall be attended by all students of the study program. In the second semester the student shall opt for four courses from the list of given courses.

Curriculum for master study program “Law and Gender”

Syllabi for mandatory and optional courses of the master study program “Law and Gender”

Lecture of Prof. Dr. Johanna Niemi on `Gender Sensitive Legal Teaching: Aims, Strategies and Examples`

The members of the LAWGEM research team had the opportunity to attend the lecture on gender sensitive teaching of legal disciplines, held by Prof. Dr Johanna Niemi, from the University of Turku (Finland), on the second day of kick-off meeting related to the implementation of LAWGEM scientific project. The lecture was held at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, on 13^th December 2019, with the support of the OSCE in Belgrade. In her lecture Prof. Dr. Niemi underlined the idea that the most interesting challenge to legal thinking comes from the feminist legal studies that have a close connection to gender studies, and that all lawyers should be familiar with the main ideas about the importance of gender in our thinking and society, including the legal sphere.

Prof. Dr. Johana Niemi holds LLM, Lis.L and JD all from University of Helsinki and trained on the bench in Rovaniemi district court in 1984. She has worked at University of Helsinki 1985-2004 and as vice dean responsible for teaching (2010-2013). Between 2004 and 2010 she worked as professor of law at the Umeå University, and at National Research Institute for Legal Policy. In 1997–1998 she was Fulbright scholar at University of Wisconsin, Madison. Niemi has held several expert functions in the academic community. She was member of the Scientific Committee of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (2013-2018) and member of the Finnish Academy Committee on Cultural and Social Sciences (2016-2018). She was Minna Canth Academy Professor 2015-2019. Prof. Dr. Niemi led several research project analyzing the discourses on gender violence in legal contexts. Her book Criminal Procedure and Violence in Intimate Relationship was published (in Finnish) in 2004. She has analysed the liberal undertone of the Finnish rape law in several articles. She has been co-editor of several books, including Responsible Selves. Women in the Nordic Legal Culture (2001) and International Law and Violence against Women: Europe and the Istanbul Convention (2020).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZkLaWoyFE

Article of Prof. Dr. Dragica Vujadinović “Gender Mainstreaming in Law and Legal Education”, Anali Pravnog fakulteta u Beogradu, No. 3/2015, pp. 56-74.

Political revolutions of the 18th and 19th century engendered an idea of universal equality. However, the American Declaration of Independence and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen have not been gender sensitive documents. Women had to struggle for a long time in order to achieve visibility in laws and they did gain an equal right to vote in the USA only 144 years later and in France only 160 years after the issuing of these documents. Contemporary international and national law has greatly advanced from a gender equality point of view. However, gender sensitive legislation and implementation of legal norms has been far from widely accepted. Gender sensitive legal education of (future) legislators, lawyers, judges, and prosecutors has thus been of the utmost importance. First, the article offers theoretical clarifications and historical background analysis of a sense and purpose of gender mainstreaming. The achievements in international law and strategic documents concerning gender equality will be taken into consideration in the second chapter. The main focus will be on the meaning of and instruments for gender mainstreaming in legal education in Serbia as well as generally. Paradigmatic examples from judicial practice will also be presented.

Article of Prof. Dr. Dragica Vujadinović and Prof. Dr. Nevena Petrušić “Gender Mainstreaming in Legal Education in Serbia: A Pilot Analysis of Curricula and Textbooks”, Anali Pravnog fakulteta u Beogradu, No. 4/2017, pp. 53-74.

The general aim of this paper is to initiate a long-lasting systemic process of reviewing higher education in Serbia from a gender-sensitive point of view, and to offer initial input for building action plans and policies oriented towards this goal. The main focus is on analyzing legal studies from a gender-sensitive point of view and on initiating gender mainstreaming within law schools. However, this paper can aspire only to modest achievements, dealing solely with preliminary research of legal studies, with a limited but a representative sample. Namely, only two accredited study programs at two public university faculties of law in Serbia – at the Faculty of Law in Belgrade and the Faculty of Law in Niš – were taken into consideration. This pilot analysis is based on an established methodology for gender-sensitive analysis of curricula as well as of syllabi and textbooks for certain legal courses. The mentioned methodology introduces specific gender-sensitive indicators as well as three categories for assessing learning outcomes of study programs, syllabi and textbooks: gender-negative, gender-neutral, and gender-sensitive. The focus of the investigation was on of the following courses: Sociology of Law, Constitutional Law, Family Law, Labor Law, and Criminal Law. The meaning and importance of gender mainstreaming in law schools is explained in the Introduction. The normative and strategic framework for gender mainstreaming in higher education in Serbia is presented in the second chapter. The main focus of analysis – the reconsideration of curricula and textbooks from a gender perspective – is elaborated through the following three chapters: the third chapter explores the main indicators of the gender-sensitive analysis of legal education; the fourth is devoted to the analytical framework and methodology of investigation; chapter five presents the research results and their interpretation. The concluding notes clarify discrepancies between the normative and strategic international and national framework for gender mainstreaming of higher education, on the one hand, and the given state of affairs in Serbian legal education, on the other. The text includes recommendations for gender action plans, which could contribute to the improvement of legal and higher education in general.

Article of Prof. Dr. Dragica Vujadinović and Prof. Dr. Nevena Petrušić Neophodnost urodnjavanja studijskih programa prava i pravničkih predmeta: predlozi rodno senzitivnih silabusa za Sociologiju prava i Porodično pravo, u: Dragica Vujadinović, Zorana Antonijević (ur.), “Rodna ravnopravnost u visokom obrazovanju : koncepti, prakse i izazovi”, Akademska knjiga, Novi Sad, 2019, str. 303-324.

International and national strategic and normative documents demand gender mainstreaming of higher education, including the field of law. However, according to different surveys, reports, and declarations at international, European, and Serbian national levels, most of the higher education curricula, syllabi, and textbooks, including the ones related to legal education, do not match the requirements of the mentioned strategic and normative documents. It becomes obvious that the state and university authorities in Serbia, and elsewhere, must introduce policies for gender mainstreaming of higher and legal education. Equally obvious is that faculties of law have to make their own steps forward, and initiate gender action plans for transforming institutional and educational design in a gender sensitive way. The focus of this text is on overcoming the genderblind character of legal education in Serbia, which has been existent even at the most prominent state universities. The underlying emancipatory idea is that quality of legal education, in general, depends crucially on its gender sensitive transformation. Gender sensitive profiling of the aims, outcomes, and content of legal study will be outlined in this text based on the sample of two largest and most prominent state faculties of law – University of Niš and University of Belgrade. The attempt is to send a message about the necessity of revising aims and outcomes of higher and legal education study programmes, which also implies the necessity of revising the national standards and requirements for accrediting study programmes. However, the main focus is placed on the importance of gender sensitive aims, outcomes, and contents of the syllabi included in these study pro grammes. For that purpose, syllabi for two first year courses – Sociology/Sociology of Law and Fa mily Law – are taken into consideration as the representative sample. Critical reviewing of the mentioned accredited syllabi attempts to initiate introducing of a gender sensitive approach in syllabi of legal and other studies in Serbia and elsewhere.

Article of Prof. Dr. Nevena Petrušić and Prof. Dr. Dragica Vujadinović “Od rodno slepog ka rodno inkluzivnom visokom obrazovanju u Srbiji: Akcioni planovi za urodnjavanje”, Socologija, broj 1/2018, str. 313-329.

Predmet ove analize je visoko obrazovanje u Srbiji, u kome je na svojevrstan način na delu dijalektika emancipacije i reprodukcije patrijarhalne matrice, koja obeležava rodne odnose u savremenosti i na različite načine se manifestuje u svim sferama društvenog života, u svakom društvu ponaosob i globalno uzev. Ova dijalektika je na delu i u savremenom visokom obrazovanju, pri čemu postoje značajne razlike među konkretnim obrazovnim režimima, koje su uslovljene njihovim istorijsko-političko-kulturološkim specifičnostima.Fokus rada je na visokom obrazovanju u Srbiji, koje je još uvek u svim svojim dimenzijama obeleženo patrijarhalnom matricom. Uprkos određenim emancipatorskim pomacima unutar visokog obrazovanja, i dalje su vidljive horizontalna i vertikalna rodna segregacija, rodna neravnoteža u rukovodećim strukturama, rodno slepi programi i sadržaji putem kojih se znanje proizvodi i reprodukuje.U radu su razmotreni strateški pravci urodnjavanja visokog obrazovanja u Srbiji. Polazeći od stava da ovaj proces podrazumava sveobuhvatne strukturalne promene, autorke nude model akcionog plana koji bi mogao da posluži kao osnov za kreiranje politike urodnjavanja visokog obrazovanja u Srbiji. Ovaj model je zasnovan na akcionim planovima razvijenim u okviru međunarodnih projekata Evropske komisije (EK) i Evropskog Instituta za rodnu ravnopravnost (EIGE), i podrazumeva – uz odgovarajuću kontekstualizaciju – strukturalne promene „odozgo“, koje bi inicirale promene „odozdo“ i urodnile visoko obrazovanje suštinski unapređujući njegov kvalitet.

Paper of Prof. Dr. Gorana Đorić and Prof. Dr. Dragica Vujadinović Obrazovanje za rodnu ravnopravnost u Srbiji, u: Tibor Varadi, Marijana Pajvančić (ur.), “Rodna ravnopravnost – od jednakih prava do jednakih mogućnosti”, Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, Beograd, 2020, str. 215-231.

Obrazovanje nosi značajne društvene kapacitete za emancipaciju od tradicionalnih rodnih uloga i patrijarhalne matrice od-nosa moći i potčinjavanja, ali može da bude upotrebljeno i za reprodukciju odnosa hijerarhije i podređivanja u rodnom domenu. Međunarodni normativni i strateški dokumenti još od 60-ih godina 20. veka insistiraju na značaju obrazovanja za uspostavljanje rodne ravnopravnosti. Ovim dokumentima se predviđaju dužnosti i obaveze vlada da preduzmu različite aktivnosti u obezbeđivanju obrazovanja koje unapređuje rodnu ravnopravnost. Međutim, realnost obrazovnog procesa još je prilično daleko od proklamovanih ciljeva urodnjavanja svih nivoa obrazovanja. Nakon sažetog predstavljanja međunarodnog i nacionalnog normativnog okvira, u ovom radu se bavimo problemima integrisanja rodne perspektive u naučne i nastavne discipline, i u pojedine nastavne materijale. Glavni deo rada čini predstavljanje ana-liza sadržaja nastavnih materijala, na različitim nivoima obrazovanja u Srbiji. Ovaj pregled ima za svrhu da ilustruje način na koji se prepoznaju rodno stereotipni i rodno osetljivi sadržaji u različitim nastavnim materijalima, da ukaže na to u kojoj meri su nastavni materijali u Srbiji u funkciji obrazovanja za rodnu ravnopravnost, prema rezultatima obavljenih analiza, i da sumira preporuke koje bi, prema autorkama analiza, unapredile integrisanje rodne perspektive u nastavne sadržaje.