Structure and goals

The Gender Studies degree program aims to provide students with scientific analytical skills through a structured range of courses, to analyze the emergence, impact and significance of gender relations in various social contexts and to demonstrate their application in practical areas. The critical view of gender relations and the creation and interpretation of differences between the sexes provides innovative impulses for the examination of scientific findings and assertions of normality, enables the further development of scientific questions and opens up new fields of research. For the present, insights into the relevance of historical, cultural, social and political processes of differentiation within and between the genders, the interweaving of power and domination relations with gender orders are indispensable prerequisites for the theory and practice of the democratic shaping of societies and institutions and the analysis of international and intercultural developments.

The interdisciplinary connection of the study program makes it possible to get to know the cognitive methods of different subjects and to bring them back into the respective disciplines in a methodologically and epistemologically critical way. The perspective on gender relations sharpens the insight into the different connections between theory and practice of the individual sciences and their effect within the symbolic order of a society.

The Gender Studies program can be taken by Bachelor's students from the second semester onwards, while Master's students and doctoral candidates can start the certificate in the first semester.

The study program comprises two modules:

• Module 1: Theories and cultural constructions of gender
• Module 2: Gender relations and strategies for action

A total of 6 SWS or three courses must be successfully completed. Either two courses in Module 1 and one course in Module 2 must be attended or vice versa.

To obtain the certificate, both modules must be successfully completed; depending on the choice, Module 1 with two courses and Module 2 (as a partial module) with one course or vice versa. The courses must be taken in at least two subjects of the study program, whereby one subject must be the student's own subject.

Only courses that are offered as part of the Gender Studies programme in the course catalog are recognized for the certificate.

Attendance is compulsory for the interdisciplinary introductory lecture with tutorial on various theoretical perspectives of gender studies and the corresponding tutorial, which takes place in the winter semester. The introductory lecture can be credited for both modules.

Graduates of the study program receive a certificate of additional qualification in the field of gender studies after completing their studies. In addition to knowledge of the content of gender studies, they have experience in interdisciplinary cooperation and the development of interdisciplinary research questions.

Up to three weeks after the start of the lecture period, you can register in writing for the Gender Studies program with the coordinator. Please use the registration form.

An information event on the study program is offered at the beginning of each semester. The exact date will be announced in good time on the homepage and in the course catalog.

The study program Gender Studies at the University of Kassel was established in the winter semester 2005/2006 as the Interdisciplinary Study Program Women's and Gender Studies by the Interdisciplinary Working Group Women's and Gender Studies. The interdisciplinary structure of the course enables students to combine perspectives and methods from different disciplines to analyze gender relations. Since the summer semester of 2006, doctoral students have also been able to take part in the course.