Development of broadly applyable course plans for the topic of "Gender and Physics".

The project "Diversity in the Cultures of Physics" included the development and application of the Lesson Plan Series “Reflections on Gender and Physics”. Structured by a variety of aspects the Series contains different lesson plans which give concrete instructions for learning units. They allow for the concrete preparation and conduct of seven courses on gender and physics. The seven themes we selected consider transnational, multicultural and intersectional aspects. The lesson plans cover the following topics:

Lesson Plan 1 – Identifying and Breaking Stereotypes;

Lesson Plan 2 – Dis/Encouragements in Becoming a Physicist;

Lesson Plan 3 – Doing and Undoing Bias in Academia;

Lesson Plan 4 – Networking against Structural Inequalities;

Lesson Plan 5 – Career Stages and their Shifting Challenges;

Lesson Plan 6 – Prevailing Interaction Patterns in the Lab;

Lesson Plan 7 – Finding Suitable Work Place Cultures.

The aim of these teaching units is to understand how gender inequalities are constructed and reproduced during the interactions in the labs and class rooms while doing physics. On the one hand, the students learn to uncover the often subconscious processes which lead to underrepresentation of women in physics at all levels. On the other hand, the basic structural dynamics linking gender effects in science and society are taken into account.

Each lesson plan represents a teaching unit of 180 minutes and contains an introduction into the topic, information on objectives, a detailed schedule and teaching instructions, a work sheet for use in class with tasks for the students, a list of obligatory and additional literature, accompanied by lists of additional resources and materials. The approach of the lesson plans makes it as easy as possible for teaching staff all over Europe to conceptualize gender courses and empowers both students and teaching staff to engage with the relevance of gender in physics.

Parts of the lesson plans can be integrated in either general courses on interdisciplinary gender studies or specific courses on gender in STEM. Individual units can supplement social and natural science courses, that wish to point out specific gender dimensions in a reputedly gender neutral field of knowledge production. The resources can be used in classrooms from undergraduate level onwards.

You can find the whole Lesson Plan Series as a pdf-file here.

The creation of these resources has been (partially) funded by the ERASMUS+ grant program of the European Union under grant no. 2016-1-DE01-KA203-002918.
Neither the European Commission nor the project's national funding agency DAAD are responsible for the content or liable for any losses or damage resulting of the use of these resources.