Date: Friday 21 June 2024
Time: 17:30 – 18:15
Venue: Malta School of Art, Valletta
MRER Lecture Series in collaboration with the Malta School of Art will be hosting a Lecture titled 'Artistic Actions in Raising Awareness of Gender Equality and Sexual Diversity in University Contexts'.
Speaker: Dr Maria Amparo Alonso Sanz, University of Valencia
Moderator: Prof. Carmel Borg, Editor, MRER, and coordinator of the MRER Project
Abstract
The university community faces problems of gender inequality and intolerance towards sexual diversity that are symptomatic of heteronormativity and machismo, with women and LGTBI individuals at the receiving end of the inequity continuum. This study proposes that through arts-based public pedagogy it is possible to increase the sensitivity of the university community (PDI, PAS, and students) to gender equality and sexual diversity. This research evaluates the efficacy of a series of artistic actions carried out in the public space of three Spanish universities (UV, UPV, and UMH), based on the participants’ self-assessments of their attitudes before and after witnessing these actions. The results indicate that artistic actions have significant positive effects on the awareness of the members of the university community at cognitive, affective, and moral levels.
Bio
Maria Amparo Alonso-Sanz is a teacher and researcher in Art Education at the University of Valencia. She is a member of the Institute of Creativity and Educational Innovations, and of the group CREARI (Research Group in Cultural Pedagogies). Her research is developed around visual culture, educational environment design, learning environments, student-family balance and initial teacher training, applying multiple methodological approaches.