Gender incidence in the development of teaching practice. The case of urban planning 1 in the degree in fundamentals of architecture

Abstract

The paper is situated in a global context where the gender gap in society is still evident. Traditionally, architecture has been a profession for men, and women have only recently begun to enter it. Urban planning is no stranger to this situation within architecture, suffering a great inequality in the low number of women working in this field. We propose a study and analysis based on gender perspective results obtained by the different students in the last two editions of Urban Planning 1 of Degree in Fundamentals of Architecture. In previous years, the number of women enrolled has increased by 4%, reaching almost 50% in the 2020-2021 academic year of enrolments of both genders. In this sense, differences have been detected between men and women in aspects such as attendance and class participation, adding the results obtained in this subject. Specifically, the subject Urban Planning 1 is a compulsory subject taught by the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the first year of the Degree in Fundamentals of Architecture. The teaching objective of the subject is to provide students with a solid knowledge base of the city as an Urban and Territorial Fact. The teaching and knowledge methodology is fundamentally morphogenetic. In this way, students understand the city and the urban as a reality built and transformed over time. They analyse its origin to the present day, whose keys can be identified in its plots, parts and elements. The subject is organised by four hours of each weekly class. In this way, the first two hours are devoted to theory and the next two to practice. Therefore, the evaluation is divided into two. The first one is based on a theory exam and level tests. The second evaluates the practical development of the subject based on collaborative work in groups. These groups are usually composed randomly and are made up of men, women, or both. Each group works in a medium-sized Andalusian city, showing their progress weekly. Interestingly, the results obtained by the exercises differ according to gender, both in theory and in practice. Thus, it is proposed to identify gender patterns in the results in both parts to discern the gender incidence in the subject.