Keep gender studies bachelor’s degree program at Åbo Akademi university
Why do we want this?
Åbo Akademi University (from now on ÅAU) is a language-minority Swedish-speaking university in Finland, who’s one of four special research areas is minority research (minoritetsforskning). The university is the first higher level education in Finland with a research institution in, what was in its inception called the institute of women’s studies (institutet för kvinnorforskning). In the moment, ÅAU is the only university in Finland with a full university education in gender studies, from a bachelor’s degree to a doctoral degree.
Beginning in the autumn of 2025, ÅAU has started a process of an education reform, aiming to renew its educational output to stabilize its economy in accordance with Ministry of Education and Culture’s qualitative and quantitative goals for the university’s operations and due to economic recession. Economizing the processes and speeding up the student’s examination in the university is one of the ways ÅAU answers these challenges. The highest decision-making entity in the university, the board of ÅAU, consists of external actors of non-academic actors and internal actors consisting of university personnel and student representants.
Motivated by the requirements of Ministry of Education and Culture, the economic recession and ÅAU’s consecutive poor economic performance in the last decade, the board of ÅAU is working towards cutting down on study fields that do not meet the standards, or numerical criteria, in the proposed framework of 10 students per academic year. This is argued that it will enhance the application and output of students in the university and stabilize its economy in the near future. Gender studies is one of the study fields that do not fulfilling the criteria of the proposed framework and thus motivated to laying off its bachelor’s degree program.
If the university board decides to end the bachelor’s level studies in gender studies in ÅAU, motivated by standards and logics of economization of knowledge, it will greatly impact gender studies and its research output in Finland and the general understanding of structural, institutional and epistemic discrimination in Finland. This includes language-based discrimination in Finland, a form of discrimination highly experienced by the majority of ÅAU students that are Swedish-speaking language minority in Finland.
Bachelor’s level gender studies are a popular subject among students of ÅAU. They give students methodological expertise, historical and theoretical understanding of human and more-than-human interaction with knowledge, society, institutions, technology, and structures. Bachelor’s studies in gender studies help students develop practical tools for understanding and countering situations where multiple discriminations emerge, for example, language-based discrimination together with gender-based discrimination and/or discrimination based on one’s sexuality; a reality that many Swedish-speaking Finns navigate in their everyday lives. The Non-discrimination Act 1325/2014 and Act on Equality between Women and Men 609/1986 in Finland require organizations with more than 30 employees or education institutions, such as early child education in Finland, to have Diversity and Equity (D&I) plans. Understanding how discrimination works is crucial when planning, implementing, following up and institutionalizing these plans in organizations. The quality of these mandatory plans will be greatly affected across Finland soon if the curriculum of gender studies is affected by the ÅAU’s educational reform.
The bachelor’s degree in gender studies is a 180-credit curriculum that gives students in Finland eligibility to continue for more advanced levels of studies in gender studies. The acceptance to master’s degree level studies in gender studies requires proven 60 credits in gender studies for eligibility. Ending the bachelor’s degree level studies in gender studies will essentially stop student’s eligibility for advances level studies in Gender studies in ÅAU and in Finland.
ÅAU currently has the only gender studies bachelor’s degree program in Finland, and now they want to remove it…
To take away gender studies as a bachelor’s degree program sends the message that we do not need to learn what gender studies teaches, that includes critical thinking, racism, sexism and how to understand society as a whole and what we can improve. Gender studies helps us understand why society looks and operates the way it does, currently and in the past.
What message is ÅAU sending with removing gender studies, a critically important, bachelor’s degree program?
Our goal is to keep gender studies as a bachelor’s degree program at Åbo Akademi university and keep improving society. Gender studies knowledge can be applied in all fields of work and is crucial to creating inclusive structures at schools, workplaces and communal shared spaces. Why take that away?
Keep gender studies as a bachelor's degree program at Åbo Akademi university!
Sofia Lundell Ota yhteyttä adressin tekijään