Promising Nordic practices in gender equality promotion: Developing teacher education dialogue, practice, and policy cycles on-line

Abstract

This case study examines a Nordic on-line course on gender equality promotion in education, in which principals, teachers, school staff and gender equality activists engaged in dialogue regarding contents and practices. The on-line course was designed with reference to promising practices identified in a previous Nordic network project. The article considers challenges appearing across localities in relation to diversity, in gender equality promotion practices, policies and pedagogies. Digitalisation enables educational collaboration among teacher education institutions between the distant Nordic countries and facilitates the dissemination of Nordic education and the gender equality model, but this raises questions about whether these forms of education and equality are globally ‘branded’; and whether an intersectional gender equality promotion approach can be contextually and locally specific. This paper focuses on the contradictions of gender/sex binary concepts impairing understandings of diversity, sexuality and identity, the consequences of the emergence of scepticism toward practice standardisation, discrepancies between norms of equal treatment and critical reflection, and the development of citizen-based actions initiating policy changes. It is shown that the results of the project will benefit Nordic collaboration on teacher education development.