Intergenerational Stories of Gender and Education

1. Why did you choose this topic?

I choose this topic in order to combine several research and teaching interests of mine from cultural studies, gender studies, and education to explore how the educational system in Austria reproduces gender norms. This interdisciplinary approach allowed me to develop a participatory storytelling method that created an intergenerational feminist space to negotiate pressing issues of our times.

2. What new perspectives does your book offer?

My book offers a new participatory intergenerational storytelling method that is suitable across disciplines that result in digital stories. Additionally, the book presents how the educational system is located on the ambivalent nexus of reproduction and resistance with regard to societal norms, especially gender norms.

3. What makes your topic relevant for current research debates?

Education as an institute of power negotiations and reproduction of societal norms is in the center of this book and contributes to current research debates on societal developments, populism, and democracy. It also adds to pressing issues in gender and cultural studies on how social norms are reproduced through a heteronormative framework that falls short of including intersectional lived realities.

4. Choose one person you would like to discuss your book with!

Henry Giroux.

5. Your book summary in one sentence:

This book presents intergenerational storytelling with educators in Austria on how the educational system reproduces and resists gender norms.