From Play Space to baby pit stop to promote new models of gender education at University

Abstract

The ongoing debate on the relationship between gender and education increasingly assigns educational institutions significant roles in innovating gender-related educational programs. In this context the University certainly plays a key role, within a broader network of learning communities, in disseminating a culture that is sensitive to diversity. This contibution therefore aims to deepen the University of Foggia’s longstanding commitment to gender education and, more generally, to the issue of diversity, both throught the implementation of courses and workshops specifically dedicated to deconstructing gender stereotypes and sexist prejudices and through the establishment of services that ensure gender equality and contribute to the promotion and dissemination of a culture of motherhood at all levels. Last, by institution, the baby pit stop, inaugurated last november in collaboration with Unicef as an integrated service open to the public. It is a breastfeeding center open not only to students and employees of the Foggia University, but to the entire community. Since its inception, the baby pit stop has also served as an observatory for inclusive and democratic studies on motherhood and, more generally, parenting as well as a research center and workshops open to families, aimed at exploring issues related to breastfeeding and, more broadly, the needs and responsibilities of care, a central and transversal theme in all programs aimed at enhancing and promoting a pedagogy of diversity.