Measurement Invariance of the Sensitive Assessment for Gender Equality (SAGE) Index Across Degree: Findings from two Teacher Education Programmes in Spain

Abstract

Western European countries have made impressive gender equality (GE) progress in education during the last few decades. Unfortunately, the implementation of gender mainstreaming (GM) in higher education has not been satisfactory. This paper describes a survey-based research study designed to explore student teachers’ perceptions of training for GE in teacher education (TE) using the Sensitive Assessment for Gender Equality (SAGE) index. The study firstly aims to analyse the factor invariance across degree of the SAGE and secondly tries to describe the status of GM implementation in teacher education programmes from students’ perspectives. Data were collected from 398 student teachers (84% female) aged 21.44, enrolled on two TE programmes from a public higher education institution in the Autonomous Region of Valencia (Spain). Using single and multi-group CFA the study revealed that the proposed three-factor structure of the SAGE fitted well to early childhood and elementary school student teachers’ data, thus suggesting equivalence between its components in both samples. Early childhood students scored significantly higher than elementary school student teachers in their reported perceptions of gender equality training and awareness of gender inequalities. Results will be displayed in terms of identifying institutional and curricular needs for GE education practices as findings reveal a clear demand for change.

Educating prospective teachers for a sustainable gender equality practice: survey design and validation of a self-efficacy scale

“…Tertiary, and particularly, TE have been highlighted as being key agents in promoting sustainability (Gough, 2016). The existing literature has explored education for SD of GE from a wide range of perspectives including specific case studies on its implementation (Miralles-Cardona et al , 2020, 2021; Novo and Murga-Menoyo, 2015); sustainability interventions, assessments and frameworks (Alonso-García et al , 2019; Cardeñoso-Domingo et al , 2013; Segalàs-Coral and Sánchez-Carracedo, 2019), students’ attitudes and perceptions (Cebrián and Junyent, 2015; Jiménez-Fontana et al , 2018; Vásquez et al , 2020), educators’ professional competencies (Aznar-Minguet et al , 2017; Lozano et al , 2017; García et al , 2017) and barriers and opportunities (Borg et al , 2012; Kang, 2019). However, only a few studies have focused on mainstreaming GE into university teaching.…”