Editorial: Gender sensitive research in adult education: Looking back and looking forward to explore what is and what is missing in the research agenda

Abstract

Despite legislation, policies and practice, and while some progress has been made in many countries, there are still no countries who have achieved a hundred per cent gender equality (Gender Equality Index, EIGE, 2019). Over the years this has included several supranational agreements and mandatory regulations signed by countries such as the Convention of the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW, 1979), the Platform of Beijing (1995), the Istanbul Convention (2011), and more recently the UN Sustainable Development Goals (2015), among others. The failure of these initiatives indicate that gender inequality, discrimination and prejudice suffered by women are embedded in structural unequal power relations. The ultimate goal of the 'gender mainstreaming principle' is the integration of a gender perspective into the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation policies, regulatory measures and spending programmes (including research ones), with a view to promoting gender equality between women and men, and combating discrimination 1 . This is still a challenge between and within countries but as stressed by the EU Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 2 : it is necessary to work together to build a 'Europe where women and men, girls and boys, in all their diversity, are equal -where they are free to pursue their chosen path in life and reach their full potential, where they have equal opportunities to thrive, and where they can equally participate in and lead our European society ' (p. 19).It is a myth to think that social evolution is a one-way movement, always in a positive direction. If we look, for example, at the use of women´s rights as 'a bargaining chip' in the international negotiations between countries seeking economic aid to solve internal problems (Carvalho-Pinto & Fleschenberg, 2019), it becomes clear the regrettable instrumentalisation of human rights and the unequal situations and voices that are given