Gender Studies In Romania - Between The EU and Bureaucratic Opportunism

Abstract

In the context of promoting economic dynamics as the driving force of designing public policies, some fields of studies (areas of education) proved to be more provocative regarding the way they managed to create their own area both in relation with the democratic imperative of making citizens good people and with the neoliberal one, the one of training skilled market/profit-oriented labour force. Gender studies are one of the fields whose institutionalization (establishing/recognizing as a norm) and professionalization (the establishment of new professions in the employment sector has always been complex, difficult and even contested. Lots of variables are being used in order to explain this multidimensional reality, and it is necessary to underline once again that to train competences for the labour market as well as for the human activity (as values and needs) is quite difficult. In order to emphasize the process of institutionalization and professionalization of gender studies I will use two frames of analysis. I will first present what I consider important -the macro-European dynamics which over time drew up the frame for the institutionalization, consolidation and professionalization of genders studies. Secondly, I will have a closer look into the Romanian case which will be in-depth described, analysed and used as an example in order to have a better understanding of the on-going and subtle process that links gender studies education to the labour environment.