Gender in interaction and narratives at school: a sociological study on facilitative workshops for the prevention of gender-based violence

Description

Starting from the traditional social studies on man-woman differences and turning to how over the years sociologists have pointed out the social construction of these differences, in the first part the seminar delves deeper into gender as a social construct and the social construction of gender through communication, interaction and narratives. After presenting different approaches of social research with a gender dimension, the second part of the seminar illustrates a sociological approach that combines constructionist studies and MCA on gender, a systemic and constructivist theory of society, finally dialogue and narratives studies in order to analyse video recorded and transcribed interactions. The final part describes objectives, focus and main results of a study on five extracurricular workshops aimed at preventing gender-based violence, coordinated by facilitators of three important local feminist associations, and run between 2017 and 2024 in Italy. The workshops involved 10 classes of ‘middle’ schools, with 222 students aged 12-13, in 5 different towns, for a total of 28 meetings of 2 hours each and thus 56 hours of video recorded data.
Dr Elisa Rossi is Associate Professor of Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Department of Linguistic and Cultural Studies, where she teaches sociology courses focusing on gender relations, conflicts (intercultural, interethnic, gender, social, international), dialogue, facilitation, and mediation for undergraduate and graduate students. Her research interests primarily concern communication processes, socialisation processes and the construction of identities, the form of interactions and the production of narratives, with particular reference to interactions between adults and children/adolescents in the school system and between professionals and patients in the medical system. She draws on a constructivist approach, a theory of social systems as communication systems, gender studies, and studies on dialogue, mediation, and narratives.

Period	21 Apr 2026
Event type	Seminar
Location	Northampton , United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International