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Procedía - Social and Behavioral Sciences 187 (2015) 173 - 177
PSIWORLD 2014
Epistemic and Deontic Rhetoric on Gender: Meta- Analysis
Victorita Trif *
University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, 90 Panduri Avenue, Bucharest, 050657, Romania
Abstract
This article concerning the rhetoric of Romanian studies on gender is a qualitative analysis based on data collected between 2008 and 2014. The objectives of the meta-analysis are as follow: to diagnose the identity of gender studies in Romania and to suggest new ways to develop the field. The discoursal understanding on Romanian gender is various: evidential discourses, interpretive discourses, evaluative discourses, methodological discourses. To conclude, te most important risk is the discourse alteration as result of diffusion (the discourse is not in terms of the topic) or as the effect of heterogenity. © 2015 TheAuthors.PublishedbyElsevierLtd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD 2014. Keywords: gender, educational psychology, qualitative analysis, communication, narratives.
1. Introduction
The gender's narratives and verbal rhetoric from all over the world includes various discourses (Arnot, 2006) from the vantage point of differents areas (Ivinson, 2007): critical and cultural theory (Trif, 2013), literature, film studies, psychology, sociology, education, history, theology, religion and so on. That is the reason to identify multifaceted dimensions of data collections - semi otic and linguistic (Halliday, 1994), psychological, social (Hasley, 2003), sociological, anthropological (Trif, 2014). The results of these achievements are the efforts to bringing together scholars working on the various and complex aspects of gender in order to developing academic disciplines and theoretical framework. This paper is a qualitative investigation on gender studies from Romania. The data for the current study were collected from 2008 to 2014. The objectives of the meta-analysis are as follow: 1) to identify the identity of gender studies in Romania and 2) to suggest theoretical assumption about gender research and practice in Romania. First of all we present the probabilistic expression of themes and topics about gender inserted in the international researches in the field. The globalized context specific of the issue include influences of postructuralism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, new developments, metaphorical analysis, patriarchal and non-patriarchal literature, multicultural investigations, ethical approaches etc. This proves the relevance of the narratives and the intercultural capacities of the studies to diseminate the multidisciplinary view. The growing body of the
* Corresponding author. Tel.:+4-072-240-3572; fax: +0-000-000-0000 . E-mail address: victoriatrif@yahoo.com
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of PSIWORLD 2014. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.03.033
research picture a mental image of gender based on three levels: a) theoretical discourses on gender (Taylor, 2013), b) gender problems as a development process and c) cultural semiotics and metalinguistics. Secondly, the paper needs a discourse about the cognitive framework of gender because the analysis of the international narratives provides data taking into account the three kinds of critical examinations:
• Cognitive process analysis
• Content analysis
• Gender analysis.
2. Analysis of the Romanian Narratives
In order to facilitate the process of analysing the Romanian writings on gender we presente the thematic of the issue. A collection of the most important categories from international researches are summarized as follow: gender and literature; males and females; philosophy; the body; the colonial and postcolonial; gender and cinema; science fiction and fantasy; sexism and ageism and so on. The key terms are emerging from there: gender difference, gender role ideology (Matsumoto, 2009), gender identity disorder, gender schema (theory), gender stereotype, gender typing, politics of gender, etc. Comparing to this experiences of knowledge on gender the debating propose inferences reffering to Romanian answered to the topics. Explicitely engaged within Romanian narratives we delineate that the vocabulary on gender contain more general terms. In making a response to the authentic features of the analytical approach it is necessary to establish the border between globalized and Romanians studies; in this case it is about the history. A picture discussion about the representation of gender studies in Romania might be defined starting from two stages of the Romanian history: 1) the stage of communist regime and 2) the contemporary history. As we have already stated it is well known that in Romania as in some of the eastern countries from Europe the gender categories were poorly discussed until the breakdown of communism (Mih aila, 2013). The epistemology of gender (Trif, 2012) was not delineated as academic or scientific field after 1989. The growing of the knowledge body was depending by the writers and by the audience (students, readers, institutions, NGO). Another factor to be taken into account is the publishing of studies in the area but this usually requires the assimilating of the international research data and investigating the topical issues including ethical considerations.
Accordingly to Th. S. Kuhn's conception in sense of the basic interest for the history knowledge area we take a look on the most important Romanian activities in the field. The first legal reference treating Romanian gender differences come from the XVII century "The Vasile Lupu's law codex" („Pravila lui Vasile Lupu") (1646) in Moldavia and The Big Legal Code („Indreptarea"legii") (1652) in the Vallachia (Tara Romaneasca)- both of them containing ideas concerning girls' education; the first institution created from the part of gender particularities involved in education gender discriminated was a school girls builded by Iohannes Honterus (1544) in Brasov. The contemporary researches on gender integrates both the "oldest studies from the XV century (first girls' school in Brasov) and the last Romanian contributions, the "academic fashion"(focused in the high level Romanian universities from Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi). Apart from these we cite studies conducted by the Institute of Educational Studies from Bucharest) that offer a considerable numbers of legal references and studies-research on this issue who have explored the social construction of gender in Romania and have contributed to the gender understanding. For examples, the "personal identity" (Romanian experiences to being a women), "social identity" (the expectations regarding me, as girl or about the gentle sex in the Romanian society) and the "power relationship" (the Romanian2women in power relationships).
The analysis of the titles published contemporary reveals a great number of empiricaled research (Trif, 2013) conducted after years 2000 to present the new contributions to gender knowledge to a limited few is unacceptable but part of the explanation is plausible. These effects may be particularly significant in case of the "translatation" of the general policies (under gender differecies than the "europenisation" of woman's all gender studies in sens2of crossing borders. There are many factors limiting the extent of the topics on gender; the most important is the process of transition from the eastern countries. We suggest that sometimes the material published is inadvertent with the global tendecies in the field.
A reflective approach in the quantitative and qualitative analysing (the publishing analyse on gender differencies from the part of the impact on the higher education and the number of publishing) allow to infer that the gender dimension is not absent but is poor represented in higher education. From the psychological point of view the
gender is a relational concept - as class or religion. In research terms, after the '80 years the gender is present as a specific speciale variable in different methodologies. The opportunities for exploiting to compare the narratives on gender from communism and from past-communism are huge. In fact the future studies on gendar impose a cultural bridge in order to delineate the cultural sense of the knowledge justifying a national comparison approach between the Romanian communism (the period between 1944 - 1989) and mental images of gender in contemporary Romanian (from 1990 to present). The dominant feature of the gender from the Romanian communism is that the real references for higher education are founded on the equality and uniformity. Without any specification to gender dimensions the effects of adopting these ideas are erroded the gender discourses because are significantly disadvantages by predicating non-senses. The examples of consequences resulting from these cultural schemas is redesigning the theoretical base of the fieldwork. The cultural literacy is reformated by introducing the prototype; for examples, the women in the academic profession were presented as a neutral pearson, as "comrade" without personal features, in absence of the identity, etc. After the 1990, as consequences of the new educational system the discourses on gender are reshaped, the principal guidelines become the equity principle and equality chances but early in the '90 the educational policies ( the educational strategies and educational tactics do not treat explicitely gender differencies. Clarly, the only one prerequisite is introduced to norming the equal acces to Romanian3education). Late, in the 2002, was adopted the law number 202 concerning equality chances between men and women, a legal reference on the public life without peying attention and adsessability straightly to higher education or to the all education system. It is arguably that to conceptualise, from vantage point of cognitive science the relationships between epistemology and feminism 3 patterns are many 3 and complicated in sense of democratisation sciences (democratization science in sense of Bachelard, Kuhn, Prigogine and Hanson). There are a number of orientations in the fielwork that Romanian studies do not examines and the methodologies of which they do not assume. Despite the fact that the notion of sex is seen as biology pattern and the term gender is perceived as a social construction within Romanian studies the two lines are ambiguous in structure. In relation to this topics, there may be somtimes the researchers are in many ways at the centre of the research process. It is sometimes easy to forget that the rules and the identities analyes in the field -male or female-, are restricted to the respondents.3In case of the researchers the social context impose to remind that the gender analysis must be studied in an inferring objective way because gender is both nature and nurture. When the research is developed from the vantage point of a large organization or from view point of a community the outcomes of the investigation will incorporate some effects taking into account the persons involved. Some of the cautions concerning the Romanian research in the fieldwork is the difficulty of generalizing beyond the fact that it is a dimension of social life. From the biological point of view it might be interesting to appreciate the socializing process into belonging to the particular gender. If the exegesis is correct it may be that the concept of "occupational gender segregation" might to be important.
On the other hand, in the Romanian particular context it is necessary to combine the both levels of knowledge, the empirical level ("Doxa") using empirical methods (observation and experiment) and the rational level ("Noesis") who intricates the „Doxa". In preparation of this meta-analyses we try to consider both levens, "Doxa" and "Noesis" because on both from them depends the development of a Romanian scientific epistemology on gender.
Perhaps in Romania as in the Balkan countries was misconstruct the idea of genders equality because of the "moral environment" (Dworkin, 1996).
An essential aspect of investigating gender is the stereotype. The scientific description on gender prejudice and stereotype might be exemplifyed in higher education. As can be seen analysing the data, the most using kind of error reasoning (misreasoning) in higher education3the gender prejudice. The written material provide that the scientific vocabulary contain the following terminology: the scholar prejudice, the didactic prejudice, the normality prejudice, the uniformity prejudice. Another characteristic of the university is that it is a place where the women have few chances to become professor just men do with age and if they publish. The transformation of the academic environment could be technically rebranded taking into account: a) the prejudice of superiority -the men professor are higher / better compared to their female counterparts, b) the power prejudice - working within an environment dominated by males that impose pressure to women, c) the reputation of the university excellence prejudice within the institutions dominated by men (the case of the universities) - the women are only good camaraders, d) danger or menace prejudice - the women universitaires are trated always by the performance because of the marginalisation pressure.
From the feminin leadership point of view the Romanian universities are confronted with similar problems as out of Romania's borders: structural barrieres or discrimination, gender roles and stereotypes, individual differences or deficiencies. In this context the gender discrimination is possible to be recorded as result of Romanian communism. This process of using such theoretical ideas could be considered a tool coming from the totalitarism and understanding as pedagogical project. The society in this case is a school which want to prepare the new human being as a finite product; school becomes an ideologic instrument. In that way the university becomes a place where the persons with "sound origin" are educated by the academics prototype to become a "multidimensional personality". The university is missing the substance and the mission, the words are not grounded in reality but allow a new interpretation of gender. The only one female exception admited in communism and validated by it was Elena Ceausescu. We argue that in the Romanian higher education from communism the quality of the teaching and of the researching was appraised by loose standards which combined academic with ideological and political criteria. In fact, the academic freedom is another major gain of the post-communist period. Essentially the evidences and the inferences are part of the scientific knowledge on Romanian gender. The epistemological limitations are involved in the process of making meaning on gender. The knowledge construction in contemporary legitimate the following questions and observations.
In Romania, gender studies are crossing the first phase of research who follow the Romanian communism, stage with long history but no solidity.
As documented in previous parts of the paper, it is necessary to assume the scientific reflexivity in the scientific dscourse.
Within the current research projects the representation of different narratives imposes innovative trends, universal guidelines, and traditional (in sense of patriarchal) values. Most rhetorical and discoursal effort has been directed contrary to the assumption, in many studies the uncertainity is promoted.
The discoursal understanding on Romanian gender is various: evidential discourses, interpretive discourses, evaluative discourses, methodological discourses. The most important risk is the discourse alteration as result of diffusion (the discourse is not in terms of the topic) or as the effect of heterogenity. Analysing the differences between the narratives identity we identify a dichotomic perspective: 1) discourses having internal identity- are many studies signed by authors afected by gender invisibly; 2)discourses having external identity - the authors promote gender partnership.
Taking into account both the discourse of conflict on Romanian gender and the discourse of agreemet we set all the red lights flashing concerning the dangerous practice in the field of producing "closed" textbooks, discourses or studies proposed from the academical or ideological view.
The multicultural view, the multiliteracy, the social construction establishes new senses of exploring gender. The persuasion of the wording is dependent from new procedures, other potential methods, scientific arguments, thinking schools and so on. The dialogic perspective could generating new scientific results. Beyond of these interpretive results the future development of gender studies in Romania could be explored in terms of the contemporary feminist contributions to culture; the exemplarly works of Ana Blandiana, the greatest feminist personality, are notorious.
3. Conclusions
The summarization process of current naratives on gender delineates some ideas.
The process of predicting aspects of a written text may also include the scientific vocabulary from the narratives. This meta-analysis as a metacognitive discussion consists in naming the general terms or reference to gender: roles of males and females, feminity, social reality, diversity management, personal safety, family, attitudes, gender equality, gender distribution, cultural pluralism, identity. The many different semantic registers offer a combination of discourses: discourses in technical terms, wording in neutral tone (neither formal or non-formal), discourses based on a standard vocabulary of gender, speeches using emotive language and so on.
The psychological, social, educational perspectives of Romanian gender are interrelated. In other words, the explicit epistemic understanding demonstrates the progress of the Romanian scientific knowledge on gender in accordance with substantive scientific knowledge, procedural scientific knowledge development, written literacy and visual literacy scientific development.
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