LiDS Lunch Lecture mit Dr. Naomi Kagawa

LiDS Lunch Lecture 
"How do we communicate at university: a case study in Japan from gender perspectives" by Dr. Naomi Kagawa

Literacy is often defined as the ability to read and write at an appropriate level. As literacy allows us to engage with written and spoken language, it is an essential skill for human beings to connect with the society. The idea of critical literacy reminds us that language is closely linked to politics and power in society. Paulo Freire (1970) discussed how language is used to maintain the current social structure where the people in power and the privileged decide what the normal is in the society, and critical literacy skill provides us with a lens to critically examine how inequity and social injustices are kept in the society. 

Our research aims to elucidate the causes of gender inequity in universities in Japan. Only 18.8% of full professors and 13.9% of university presidents are women in Japan (Gender Equity Bureau Cabinet Office in Japan, 2023). Our research team has a mission to collect good practices in supporting female researchers in universities in Germany, Sweden, the U.S., and Korea to find a way for us to balance the gender inequity in Japan. We also have conducted a survey in our university to understand our faculty’s perceptions and communication behaviors that might lead to gender inequity. 

In this talk, I will share what we found so far and possible implications of these findings. I would like to invite audience to join the discussion about how we can use critical literacy to tackle gender inequity in universities’ working environments.