Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
BUDAPEST
2004
CONTENTS
Editorial note
Akos Farkas
A Dash of Blood Orange: The Reception of Anthony Burgess
in Hungary__________________________________________
M&rta Hargitai
The circle, the square and the quadratura circuli
or the mandala in Shakespeare's King Lear_______________________17
fiva Szab6
The Effect of Experience and Training
on Young Teachers' Approach to Correcting Errors______________31
Gyorgy Varga
The Way the Dictionaries Were Bom __________________________ 41
Mikl6s Moln&r
New Approaches to American Studies:
Interactive Ways of Developing Cultural Contacts______________ 49
Eva Thun
Gendering the School Curriculum:
Approaches to Hungarian Educational Policies from a Gender Studies
Perspective ______________________________________________ 61
Zsuzsanna Vall6
Teaching Theatre Text Translation or the 4 T 's ___________________73
Zsuzsa N. T6th and Andrea Erdei
Towards Objective Performance Assessment____________________83
Marta Goldmann
Crisis in the writing of university and college theses
in Hungarian higher education________________________________95
------------
61
Eva Thun
62
63
64
65
"On the whole, it can be said that (1) the issue of social and regional
inequality has received marked attention throughout the decade, (2)
the issue of the education of minorities in general, and that of Gypsies
in particular, has been given more attention since the middle of the 90s,
but it is not fully integrated into the whole of education policy, (3) the
education of special needs students is invariably one of the peripheral
issues of education policy, and (4) the issue of the equality of the gen
ders has not appeared on the agenda of policy makers" (Report on Pub
lic Education in Hungary, 2000).
67
69
Feminist Discourses
The lack of a feminist construct in current Hungarian society is often justi
fied with the 'there is no need' argument: feminism is not needed, because of
the negative experience of the communist 'solution to the woman question'.
The socialist-communist system discredited emancipation and the 'woman
question' when, through the implementation of bureaucratic measures, they
forced women into 'equality' against their own will (Thun 2001).
Jirina Siklova (1996) comments on all the women's issues raised by West
European feminisms, such as employment of women, domestic violence
against women, and sexist representation of women in the media, and con
cludes that they are often portrayed in Central Eastern Europe as the luxury
of western women. Women's facing the glass ceiling in their careers is por
trayed as the result of individual psychological problems. Discussions of the
social construction of the role of motherhood are relegated to the realm of
philosophy.
"Thus, feminist issues are interpreted as psychological or philo
sophical issues, while feminism is portrayed as an extremist ideology.
As we are at present wary of any ideologies, it is unsurprising that fem
inism is not attracting followers." (Siklova 1996: 94)
In summary, feminist activism, which would have the potential of putting
pressure on policy changes, and which has been in the western experience a
forceful tool for change, is struggling to gain voice in Hungary at the moment.
Therefore, it is unlikely that it could become the initiator of policy changes.
Concluding Cautionary Notes
There is a growing amount of literature which interrogates and critiques
the involvement of feminist academics as educators in the policy initiatives
targeting the promotion of "gender equity" in education. Chandra Mohanty
(1990) points out that equity is "a term of concealment". It functions to confirm
traditional rules and relations by declaring the right of non-dominant per
sons to "assume the position" of dominance and to do the same things as "the
normatively sanctioned subject of human rights".
Mary Bryson, and Suzanne de Castell (1993) also emphasise the 'aggres
sively dominant' normalising character of gender equity prerogatives when
they argue that:
70
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Zsuzsanna Vallo