Gender Equality Training for Students in Higher Education: Scoping Review

Background: Despite recent improvements, gender inequality persists within the higher education sector, as evidenced by the proportionally greater number of student and academic leadership positions occupied by male students and staff. Gender equality education and training for students may help to develop awareness, knowledge, and skills among individual students, building capacity to address biases and accelerate culture change in higher education institutions. Objective: We aimed to identify and explore the existing literature on gender equality training interventions for students in tertiary education, with a particular emphasis on training content, methodology, and outcome evaluation. Methods: The 6-stage framework developed by Arskey and O’Malley was used to map the literature related to current best practice in gender equality training for students in higher education. Systematic database searches of peer-reviewed literature were carried out and 3142 titles, 333 abstracts, and 52 full-text articles were screened for eligibility with 14 (27%) articles selected for inclusion in this review. Results: The selected studies detailed a range of pedagogical approaches, including didactic lectures, participatory and co-design workshops, reflective writing, and service-learning, with durations ranging from a single interaction to 1 year. Most articles reviewed did not explicitly state their study aims or research question, and the theoretical underpinnings were generally vaguely described. The longer-term impact of most interventions was unclear, as evaluation metrics seldom go beyond the level of adoption. Conclusions: This scoping review shows that the literature base for gender equality training for tertiary students lacks coherence, highlighting the need for further work to evaluate its impact. This work provides a foundation for developing training design recommendations.