Gender-Sensitive Learning Communities: A Case Study

This article presents a case study of the course “The Third Sector Facing Gender Issues”, conducted between 2023 and 2025 as part of FQTS, a training project for leaders and volunteers in the Third Sector of Southern Italy. The course is analyzed as an experiment in a gender-sensitive learning community: an educational space involving both women and men, aimed at promoting a transformation of gender cultures within organizational cultures, power dynamics and society at large. The theoretical references include the concept of ‘community’ as interpreted by Bauman in relation to that of organization, and pedagogy as a tool for individual and social emancipation, as proposed by hooks. The study highlights how the course enabled the emergence of certain issues that participants – especially women – found difficult to address within their organizations. The investigation was carried out through two main actions: fostering public dialogues among participants during various in-person meetings across different cities, which were treated as a qualitative corpus and subjected to thematic analysis; and conducting interviews with key informants. This article focuses on the results of the first action, which brought to light the prejudices and silent resistances that oppose gender equality, as well as various elements useful for planning future training activities.