Civil society, gender, and peace. Insights into teaching-integrated research

Abstract The extent to which the special commitment of women or gender-political initiatives influences peace processes and peacebuilding can be seen in their fight against militarisation and in their fight against social inequality in its many forms. The aim of many of these organisations is to make gender-specific issues such as sexualised violence in times of war visible, to criticise backlash movements in post-conflict societies and to address hierarchical gender relations in general. The focus here is on women’s and gender-political peace organisations in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, how they define and want to achieve peace, what their goals, scope for action, strategies etc. are. The survey was conducted as part of a project seminar in the winter semester of 2022/23. In line with the omnipresent premise of the unity of research and teaching in everyday university life and the approach of research-based learning, the students were accompanied in their own research process on the topic. The direct practical relevance of civil society organisations as a potential field of work and the topicality of the subject played a key role. The project seminar was accompanied by an introspection by the teacher, a professional dialogue with the colleague and feedback from the students. In addition to the content-related results of the seminar from a comparative perspective, a meta-analysis of learning and research on current, practice-oriented topics, taking into account the framework conditions and challenges, is the subject of the research article presented here. This is also intended to make a contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning and to establish an interdisciplinary link between feminist research, peace and conflict research and university didactics.