Hungary to remove gender studies from university.

[Wokko]

https://www.dailywire.com/news/34412/hungary-remove-gender-studies-universities-says-ashe-schow?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

[Mugwump]

^ there was a great vogue in the 1980s for “Peace
Studies” at university. It was a kind of amalgam of international relations, history, and lots and lots of “cultural theory”, all more or less dedicated to promotiing the idea of unilateral western disarmament. The only subject which probably does belong in peace studies was military history, and that was entirely absent from the curriculum. As soon as the Berlin wall fell, so did peace studies.

These manufactured synthetic subjects on the margins of knowledge have a vogue and then they die. I imagine the same will happen, in time, with this scrapbook from psychology, sociology and literature/media. Meanwhile, spending public money on actual education instead seems a good idea.

[David]

Once the economic-justification metric is wheeled out to justify cutting subjects, you know that universities as a place of inquiry in the country are doomed. All part and parcel of the Orban regime’s brutal illiberalism.

[Mugwump]

[stui magpie]

only 2 universities in the country offered the course to a total of 13 people. Waste of resources.

[Pies4shaw]

That’s probably right in this case. You wouldn’t want to be making that “waste of resources” argument in respect of two highly specialised courses in, say, advanced theoretical physics, though. The world is full of things that are wastes of resources and I bet that there are plenty of other resources being wasted in Hungary, even as we speak. One might speculate that this cut is because there is a backlash against content, rather than resource expenditure. That’s scarcely a good reason for dictating how people should think and what they should study at university. Wokko, I assume, will be horrified by this development, given his commitment to freedom of speech. I expect he’ll be at the ramparts, defending such courses to the death.

[stui magpie]

If there was more of a demand than 13 people in the country, , they may have kept it.

At least a course in advanced theoretical physics has some benefits and if it was done well enough, places could be sold to overseas students.

[Pi]

The reality is a growing number of degrees are likely to be obsolete in the future or will change beyond recognition.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/careers/nearly-half-of-degrees-soon-to-be-worthless-leaving-students-with-more-debt-and-poor-job-prospects/news-story/983dce074b81ac1402b66433115d4e97

Gender studies will probably go back to what it used be, a one semester filler subject part of some other degree.

Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.

Does anyone actually do Latin in high school anymore?

[HAL]

Suppose they do.

[roar]

[Mugwump]

^ I broadly agree with that, but note two things. Firstly, the numbers doing it were not their main reason for closing it. Secondly, it depends on why there are small numbers. The numbers doing theoretical physics may be low because it is hard. The number of people doing (say) greeting card design might be low because it is rubbish.

As I said, This subject is akin to (say) “Constitutional monarchy studies”, which would be just as artificial and ideologically-loaded, though it’d probably do much more for human flourishing than gender studies. And If it existed, I bet some on here would think it a subject very ripe for culling !

[Nick - Pie Man]

[Flanker_33]

What's the whole point of gender studies anyways? What does it prepare you professionnally to do... apart from teaching gender studies?

That's why I went into legal studies and then joined the police instead of following my initial passion, history. I don't want to teach, and the other jobs related to that field are way too niche.

[stui magpie]

^

welcome aboard

[Pies4shaw]

I suppose it depends upon whether you see tertiary study as a means of getting vocational training, like a glorified TAFE, or enabling people to learn important critical thinking skills.

That's a response to your general point. I have no interest at all in the specific question whether people should or shouldn't do "gender studies".