Qualification Profile

The programme focuses on students who wish to develop expertise in women’s and gender history as well as European history and who are interested in intercultural exchange and competences. Local and transnational education will be provided through student and faculty mobility. The European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) and Diploma Supplements guarantee transparency and comparability of acquired qualifications. Supranational qualification assurance mechanisms will encourage a European dimension to the programme.

Learning objectives
  • Knowledge of the historicity of gender norms, roles and relations
  • Competence to analyse past and ongoing socio-cultural processes in local and supranational contexts
  • The mastering of adequate methodological skills: awareness of the variety of historical methods, of critical approaches toward all forms of knowledge and of the quality of change in terms of historical interests, categories and problems in diverse political, social, and geographical contexts
  • Ability to participate in international scientific discussions, in mainstream history, in the fields of women’s and gender history and of equal opportunity policies
  • Awareness of the European dimension of history, awareness of a concept of history beyond the local, regional, and the national dimension
  • Project oriented teamwork
  • The recognition of the importance of cooperation and communication in learning, teaching, and research within transnational networks
  • Critical reflection on the predispositions of the discipline


Competences to be acquired
  • Competence to carry out historical and transdisciplinary analyses and syntheses
  • Comparative analysis competence
  • Practice in comparative production of historical knowledge
  • Information management skills: students learn how to handle sources of information, how to get access and evaluate information (libraries, archives, teachers, internet, etc.)
  • Social and communicative competences
  • Adaptional skills due to the application of a multi-perspective approach


Professional perspectives

The Master Programme will qualify participants to mediate discussions and findings of women’s and gender history in various fields such as schools, adult education, universities; PR, policy advice; journalism; museums, memorial sites, archives and exhibitions.

  • Students will be able to foster and manage diversity
  • Students will be able to raise awareness for historical processes, for cultural and social differences/similarities, for the long lasting effects of gendered rights and norms by drawing attention to gender difference as a template for other differences
  • Students will be experts in questions regarding gender relations
  • In the field of socio-political work students are especially prepared for tasks in gender mainstreaming, the management of equal opportunities, and the presentation of social and communicative processes


Need in society

MATILDA clearly responds to several needs in society. The teaching of history has the fundamental objective of acquiring a rational and critical perspective and insight into the past in order to understand the presence and its demands of informed citizenship more readily. Matilda graduates will have aquired sound knowledge in the recognition of inequalities caused by politics of gender differences in society. A key component to play a significant role in change is to emphasise a „society of learning“ in addition to the well known “knowledge society“. Knowledge is as important as specific qualifications. The Matilda education teaches students to navigate knowledge in cultural and historical context and prepares them to infuse contemporary with historical knowledge in a solid merger.