Families in the mirror and women on the edge. Using comics to teach and learn about family and gender dynamics in the sociology classroom

Abstract

This chapter highlights the power of comics in the field of higher education with a focus on teaching for diversity and inclusion, particularly United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Examples are drawn upon pedagogical exercises explored in the university classroom. In the context of a course aimed at sociology undergraduate students, Argentinian Maitena Burundarena’s (b. 1962, Buenos Aires) work is used to explore diverse contemporary family issues and the related ever-changing gender roles. At the end, humor is used to provoke strangeness with a relatively close behavior, thus applying the sociological principle of “turning the familiar strange” and, consequently, achieving reflexivity regarding the topics under analysis.