Gender Beliefs and Stereotypes in Professional Activities (LS-DI-569)
My name is Ana Paula Alves, and I designed this Learning Scenario for 3rd cycle (12-13 years old) students. Since Gender Equality is a subject transversal to society, its insertion in the curriculum requires a transversal approach, both in subject areas and subjects and in activities through cross-curriculum activities. I have implemented this scenario during a class on Citizenship Education in Portugal, which is offered for the 2nd and 3rd cycle of primary education.
Aims of the scenario
Have your students reflected on what gender stereotypes are? And do they know their implications? This learning scenario gives you an excellent example of introducing students to the topic of Gender Equality. Students will reflect and discuss this topic based on resources found in the Europeana Galleries and pictures of women and men in professional activities (Why is that a function for a woman/man – or both?).
Teachers motivate students to act on such discussions (What should be changed for a more just society? How could we contribute?).
To conclude their reflection, students will create a campaign poster of Gender Equality that allows for confrontations and discussions about gender issues, especially the consequences of this issue for society.
Learning Activities
The sequence of learning activities had three stages:
- Firstly, it introduced a reflection and discussion around gender stereotypes and gender equality. Students were invited to explore the problem.
- Afterwards, students were presented with a hands-on activity – they created gifs based on Europeana’s resources. They had to transmit inequalities or called for more significant equity between women and men. They explored the website “How to make a gif?” to learn how to produce a gif with Europeana content (e.g., Gender gaps & inequality illustrated by GIFs). The resources they selected must have a licence CC BY-SA.
- Next, they created a campaign poster, and some of them have included the gifs they have made. They explored the website “how to make a poster using Canvas” and the templates for campaign posters on Canva’s free poster maker to be inspired!
- Finally, they have reflected on what they could do to share their learning and spread attention to this problem.
Gifs – examples
Image source, rights statement CC BY-SA
Image source, rights statement CC BY-SA
Poster – example
Example of a Campaign poster Gender Equality.
Conclusion
These activities brought new ideas to continue the work (for example, making alert videos, workshops, calling experts). Gender stereotypes is an important subject, which is worthy of debate with students. I firmly believe Gender equality is a theme we want to introduce across the curriculum and to continue promoting in our classrooms.
Would you like to know more about this learning scenario? You can download it below:
Did you find this learning scenario interesting? You might also like:
CC BY 4.0: the featured image used to illustrate this article has been found on Europeana and has been provided by the Wellcome Collection.