Our project

Project description

“Achieving gender equality is central to the protection of human rights, the functioning of democracy, respect for the rule of law and economic growth and sustainability. The promotion of gender equality in and through education is a prerequisite to the achievement of de facto equality between women and men in all spheres of life in society”(Council of Europe,2015b,p.5).

Despite the great progress towards gender equality in different countries in the last decades there are remaining obstacles that cannot be left to change.

Among the other entities that have responsibilities in those expected changes, the education system assumes a privileged position to reverse the situation (Council of Europe, 20152a), to change the mindset of younger generations of girls and boys, but also of adult women and men, either as students or professionals. By avoiding transmitting gender stereotypes, about duties and interests, formed on the basis of the gender social order, the school can help girls and boys to work to reach their true and full potential, empowering their personal freedom of choice, enlarging the range of their role models and promoting their ability to be critical thinkers rather than consumers. Such lenses will help them to be more able to identify situations of discrimination, oppression and inequality, not only based on biological sex, but also on other personal or social identities of individuals.

It is not possible to promote fundamental citizenship values through education systems if some of the main problems of society are left aside from the curricular priorities. Gender discriminations and inequalities in several areas of both private and public life are among such topics which should be included along with core matters that schools used to include in curricula.

The need to launch this project on Gender Equality came up after analyzng the results of a questionnaire applied to more than 200 students in the five countries of this partnership established to develop the project Family, Community and School, the troika of my values. It was shown that there was a significant stereotyping of men and women's roles in society and which are not acceptable in the society of the 21st century. The need to tackle the problem of inequalities between men and women in society is a reality and education is an important field to start. Moreover, the number of domestic violence are increasing in some countries like Portugal and, according to specific literature, one of the reasons is related to the lack of equality between men and women.

Also, during the new subject created in Portugal, Citizenship and Development, teachers noticed that the students still h