Gender Inequality

Inquirer - Nirvaan Shah

The best part of Grade 5 is the PYP Exhibition. I was excited about the whole process but at the same time I was curious about my inquiry considering we had online learning this year due to COVID-19. This exhibition gave me full ownership to showcase my passion and interdisciplinary skills. My project was an eye-opening experience, as I had never realised how men, women and transgenders are being treated unfairly. I gained new knowledge on a real world issue of 'Gender Inequality.' My inquiry and research gave me new perspectives on equal gender rights. My biggest takeaway from my project is that we really need to break our society's fixed stereotypes. Based on my first hand experience, I was very scared of transgenders, but my inquiry changed my perspective towards them. After exploring about their battles, I realised that transgenders are no aliens, they are normal humans just like us! It was interesting to learn that there are no gender based toys, colours and no work is gender based. My inquiry has left a very positive impact on me and now as a responsible citizen I am trying to take steps to make a difference for Gender Equality in my own way within my immediate environment. I hope you like my inquiry and research !

Mentor - Hetal Shah

Mentoring is a fantastic way to be an active part of the PYP Exhibition. This was my very first experience as a role of a mentor in facilitating a grade 5 student in his inquiry process. As a Grade 2 teacher, I have planned various inquiries but this one was a very special and an enriching one where I saw Nirvaan leading the whole inquiry cycle right from the planning stage to the final execution stage. The first time we met, I was amazed by the burning questions he had for his chosen topic - 'Gender Equality'. His hunger, his curiosity to explore and dig deeper about this global issue kept both of us motivated throughout the exhibition journey. This was a valuable learning experience to see how young learners became more responsible citizens by taking self initiated, smart and impactful actions to make this world a better place to live in !

Overall, for me mentoring was a rewarding journey which enabled me to witness how our young, budding inquirers were able to explicitly articulate their understanding on their chosen exhibition topics and transcend their perspectives to the community in an effective and engrossing way.

Team - Budding Equalists

Hello ! meet us, we are team Budding Equalists. My mentor and I chose this name because we are young and budding inquirers who were exploring and researching about the global issue of 'Gender Equality'.

This logo 'Helping Hands' represents my mentor's and my journey in the PYP Exhibition. We collaboratively explored the entire inquiry process. The logo also symbolises in achieving Gender Equality by helping each other and working together towards this global issue. If you notice, we did not use colour Pink to represent Female and colour Blue to represent Male as we strongly urge to break this stereotype and make an appeal to - 'Stop Splitting Humans into Pink and Blue'.

My Inspiration

I got inspired to choose Gender Equality as my PYP Exhibition research topic after watching the movie - 'Gunjan Saxena". Before my inquiry, I have always seen and realised that sports coaches, businessman etc. are the jobs performed by males and teachers, nurses etc. are the jobs performed by females. But this movie, Gunjan Saxena changed my perspective and I realised that women too can be superheroes in the fields of sports, army, leadership position. etc.

This video - Let's raise a Generation of Equals, shared by my mentor also inspired me to explore this global goal.

My Exhibition Journey

My exhibition journey began with the wonder questions I had after watching the movie - Gunjan Saxena and the Video - How often have we heard people say, "Ladki se haar gaya?" shared by my mentor. My mentor and me then explored this issue through the lenses of some people like Eshaan Hilal, Malala Yousafzai, Rudrani Chetri, Shirin Ebadi, etc. whole actually faced inequality in their lives because of their gender. Various other articles, videos, google from survey helped me understand the root cause of this issue.

The targets set by UN to achieve the SDG 5 - Gender Equality inspired me to plan my actions.

Despite the remarkable ways in which the global pandemic of COVID-19 had limited our face to face teaching and learning, but at the same time it gave us many new opportunities to adapt and explore digital learning techniques, different resources, various apps and IT skills which immensely helped us in our exhibition journey.

Sustainable Development Goals

The Sustainable Development Goals or Global goals are a collection of 17 interlinked global goals designed to be a ' blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all'.

I connected my inquiry with SDG 5 - Gender Equality.

Central Idea

Equal opportunities to all genders can make the world a better place

Lines of Inquiry

Inequality an unethical practice (Form)
Evolution of Gender equality over time (Change )
Global responsibility towards Gender equality (Responsibility)

My Research

You can explore my Research here.

Google Form Survey

You can check out my Google Form Survey here. The purpose of conducting this survey was to gather people's view on the world issue of Gender Inequality. This data collected through this survey helped me a lot in my research to understand the perspectives of people of different age groups, different genders, their struggles, unfair treatment they faced because of Gender Inequality and common stereotypes of our society.

You can view the Responses and data collected through the survey here.

My Presentation

You can have a look at my Presentation here.

My Action

My mentor showed me this video - You can make a Difference, an action taken by Megan Markle against Gender Inequality at an age of 12, it truly inspired me to plan my Circles of Action. No action is big or small and even the smallest action can have a big impact.

My Actions to achieve the goal of Gender Equality at home, towards my friends and people I know.

My Action Plan to spread awareness about Gender Equality in my community, school, building and neighbourhood.

My Action Plan to urge and appeal to the world to achieve the global goal of Gender Equality to make our world a more peaceful and a sustainable place to live in.

Let's break the stereotype of splitting the girls and boys into pink and blue colours.

Now is the time to stop giving children gender based toys. Let the toys be toys and let the toys help children play, enjoy and imagine.

As quoted by Save the Children Organization -“At the current rate of change, it will take over 200 years to achieve gender equality, and that’s just in the U.S. This is unacceptable.

Together, we can create a more equal world, right from the start.”

Page updated

Report abuse