Gender equality in education and learning: Children's Parliament report

Appendix 1

Workshop ideas

As part of our discussions some girls began developing workshop ideas that would support boys in understanding more about gender inequality. Below are some brief examples of their ideas:

Stereotypes

Workshops for boys to explain the idea of stereotypes and how some stereotypes are sexist.

Supporting them to deal with the pressures they are under to live up to these sexist stereotypes and teaching them that it's ok to experience feelings and emotions.

Team building in mixed groups

'Fun activities for boys and girls together to break down the gender stereotypes set up by adults and make it less "them and us."' Primary girl

Activities should be wide-reaching and cover areas that may be viewed as traditionally 'for boys' or 'for girls'

The Brown Eye/Blue Eye experiment reworked with gender

Boys arrive at school one day and the teachers, without explaining, treat them the way that girls are treated. They let the girls go first for break and lunch and allow them to have longer breaks, tell the boys they cannot play football, say that the girls have all the power that week, they can no longer play football in the playground etc. as the girls are playing, then at the end of the week explain to the boys that this is what life is like for girls.

Gender switching

'A day where boys and girls switch for a day so they can see what being a girl is like.' Primary girl. Teachers could reverse gendered language, praising boys for neatness and appearance and girls for strength etc.

A day in the life

Workshops led by girls where they tell the story of a day in their life at school (to express how awful it is) and the boys then re-write the story to make it gender equal. This could promote understanding and empathy. Part of the workshops would be to acknowledge the pressures that boys are under to live up to sexist stereotypes and to help them find ways to express their feelings other than through anger.

Listening to girls

Boys listen to girls as they share experiences and ask questions of each other. Girls illustrated this on the back of one of their props, see appendix 3.