SDG 4 - Where do you Stand ?

Introduction

Raise your voice (By Andrea Piacquadio from pexels.com)

In the EU, Gender Equality Index contributes to monitoring progress on gender equality. This Index integrates several domains such as work, money, knowledge, time, power, health, violence and intersecting inequalities.

At the European level, gender equality has an index of 67.9 / 100 points, increasing 4.1 points since 2010 and only 0.5 points since 2017. If this trend occurs, this means that it will take 60 years for Europe to achieve gender equality. In order to counter this trend, education must play a fundamental role.

Education is a lifelong process with a key role in economic and social development. However, in all education and training cycles, men and women continue to face situations of discrimination that can affect their personal, academic and professional choices. Overcoming these barriers can reduce gender inequalities in all spheres of a person's life.

Thus, schools must make an effort to eliminate gender discrimination, constituting an essential part of human rights education, respect for rights and individual freedoms and to build active citizens.

Through some cases of gender discrimination (and other type of discrimination), students are led to reflect on whether or not they agree with certain attitudes, developing their critical spirit and capacity to react and mobilize others to face discrimination situations.

Action Areas

Community participation

Learning Objectives

Cognitive learning objectives:

The learner understands that education can help create a more sustainable, equitable and peaceful world.
The learner understands the role of education, in empowering and ensuring the full participation of all genders.

Socio-emotional learning objectives:

The learner is able to raise awareness of the importance of quality education for all, a humanistic and holistic approach to education, ESD and related approaches
The learner is able to identify and speak up against all forms of gender discrimination and debate the benefits of full empowerment of all genders.

Behavioural learning objectives:

The learner is able to contribute to facilitating and implementing quality education for all
The learner is able to promote gender equality in education.
The learner is able to promote the empowerment of young people

Competences

Collaboration competency
Critical thinking competency
Self-awareness competency

Instructions

Step 1) Introduction (10 minutes)

Start the session explaining the scope of the project or the educational process in question. The SDG 4 refers to quality education – show the short video to introduce the SDG from resources section.
Briefly introduce the SDG through a short introductory reflection based on the vídeo:

The promotion of a safe, inclusive and respectful school environment is important for the achievement of quality education. It is the responsibility of all of us to contribute to a quality school, without violence and discrimination in order to ensure the safety and health of all students and educators.

Step 2) Activity (40 minutes)

Tell participants that they should imagine that on one side of the room there is a minus (-) sign and that on the opposite there is a plus (+) sign.

Explain that you are going to read out statements and then those participants who disagree with the statement should move to the side of the room with the minus sign. Those who agree should move to the side with the plus sign. Participants must always stand on one side, they cannot be in the middle.

Read out the first statement (Some Examples of Statements in the Note for educators).

Once everybody is standing in their chosen position ask those by the walls, in turn, to explain to the others why they chose that position. They should try to convince the rest of the group that they are right and therefore, that the others should join them.

Allow between 5-8 minutes for this.

When everyone has spoken, invite anyone who wishes to change their position to do so.

Now read a second statement and repeat the process.

Once all the statements have been discussed go straight away into the evaluation.

Step 3) Evaluation and debriefing (20 minutes)

Start by asking the following questions:

How did you feel during the exercise?
Was it difficult to choose? Why?
What sorts of arguments were used, those based on fact or those which appealed to the emotions?
Which were more effective?
Are there any comparisons between what people did and said during this exercise and reality?
Are the statements valid?
Was the exercise useful?

These statements are related to the school environment. However, discrimination can happened in other life situations. Can you give some examples? At work, do you think you can face discrimination? Can you give some examples?

- CALL TO ACTION 1

School-based discrimination unfortunately occurs in many schools around the world. Do some research on some real cases of gender discrimination in schools in your country and create a campaign on social networks to draw attention to this problem. In this campaign, you can also include some tips on how young people can react when faced with discrimination. Ask your school to help you spread the word about this campaign to several schools.

- CALL TO ACTION 2

Organize a workshop on gender discrimination, inviting an expert on this topic. You can look for an NGO which works on this topic and / or an academic specialist. Planning this event by defining its objectives, the day and place, the number of participants, the list of materials needed, the dissemination of the same and the registration of the participants. Since the workshop has a limited number of participants, think of a strategy to disseminate the results of this workshop. For example, you can make news about this event and post it in the school newspaper or through a post on social networks.

Requirements

Flip chart and markers
A list of statements
Computer
Internet connection
Projector

Resources

Click each section below to see all resources available.

Videos

ODS 4 | Educación de calidad

Notes for Educators

Estimated Total Duration: 1 hour and 10 minutes + Call to Action

Preparation

Group size: 10 to 40 people
Before starting the activity write down the statements on flip chart

Tips for the facilitator

In order to facilitate participation you may invite members who are particularly silent to voice their opinion. In the same way, ask someone who intervenes too often to wait a bit.
The statements are necessarily controversial. It is important to explain this at the end of the evaluation.

Depending on the group you can develop the discussion on several points:

Despite their ambiguity, there is also a certain truth in the statements. Explain the fact that in all communication different people understand different things in the same statement. It is also normal that people think differently and differ about what they think. There is not necessarily a right or wrong attitude or position. What is more important is to know and understand the reasons that motivated the position
Try to draw out the links with the reality of everyday life. Often we think only about one side of a problem. It also happens that we are sometimes asked to support an issue but not always given the chance to think deeply about why we should do so.
You could ask the group to consider how this affects democracy.
How much do we actually listen to other people's arguments? How well do we make our points clear? The more vague we are the more we nourish ambiguity and risk being misunderstood
How consistent are we in our opinions and ideas?

Some Examples of Statements

Faced with a situation of physical violence between colleagues (e.g say jokes, push, take away things…), I record the situation on my cell phone to later report it.
In the face of a violent dating situation, I choose not to react because I don't know what happened.
A friend of mine was a victim of cyberbullying because he does ballet. I decided to walk away from him for fear of reprisals from other colleagues.
One of the classmates has a pejorative nickname. However, as everyone calls him, I will also call him by that nickname.
A new gypsy colleague entered the class. I know the family is violent so I decide to stay away from him.
In physical education classes, I notice that one of my colleagues has marks of violence. However, if she didn't talk about it, it is because she doesn't want to, though I'm worried.
In a situation where I need to defend myself, the use of violence is necessary.
A 15-year-old schoolmate became pregnant. She decides to leave school. I think she did so because our colleagues were always sending jokes and she felt sad.
A young woman has to choose the course to attend secondary school. Although her favorite subjects are science and mathematics, the family says she is very good at teaching. Thus, the young woman decides to take a humanistic course.

Source