Dr. Seline Keating:

A project I recently completed, entitled the Gender Equality Matters project, looked at tackling gender stereotyping, gender-based bullying and violence in schools. The project was quite successful in schools across Europe. The reason behind this success was that it was embedded in already existing school curriculum and policy. It addressed workload issues and curriculum overload as well. When one goes down the route of promoting respect and celebrating diversity, it is important that it is done in the school culture and fitted into and embedded within the existing school curriculum, so that teachers will have more confidence when delivering sensitive topics. What was key to that project was giving both teachers and parents the skill sets to have these conversations with their children and to teach these topics in the classroom context. Many teachers found that, prior to this, they shied away from teaching sensitive topics. Giving them the skills to teach and address these issues in the classroom is very important. That was achieved through the Gender Equality Matters project.