Teaching gender equality today: experiences and reflections from secondary schools

Abstract

Discrimination based on gender differences, violence and constant incidents of femicide across all age groups have led to greater public awareness of the need for schools to take action to educate students about respect and prevent such dramatic forms of violence. At the same time, however, there remains strong political and institutional resistance, with gender difference education considered a private matter to be relegated to families. This contribution will attempt to reconstruct the current state of the art on the role of schools in preventing gender discrimination, highlighting the risks associated with a lack of attention to this aspect of school education, the first and only formal educational agency responsible for training young people, the citizens of the future. The second part of the paper will highlight the results of a study conducted on a sample of secondary school teachers in lower and upper secondary schools on their classroom practices in relation to this issue. The data collected highlight the need to invest in their initial and in-service training so that they can teach and educate in a critical manner towards established knowledge in order to propose more open, inclusive and equal teaching and relational methods.