Blog by Marie-Christine Gries, SI Representative at UNESCO, Paris.
“Among the online events marking UNESCO on March 8, Women’s Day, a webinar was held on the theme: “Smashing stereotypes: Challenging gender bias in and through education”. You can watch the full webinar here.
The objective of this interactive webinar was to discuss the gender bias throughout school, its impact on career pathways, the feeble fight against stereotypes, the lack of teacher training on this issue, and how to challenge this.
Experts and practitioners from the Transform Education network and United Nations Girls Education International (UNGEI), in dialogue with S. Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General, education sector, established their reflection on The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Programme for International Students Assessment. According to the results of the studies of this program, only 7% of girls compared to 15% of boys across the 37 OECD countries, expect to work in scientific and engineering professions. Less than 1% of girls want to work in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) related occupations, compared to almost 8% of boys. Girls are mainly aiming teaching and health professions where women are already overrepresented: in 2020: 94% of kindergarten teachers were women; they were 67% in primary and 54% in secondary. Three quarters of health and social care professionals are women.
The future professional choices of the rising generation are not going towards a rebalancing. Boys who want to go into teaching, health and social careers, are a minority. It has been noted over the years of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) surveys that the evolution is very slow and the data are almost stable on a set of 80 countries.
However, the academic results obtained by both girls and boys don’t explain such a distortion in career choices. The academic success of girls in science is even better than that of boys. There are no evidential gaps in STEM scholar results to justify the renunciation of girls in these vocational courses. Girls seem to lack confidence in their success (and probably fear imposing themselves in a male-dominated environment) despite their good academic performance, while boys tend to overestimate themselves by making choices that do not take into account their abilities measured by their academic performance.
Distortions of behavior arise from gender stereotypes and norms. These norms lead young people to make professional choices compatible with a standard of behavior established according to gender. The internalisation of stereotypes is all the stronger as gender conditioning begins from early age in the family. Men are penalised just as much as women by conforming to a strict personality model, which inhibits the development of everyone’s intellectual potential, regardless of gender.
In addition, violence is at the rendezvous: studies show that young men who adhere strictly to gender norms are more likely to suffer and commit acts of harassment and to declare having committed them towards women or girls.
Family and social environment shapes individuals, but school is not left behind: textbooks and school tools are indicative of a transmission of stereotypes. The quantitative examination of the texts and illustrations proves the strong presence of gender norms in the roles given to the characters, especially in the representation of professions.
Teachers are usually unprepared to fight against the spread of stereotypes. PISA studies on the behavior of teachers reveal that they are mostly unaware of the transmission of stereotypes in the school system and their own role they could play. As Ms. Giannini told, stereotypes thrive in silence when teachers are not armed for this struggle.
Once more, it has been told that education needs a transformative approach on gender, with the learners encouraged to develop critical thinking on stereotypes and norms, the capacity to refuse end eliminate stereotypes from which they suffer, and promote equality.
Exchanges between the participants highlighted five crucial points: It is necessary to listen to young people to understand how the victims are affected, to put an end to silence in education, to train teachers, to start the fight early with young children and to develop indispensable partnerships between teachers and parents, with openness to the local community.
With stereotypes rooted for generations, the ground seems hard and the path slow to trace, but time is running out. Milestones are being set in international and multi-stakeholder consultation with UNESCO, within the framework of the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIPE).”
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