Gender Equality showcase

Gender Equality
through citizenship

The World Health Organisation
describes gender as referring to ‘the
socially constructed roles, behaviours,
activities, and attributes that a given
society considers appropriate for men
and women.’
Citizenship can be viewed as being
about a feeling (identity), a status
(rights) and a practice (taking action).

Year 6 children, explored how gender
roles and expectations influence identity
and rights. The hope being that this will
inspire pupils to take action to question
norms and dominant masculinities to
bring about greater gender equality.
This is linked to Sustainable Development
Goal 5 which aims to achieve gender
equality and empower all women & girls.

Over the past few years, The Leys Primary School has
collaborated with students in Nepal and this current
work on gender equality was prompted by learning
about the Girls Empowerment and Mainstreaming
Sustainability (GEMS) project. It is implemented by
Aasaman Nepal and jointly funded by the British
Council and UK Aid through VSO’s ACTIVE programme.
The project aims to create lasting change by
promoting inclusivity and equitable development in
the country. It places a strong emphasis on advancing
girls' education, enhancing healthcare accessibility,
and empowering women and girls.

What do we already know
about expectations around
gender roles and identities and
what do we feel about this?

Pupils in this lesson:
• considered gender identities and roles
• separated adjectives, jobs, domestic duties
and childcare responsibilities into sets of
men, women or both men and women
• carried out sentence completion exercises,
individually and in single sex groups, to
consider how expectations around gender
roles impact on their lives and those of
their peers.

Adjectives
Groups comprised of
all girls felt all the
adjectives provided
could apply to both
men and women.

For groups that were made up of both boys and girls or boys only,
there were some adjectives that were felt to be gender specific.

Jobs
All-girl groups
believed the jobs
provided could apply
to both men and
women equally.

2 out of 3 groups
that were made up of
both boys and girls or
boys only, felt there
were some jobs that
were gender specific.

Domestic roles
All of the girl groups plus
1 out of 3 mixed groups,
felt the domestic roles
could apply to both men
and women equally.

The one boy group plus
2 out of 3 mixed groups,
felt some of the
domestic roles were
gender specific.

Childcare
This was the first
category where an
all-boys group felt
that the different
tasks could apply to
both men and
women equally.

Interestingly, this was also the first category where an
all-girls group felt that some of the tasks were gender
specific with the majority being assigned to women.

The last Venn Diagram was discussed as a whole class and the
students came up with the following possible explanations:
• Some dads work long hours so are not around to help with chores
• Some children are cared for by a single parent
which is often their mum
• Mums know individual family preferences
(e.g. food) better than dads do
• People conform to historic stereotypes

Gender equality and empowerment

The students then sought to complete the following sentences:
Dress: As a boy/girl I am expected to dress …………………..
Sport: As a boy/girl I am expected to dress …………..
Feeling sad: As a boy/girl when I am feeling sad I am expected to …..
Some of their answers are shared on the next few pages.

The children them moved into single sex groups (with clear class
ground rules set in terms of showing respect and understanding for
each other’s opinions) to answer the following questions:
What we never want to have said, thought, or done, to us or people
in our group again.
What we want the whole world to know about our group.

CREDITS: This presentation template was
created by Slidesgo, and includes icons by
Flaticon, and infographics and images by Freepik