Children receive and absorb gender stereotyped messages about what they can and cannot do as a girl or as a boy from a very early age. Research strongly suggests that there is no inherent difference between girls and boys which should limit their interests, capabilities, or ambitions. And yet, we recognise that subject choice, and many subsequent work and life choices, are highly gendered.

The Improving Gender Balance and Equalities Programme aims to establish interventions to effect long-term cultural change with a particular focus on challenging gender stereotypes and addressing the impacts of unconscious bias to encourage greater gender balance across occupations.

A team of six officers work with Early Learning and Childcare (ELC), Primary, Secondary and Community Learning and Development (CLD) providers on a regional basis to develop and embed practical ways to address gender bias and tackle inequity in learning.

Resources by sector

Links to further resources for practitioners to use to help provide ongoing and sustained opportunities to reflect on gender stereotypes.

Sharing Practice

Examples of practice that aim to counter the effects of gender stereotypes and unconscious bias, from educational establishments in Scotland. Some examples will work in any setting, others will need to be adapted to your particular context.

Background

The Improving Gender Balance and Equalities (IGBE) programme is working with school clusters to explore and assess interventions to address gender imbalances in participation, curricular preferences and learner pathways at every stage (3 – 18 years).

We know that children receive and absorb gender stereotyped messages about what they can and cannot do as a girl or as a boy from a very early age.

Research strongly suggests that there is no inherent difference between girls and boys which should limit their interests, capabilities or ambitions. And yet, we recognise that subject choice, and many subsequent work and life choices, are highly gendered.

We promote a whole-establishment approach, in order to tackle the root causes of gender imbalances, in a sustained and embedded way.

Other resources

Note on copyright

The Institute of Physics (IOP) materials are made available with the kind permission of the Institute of Physics (© Institute of Physics 2017). Re-use of these materials is subject to the IOP copyright policy.

Improvement questions

Are there ongoing and sustained opportunities for children and young people to reflect on gender stereotypes?

How do these resources help us to recognise and address our own unconscious bias?

How could these resources support improved gender balance in subject uptake and widen learner pathways?

How do these resources contribute to whole-establishment improvement?