Gender equality is a political concept that emphasizes having the same equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities between genders in all areas of life such as work, money, knowledge, time, power and health. There are lots of movements around the world to raise awareness to gender equality and some of them are #HeForShe initiated by the United Nations (UN), #Metoo used by the American social activist Tarana Burke, and #Timesup by the Hollywood celebrities.
The third webinar was about gender (in)equality in education. The outline of the webinar was followed: key terms about gender equality, how gender equality is promoted in a classroom context, and gender representations in textbooks, and suggestions for teachers in terms of materials and interaction in the classroom to achieve gender equality in education.
I’ve learned two important key terms such as gender socialization and gender bias thanks to this webinar. Most people might talk about gender equality or inequality in the society but first, they need to know actually what the significant terms used in those kinds of discussions. It might show how you know the topic wisely.
Achieving gender equality in the teaching process might be a challenging task for teachers because there are many various parent types and school managers you might encounter. Some parents and school managers are so conservative that they do not let the students know what kind of hot issues in schools due to their perceptions, beliefs, cultures, or their background experience. However, teachers might apply the hidden curriculum in their classes. There some sources/textbooks emphasizing gender equality. One of them is “Paper Bag Princess”. It might be useful for young learners to raise awareness of gender equality by discussing the story as a whole class.
Gender equality has been a global issue for many years. Even though there are many movements to stop gender equality in society, the issue still keeps going to be one of the hot issues in today’s world. Teachers have a challenging task to apply methods for supporting gender equality in education against parents and school managers. Now I have more knowledge about what gender equality means and how I can achieve it in my lectures in detail. I will keep gender equality in my teaching and learning experience throughout life. Furthermore, I believe I am able to transfer comfortably what I have learned from those webinars to my friends, teachers, students, and colleagues in the future.
