A Class That Turned Around Kids' Assumptions of Gender Roles

Purpose, Scope or Aim of the OER

The aim of this resource is to help teachers and students to question and counter the stereotype surrounding some professions. This video introduces teachers on how gender stereotypes from a young age can ultimately determine the subjects that boys and girls will study in school, and the careers they will pursue because of what they have studied.

Short Description of the methods or approaches used in this OER

Through this short video, the aim is to introduce teachers to the impact that gender stereotypes have on students in their class. The video highlights how stereotypes come into play at an early age and can determine the academic and professional pathways that girls and boys follow. By introducing this concept to teachers at the Basic Level, our aim is to guide teachers in questioning their own gender bias and stereotypes, and to better understand how these stereotypes might impact their teaching practice.

This video can be played as an introductory video for this topic, and the teachers can introduce the following activity to students in their class, as a prompt to start a conversation with students about how their own gender bias and stereotypes can influence what they think of certain professions.

Step-by-step instructions for teachers to use OER

⦁ Ensure that you have internet connection and access to a laptop, projector and screen.
⦁ Ensure that everyone in the class has three sheets of paper to draw on.
⦁ Play the video on the projector and pause at 10 seconds.
⦁ Allow the class 5 minutes to draw what they believe a firefighter looks like.
⦁ While they are drawing Skip forward to 26 Seconds in the video
⦁ Once they have finished drawing the firefighter play the video and it will ask them to draw a surgeon.
⦁ Allow another 5 minutes for them to draw.
⦁ Finally, they draw a Fighter Pilot.
⦁ Once the students have drawn all three, play the video from 0.58 seconds.
⦁ Ask the students: What do they think? Did anyone draw a female? Why didn’t they?

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