Gender Differences: Understanding each other on different levels Erasmus Project

Project Title

Gender Differences: Understanding each other on different levels

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : School Exchange Partnerships

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Cultural heritage/European Year of Cultural Heritage; Gender equality / equal opportunities

Project Summary

Gender differences – cultural differences – historical differences … and similarities
The project has shown that either of these three terms could have been used to meet the objectives of it. 18 students from each country were accompanied by 6 teachers to Viersen, Avola and Huelva. Unfortunately, the Italian group could not participate in the mobility in Cesis due to the lockdown in Italy during the Covid 19 pandemic.
Finding students proved to be easy, but finding an equal number of boys and girls for the project could not be made sure of for the schools in Cesis and Viersen, where the number of girls exceeded that of the boys by far. The Spanish group consisted of almost the same number of boys and girls, and only the Italian group managed to find enough boys. The reasons for boys not to participate may be manifold, but they cannot be evaluated as those who were asked as to why they refrained from participating were mostly too shy to answer.
Those boys who participated integrated well into the different teams that were formed in the mobilities, proving that coeducation is the right means to further gender equality. In the working sessions as well as in their free time on excursion and in the evenings the students mixed in different groups, bigger and smaller, thus involuntarily fulfilling the objective of “developing multicultural and interpersonal skills”.
To support the achievement of this objective actively a variety of methods was employed, of which only a number will be highlighted here. Working on the Kamishibai for the presentation in Avola the students had to find out about less often mentioned, but important women from their area. This method was completely new for both teachers and students, and it was later awarded a prize by the Italian Ministry for Gender Equivalence (objectives no. 2 and 3: creation and development of new methods)
In Huelva almost the whole school community participated in a day of international games that had been prepared by the Erasmus+ students plus a group of local students to add some more ideas, like dancing Zumba ® in the forest (objective no. 1: exchange of good practices)
In Cesis the students’ group looked back into their ancestors’ way of life and into their own ideas for their future. Looking back was supported by real life adventure, getting into historical costumes and customs, becoming gentry and peasants, pilgrims and craftsmen and –women. Looking ahead demanded artistic skills to show where they saw themselves in twenty years ahead. (Objective no. 5)
In Viersen the students had to do a number of Metalog® training tools to improve their dexterity as a group, to function as a team and win against other groups, r to rely on others and show their trust in them.
The variety of tools and ideas the whole international team had to offer was immense and diverse and in the evaluations at the end of the mobilities the students approved of most of them. Only few were considered boring (like “getting-to-know-each-other” rounds) or not appealing.
It showed that students learned a lot about the cultures of the other groups, that past and present teaching methods at school are not as different as they thought, and most importantly that their own way of life as European citizens is different mostly because of the surroundings they live in, but not because they are different.
Gender equality has been established in all the four countries’ school systems, coeducation has been the norm since the 1970s at the latest and students consider themselves individuals not because of being male or female, but because they are who they are.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 103442 Eur

Project Coordinator

Erasmus-von-Rotterdam-Gymnasium & Country: DE

Project Partners

• Cesu Valsts gimnazija
• Istituto d’Istruzione Superiore Majorana
• IES Alonso Sánchez