Women in science, towards gender parity in the future Erasmus Project

Project Title

Women in science, towards gender parity in the future

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: Gender equality / equal opportunities; Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills; Teaching and learning of foreign languages

Project Summary

Our project originates in a cultural exchange between Jean Perrin, Marseille, France and Hemelvaart Waregem, Belgium. We would like to build a strong mutual relationship that surpasses the typical cultural activities of an exchange and bring forth a certain awareness among students in order to increase a responsibility towards the society they live in.
The differences between our two schools concerning their size, the ratio between the number of female and male students, the choices for a scientific section and the current social economic climate, brought us to the topic of the role of women in science and technology. Fifteen french students and their 3 teachers, and fifteen belgian students and their 3 teachers are proposed to participate in the project. Our goals are to struggle against gender stereotypes and to bring students to speak in front of an audience in English and write on a scientific topic in that foreign language.
The activities constited of surveying the profile of students who commit in a scientific curriculum nowadays in France and Belgium. In both countries they met female researchers and discovered how passionate they are. They studied several great scientific works from female scientists. The final step was to be the presentation of their work during two small scientific congresses that each group had organized in its country. The parents, the students and the whole educative community was to be invited to participate to these lectures. Because of the sanitary conditions due to the pandemic Covid-19, the mobilities of the second year were cancelled. The lectures were organized in the classroom with a very small audience and were filmed to be shared on the Twinspace of the project.
All along the project, the e-Twinning platform was used to exchange and communicate between the two groups. During the two years, the students met 2 times : once in Marseille and once in Waregem. At the end of the project the articles and videos of the lectures were shared at an international level on the Results Erasmus+ platform. In a more local way, these steps are published on our highschool websites.
Impacts and results expected on the students are : to improve self confidence, to change the point of view on the scientific carreers, to build strong relationships between young Europeans, to improve the skills in speaking and writing in a foreign language and the skills with technological tools of communication.
Concerning the teachers and the highschools, the expected impacts are the development of interdisciplinarity and team work, the openness to other teaching practices and the expanding of scientific sections and european sections for parents and students. Especially girls should be encouraged to get involved in scientific subjects.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 47937 Eur

Project Coordinator

LYCEE JEAN PERRIN & Country: FR

Project Partners

• Onze-Lieve-Vrouw-Hemelvaartinstituut 1