General Aims and Objectives
The project connects EU LGBT associations, schools and media professionals to promote the rights of children and young people to their own sexual and gender identity. It seeks to counter homophobia/transphobia by studying stereotypes and challenging them with educational tools.
The main objectives of creating and publishing this educational toolkit are:
- To increase knowledge of policies and theories related to gender stereotypes and homophobia in education in European settings, with an update on relevant legislation and policies as presented in the recent Member States report on Homophobia and Discrimination on Grounds of Sexual Orientation in the EU*;
- To build a comparative picture (at a truly European level, thanks to the partnership covering many and diverse member states) of the stereotypes related to gender roles and homosexuality in all levels of schooling, amongst the adults responsible for education and, indirectly, the students;
- To develop an overview of current experiences/projects taking place in schools in partner countries related to the promotion of the right to sexual identity, and educate out homophobia/transphobia and homophobic/transphobic bullying;
- To exchange good practice and experience between countries related to the above initiatives;
- To increase awareness of existing audio-visual products related to the subject of study; this project catalogues and improves accessibility to the visual material already available in Europe;
- To create an educational toolkit, comprising an audio-visual component and teacher’s guide, to be disseminated and used in schools to promote respect for sexual and gender identity and counter homophobia/transphobia;
- To test and evaluate this educational toolkit with teachers and students, so as to verify its potential transferability and analyse the reactions of the direct (teachers) and indirect targets (children and young people);
- To involve a broad network of actors (in particular school staff, media professionals, associations) in considering the issue of stereotypes and homophobia/transphobia and in taking concrete actions to deal with them in school;
- To provide access to the educational toolkit in a number of European languages to teachers from all European countries for use in the school curriculum with children from an early age, to deal sensitively with the promotion of good practice around sexual and gender identity and prevent homophobia/transphobia.
The direct targets of the toolkit are all the actors of the formal compulsory education system. We want to increase debate and awareness among educators and the general public.
Through its mainstreaming strategy, the project will also reach other stakeholders who are not directly participating in the project. The visual module of the educational toolkit contest will be circulated in various film festivals, not just those dealing with LGBT issues but also those more widely targeted to children and educators.
* You can find the full report on fra.europa.eu/fraWebsite/...