About
BEYOND aims to work for better Gender Equality by investing in ECEC – Early Childhood Education and Care.
The limited resources available, both in terms of pedagogical approaches and gender equality frameworks in ECEC settings, call for an urgent action to put gender equity at the core of the early years’ education curriculum like the other human rights-related contents.
Therefore, BEYOND carries out two parallel lines of action:
- It works towards the development of the competences needed by ECEC professionals to properly design and create activities and experiences for children.
- It enhances the general awareness on the unconscious obstacles to gender equity.
The Action
In order to contribute to tackle gender stereotypes in education and early childhood education, BEYOND carries out three actions:
- Map and share the existing good practices and methodologies to counter unconscious gender bias and discrimination across Europe
- Design and implement/ Hold peer-to-peer training courses for ECEC professionals in order to increase the awareness in how attitudes and behaviours are influenced since the really beginning by the social expectations linked to boys and girls
- Define a minimum standard of competences for ECEC professionals to apply gender equality and a relevant implementation strategy
Objectives
BEYOND aims at supporting progress towards gender equality, intended as a value and fundamental human right, and at boosting the potential of boys and girls by raising awareness and tackling gender stereotypes in ECEC settings.
To increase the awareness of ECEC professionals and stakeholders of the unconscious bias affecting the interaction between boys and girlswhen assessing their skill gaps.
To reinforce the capacity of ECEC and first years of primary school to apply gender equity in daily routines and settings.
To enable the ECEC community at large to remove gender bias, by strengthening the awareness and competences of parents/families, future educators and other educational stakeholders.
Who is the project addressed to?
Considering that early childhood years are critical for cognitive, social and emotional development of boys and girls, the project involves and engages all the relevant stakeholders that have key roles to take social and gender discrimination out of early childhood education and replace it with empowerment (Strong foundation for Gender Equality in ECEC – UNESCO, 2007): educators and teachers, parents and families, public authorities.
