Gender, School and Society

Syllabus

CC 1: GENDER, SCHOOL AND SOCIETY

Unit 1: Gender Issues: Key Concepts

1)      The meaning and concept of gender and experience of gender in across different social groups, regions and time-periods. Challenges in gendered roles in society: Family, caste, religion, culture, the media and popular culture (films, advertisements, songs etc.), law and the state.

2)      Unequal access of education to girls; access to schools; gender identity construction at home and in society.

3)      Indian societal context: Power and authority in Indian Social System (patriarchy). Socialization of child into a specific gender influences, and opportunities for education.

Unit 2: Gender Challenges and Education

1)      Challenging gender inequalities or reinforcing gender parity: The role of schools, peers, teachers, curriculum and textbooks, etc.

2)      Representation of gendered roles, relationships and ideas in textbooks and curricula.

3)      Schools nurture or challenge creation of young people as masculine and feminine selves.

Unit 3: Gender Issues and Role of Teacher

1)      Counseling and Guidance: Teachers' need help to develop abilities to handle notions of gender and sexuality, (often addressing the issues under diverse cultural constraints, their own and their students’, instead of shying away from the same.)

2)      Sex Education: Perceptions of safety at school, home and beyond (The formulation of positive notions of sexuality among young people impact larger issues).

3)      Identification of sexual abuse/violence and its verbalisation, (combating the dominant societal outlook of objectification of the female body, and so on.)

Unit 4: Role of the Media and Life Skills Education

1)      Role of the media in propagation of popular beliefs, reinforcing gender roles in the popular culture and by implication, at school.

2)      Life Skills courses in school: provisions to deal with some issues of gender identity roles and performativity for the development of positive notions of body and self.

3)      Gender equality Education: of regions and exploring the roles of the institutions (family, caste, religion, culture, media and popular culture, law and the state).