Goals
Brief description of the issue
Students that don’t embrace gender stereotypes can experience bullying and exclusion. It is often the case of boys, for who transgressing gender stereotypes is less tolerate than it is for girls. In addition to experiencing discrimination based on gender, young indigenous students can experience racism. It is therefore important to break down gender stereotypes as well as racist stereotypes with students as early as possible, in order to foster the well-being and academic achievement of all students.
The Val-d’Or Native Friendship Centre has developed a serie of outreach activities that can be facilitated in class for each grade of elementary and high school levels. The activity targeted at first grade students, ARTmony in the forest, looks at the acceptance of differences through an activity mixing arts and ethics discussion.
During the Achievement of learning outcomes part, it is possible to integrate aspects to help breaking down gender stereotypes.
- At the second step, where they tackle ethnocultural differences, question students about gender stereotypes. Are there children or adults that are rejected because they are a boy or a girl? In which situations?
- At step 8, where students have to invent a short story, invite on or a few teams to integrate gender stereotypes to their story.
At the Reflective sharing and integration of learning part, ask students if themselves or one of their friends have ever been rejected because of their gender or if someone ever told them what they could or couldn’t do because of their gender.