Webinar #1:

“Understanding the Context & Importance of Gender Equality in the Classroom”

Friday, 1 October 2021
• CEST: 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm • SGT: 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm

Join Us at the Webinar:

https://zoom.us/j/437007825?pwd=K2l2QU1FdWFkN3YzWEFwNzMrUjBFUT09
Password: classnet

Introduction
Gender is a differentiating category. It opens up heteronormative hierarchies in everyday life that quite
often go unseen. Although most governments in the world proclaim equality amongst all human beings,
disadvantages and even discrimination due to gender are palpable. Throughout their lives, both men and
women learn how to live up to the social expectations of their assigned gender. A major part of this
learning takes place in schools. Students come together, and, in social interaction, learn how to be a girl
or a boy. Being gendered persons themselves, teachers and tutors have learned the codes of gendered
social interaction too. Without a reflective approach they, therefore, pass over stereotypical everyday
presumptions of gender to their students.

This webinar aims at highlighting the current theoretical background. This will enable teachers and school
staff to reflect upon their ideas of gender and their gendered interaction with students.

About the Speaker

Dr Renata DUDA-MERLE
Language Teacher
Küstengymnasium Neustadt i.H.
Germany

Renata has a Ph.D. on Transgender Issues in Young Adult (YA)

Literature. The focus of her work was to challenge schools as highly
heteronormative environments and to discuss YA literature as a
means for bringing gender-related discussions into the classrooms.
For her academic work, she received the Gender Research Prize
from the University of Kiel. Currently, she is a Secondary School
Teacher for EFL (English as Foreign Language) and GFL (German as
Foreign Language). Throughout the last ten years, she has taught in
both Germany and other European countries such as Poland and
Kosovo.