A Study of Awareness and Attitudinal Behaviour of Gender Differences Towards Gender Equality

Sociology

In this paper we describe a research project where the objective was to analyze attitudes toward gender equality among male and female. Gender equality is regarded to be one of the core factors of any democratic society and the facilitator of economic growth and societal well-being. Although Estonia is often pointed out as a success story of post-socialist transformation, we are anything but successful when comparing different gender equality indicators of Estonia and other European countries. The largest gender pay gap in the EU, both horizontal and vertical segregation in education and the labour market, and men’s considerably lower life expectancy are just a few of the issues that mark the state of gender equality in Estonia. Education is often considered to be one of the key institutions that should be addressed in order to promote equal opportunities and mainstream gender equality. On the one hand, education and schools as institutions do not operate in a vacuum and are informed by the general tendencies, values and attitudes that are prevalent in the society. At the same time, education is a powerful tool for changing the societal attitudes and empowering the next generation. Therefore, it is important to mainstream gender equality in the curricula, school culture, teaching materials and methods in order to prevent the reproduction of gender stereotypes that influence the well-being and choices of pupils. Successful mainstreaming of gender equality, therefore, cannot be achieved without giving (future) teachers the necessary knowledge, tools and teaching methods to understand and tackle gender stereotypes and mainstream gender equality.

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