An intervention project aimed at gender issues in upper secondary school

Abstract

This paper is about the project called“From Jupiter and Juno to Barbie & Ken: an interven-tion on bullying and discrimination related to gender stereotypes”, that was created and pro-moted by IREOS (a volunteer center for the Queer comunity in Florence) and that, since 2008, has been part of “Le Chiavi della Città”, a set of training courses for schools sponsored by the City of Florence. In particular, the pro-ject is divided into four sessions of two hours each. Each meeting is led by a psychologist and by a volunteer and includes an experiental-interactive moment followed by discussionsand group reflections. The main objectives ofthe project are: understanding the definitionand action of stereotypes, to define their rela-tionship with prejudice and discrimination; de-veloping specific skills to be able to recognizeand reflect on both gender stereotypes and thedynamics of discrimination in our culture; foste-ring the ability to overcome gender stereotypesand roles when knowing the other; encoura-ging the development of a free, flexible andnon stereotypical sexual identity; finally pre-venting homophobic bullying.