The Gender-Responsive School: An Action Guide

The Gender-Responsive School shows teachers, principals and school administrators how to spot the key spaces in school life where gender is important. It gives them tools to promote gender equality by changing attitudes and ideas among staff and students.

This action guide is full of activities that can be undertaken at either the individual or group level and is based on trials with teachers in a wide range of countries with different cultures, educational systems, and attitudes towards gender issues.

It shows how important school is, especially at the post-primary stage, in forming our ideas about gender roles.

Catherine Atthill is an independent educational consultant, specializing in open/distance and online learning. She was co-author and instructional designer for the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Gender Mainstreaming Series Toolkit and has worked as a consultant for NGOs such as VSO, WWF-UK and Forum for the Future.

Jyotsna Jha works as Advisor, Education and Gender, and Education and HIV & AIDS at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. Her work on gender and education in the Secretariat has focused on research and advocacy on various aspects including the issues of promoting schooling practices that promote respect for equality and diversity, empowerment focused girls’ education and boys’ underachievement. Prior to joining the Secretariat Jyotsna was based in India where she undertook several research, evaluation and implementation-support projects for both government and non-government organizations, and for national and international agencies.