About the organisation
Close the Gap is a partnership initiative working in Scotland on women’s workplace inequality. Our project partners are Scottish Government, Skills Development Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Equality & Human Rights Commission, and the Scottish Trades Union Congress. We work with policy makers, employers and unions to address the causes of the gender pay gap.
Be What You Want is our campaign to raise awareness of gender stereotyping and occupational segregation, in the context of subject and career choice, among children and young people. The campaign aims to ensure that children and young people are not limited in their expectations and can make informed decisions about their future based on their passions, skills and talent, and not gender stereotypes.
Offer(s)
Close the Gap delivers free Be What You Want classroom sessions in schools across Scotland. These sessions look at gender stereotyping and how this relates to subject choice, career choice, and occupational segregation. We also supply resources to schools which allow teachers to build activities on gender stereotyping into lesson plans, and to have positive discussions with children and young people about which subjects or careers they might wish to pursue. Our free resource packs include a teacher’s information resource, a set of Be What You Want comic strips for use in the classroom, and a set of posters, pens, pencils and erasers.
The aims of Be What You Want align with the objectives of Scottish Government’s youth employment strategy, Developing the Young Workforce, which states that equality education should be embedded across Curriculum for Excellence, and addressing gender stereotyping should inform subject choice and career discussions. Using the Be What You Want resources also supports the delivery of Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes. The activities are particularly relevant to the ‘Health and wellbeing’ outcomes focused on ‘Planning for choices and changes’, as pupils will explore aspects of different careers and occupations and their associated skills, and build an understanding of the world of work.
The evaluation of the first phase of the Be What You Want campaign identified a desire for CPD on gender stereotyping and occupational segregation for teachers and early years practitioners. Close the Gap is developing a CPD resource, which is currently in a pilot phase, and hopes to make this available to all schools across Scotland in the near future.
Contact information
For more information on Be What You Want, or to request free resource packs and/or delivery of classroom sessions, contact Lindsey Millen at lmillen@stuc.org.uk or 01413378146.
