Activities to Improve Girls' Experiences in Primary School

From: Gara, C. and Kendall, N. 1996. Beyond enrollment: a handbook for improving girls' experiences in primary classrooms. Prepared for USAID's ABEL project. Washington: Creative associates international.

1. Have students write biographies of their mothers. Compare how generations are differ; contrast their own past, present, and future activities with their parents' activities at different ages. Do girls include certain things that boys do not?
2. Have students draw pictures of their families, then draw separate pictures of each member of the family when that family member was the age of the student. What are the generational changes? What are the gender differences in activity, size, evidence of power or accomplishment in drawings of parents and siblings?
3. Discuss with girls and boys the traditional roles of women and men in the local community. Is there agreement on what those roles are?
4. If gender roles in the local community are very restrictive, look to the past, the future, or to other communities and cultures for examples of gender role diversity. Explore local stereotypes with students; characterize those stereotypes; experiment with role playing involving role reversals; let students participate in searching for or imagining plausible but non-stereotyped images of men and women.