‘Gender as a missing lens - How to introduce gender into history teaching’ is a 6 month project, funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation and initiated in Cyprus.

Funded by: Anna Lindh Foundation

Project partners: Mediterranean Institute for Gender Studies (MIGS), NGO Support Centre, University of Nicosia - Cyprus Centre for European and International Affairs (CCEIA)

Programme Period: February 2016 - July 2016

‘Gender as a missing lens - How to introduce gender into history teaching’ is a 6 month project, funded by the Anna Lindh Foundation and initiated in Cyprus. The project is implemented by the Association for Historical Dialogue & Research (AHDR), in partnership with the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS), the NGO Support Centre and the University of Nicosia’s Cyprus Centre for European and International Affairs (CCEIA).

The project’s objective is to raise awareness and increase the capacity of educators across Cyprus in order to empower them to integrate a gender equality perspective in their teaching practices, while making students in Cyprus more aware of gender equality and better equipped to adopt a gender approach, incorporate critical thinking and a multiperspectival approach to learning.

The training was based on AHDR’s latest publication and supplementary educational material “How to Introduce a Gender Perspective in History Teaching”. Trainings followed a participatory approach, encouraging participants of all genders to participate in the discussion, share their concerns and ideas and feel respected on an equal basis. Further, the trainings offered space to participants to transfer their own knowledge on gender within the local context, while providing them with key tools to implement gender awareness to their teaching through capacity building exercises. These instruments and tools were practiced during the training by means of realistic cases and sub-group exercises.

Following the trainings the activities contained in the manual were to be piloted in schools, so as to ensure that students are also beneficiaries of the action. After the piloting of the material in classrooms, students were to be asked to submit a questionnaire, which would gave all partners to the project the opportunity to evaluate measured shifts in knowledge and critical approaches amongst students.

Due to the innovative nature of the project, it is hoped that the action will leverage Cyprus as an example for future initiatives, in relation to developing supplementary teaching materials and teacher trainings, as a means of facilitating the use of a gender equality perspective in teaching and learning, both within the direct and wider network.

Apart from the innovative subject matter of the trainings, a further positive characteristic of these trainings is the fact that they took place across the island. A training took place in Nicosia, at the ‘Home for Cooperation’ within the UN Buffer Zone, giving the project an inter-communal character encouraging the sharing of experiences across the divide, while two more trainings took place in Famagusta and Limassol respectively, giving the opportunity to educators to receive the training in their respective language, ensuring that the benefits will have an island-wide outreach.

The trainings were scheduled in April and May 2016.