Changes are occurring in attitudes toward gender achievement in Israel and around the world due to humanistic and democratic values concerning equality. The school as a social community is also experiencing change, which influences the school organizational culture, teaching, learning and evaluation, the learning and social environment and relations with parents and the wider community.
Applying the concept of gender equality to real life entails putting a value into practice. School policy and culture must therefore provide education for gender equality. This requires conscious and deliberate changes in organizational and community perceptions regarding education and values.
In Israel, equal opportunities in education should be an integral part of education. In practice, however, boys and girls do not enjoy equal opportunities in education, are not invested in and appreciated equally by teachers and educational counselors, and do not enjoy the same experiential opportunities. The education system, which represents Israel’s multicultural society, proposes the following plan for an educational and social philosophy and new approaches for tackling the educational and intellectual gaps between boys and girls, violence, and sexism.
This document puts forward a focused educational program for inculcating gender equality as part of an educational, value-oriented, social policy. The program contains methods of dealing with the gaps and inequalities between boys and girls, with the violence provoked by inequality and with direct and implied sexism in Israeli education.
The aim of this document is to help educational staff in schools make gender equality an integral part of their work and of school social and cultural activities. It seeks to draw the issue to the attention of homeroom teachers of all levels, to increase their knowledge on the subject and to unite all ranks of staff both at head office and throughout the entire school system, in an effort to bring about change.
In recent years, teams of educational staff nationwide have been working to promote equal opportunities for boys and girls. They receive in-service training, school program development and organize seminars. The program applies to Jewish and Arab education alike and is for homeroom teachers in all types of school, from preschool to high school. Staff who pursue continuing education courses are able to introduce change into schools that elect to promote gender equality in different spheres, primarily academic study. In-service training is also available for teaching staff interested in applying gender equality ideas. Courses are available through schools, pedagogic centers and teacher centers nationwide, colleges and universities. These courses explore the theoretical sides of the subject, improve awareness of direct and implied sexist messages and suggest ways of dealing with them in school. The courses also suggest ways of encouraging change on the ground.