ore than 246 million children suffer from gender-based violence in school and kindergarten annually. School-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) is human rights violation and one of the forms of gender-based discrimination which has negative physical, psychological and educational results. Research shows that young women suffer sexual abuse and harassment at school. Concerning the young men, they suffer physical, corporal abuse more often than women.
Suffering school-related gender-based violence can harm well-being of a young person, their physical and emotional health and cognitive development. School-related gender based physical, psychological and sexual violence towards a student has several results on victims: missing lessons, drop out from school and lowering learning outcomes. the Aim of the Research is the following: Promote implementation of Gender responsive pedagogy in schools and kindergartens of Kakheti region by means of collecting, analyzing and disseminating empirical knowledge about school-related gender-based violence.
The first social phenomenon on which the project will collect information is gender awareness of teachers, parents and school/pre-school principals. The research also studies Gender-Responsive Pedagogy in schools and kindergartens. Gender-Responsive Pedagogy regards conducting the following teaching components with gender sensitivity: learning curriculums, planning and conducting lessons, learning environment, games, materials, language of teachers and principals, student assessment. Concerning research methodology, methods and sampling: research objects will be schools and kindergartens of Kakheti region, because this region has the highest rate of domestic violence and early marriage. Also, ethnic minorities live in this region and the fact will enable to study gender responsive pedagogy and school-related gender-based violence in this context. Action research design will be used, that is research approach developed for making adjustments locally in schools and emancipation and empowerment of school staff, teachers and students, and is relevant to the aim of the research. Action research will use triangulation, combining quantitative and qualitative methods, focus groups and quantitative survey will be held with principals, teachers and parents of school and kindergarten.
After finishing the first stage, the second, intervention stage will begin. The research group will develop School-related gender-based violence Guide for school and kindergarten teachers, will elaborate 2 modules for school and kindergarten teachers and will train all of the teachers of target schools in the principles of gender responsive pedagogy.
Reasearch team will disseminate research results on local and intenational level (publishing scientific articles in internationally referred journals) and will develop and implement interdisciplinary course in Gender Responsive Pedagogy for Ilia State University.