Media Education for Teacher Training on Gender Representations in the Media: the eMerge Project

The paper aims to present the teaching resources implemented within the Erasmus+ European project e-MERGE, e-Media Education about Representations and Gender. Conducted in four EU countries (Belgium, Italy, Greece and Romania) over the three years 2020-2023 according to a participatory research-action perspective, the project focused on the following objectives: (a) contribute to the training and professional development of teachers on gender issues in media, through a series of online educational media resources co-constructed by researchers and teachers participating in the project; (b) promote media education as a meaningful approach to valuing diversity and gender equality as foundations for inclusion and active, digital citizenship (c) develop media education skills of critical analysis of gender representations and stereotypes in media and pop culture; (d) foster awareness about the effects of such stereotypical representations within interpersonal relationships, at school, in the family and the local community; and (e) stimulate students’ creativity through media productions of various kinds. To foster inclusion and equality in learning contexts, didactic-educational action should consider diversity in all dimensions. Among these, reference to the perception of gender, rooted in family traditions and social contexts but also in media practices, vectors of stereotypical representations, appears significant. The aim was therefore to train teachers to take a media-educational posture in the design and implementation of teaching practices on representation and gender stereotypes conveyed by the media, moving from a preliminary investigation of their students’ media and cultural practices. Therefore, the paper will present evidence-based resources for the Secondary School available in 5 languages (English, French, Italian, Greek, and Romanian), created during the project: (a) a methodological kit for investigating students’ media habits; (b) an online training module for teachers on gender issues in media and pop culture; (c) a media education toolkit on gender issues in media and pop cultures, adaptable to any diversity learning context; (d) an online guide to Media education to improve gender equality in school.