Module 0 -
Knowing the basics
WELCOME
1 Course overview 3
Learning outcomes 3
KEY TERMINOLOGY AND CONCEPTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2 Sex, gender, identity, and orientation 5
Social and gender norms 6
Inclusion and exclusion 8
Equity, equality, justice, and parity 10
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
3 Check your understanding 12
Answers 15
Useful resources 19
Conclusion 20
GLOSSARY 20
Section 1 - Welcome
Welcome to our Gender Transformative Education e-learning course.
This preparatory module aims to secure your understanding of the key terminology and
concepts that you will encounter as you progress through this Gender Transformative
Education e-learning course.
1.1 Course overview
1.2 Learning outcomes
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Section 2 - Key Terminology and Concepts
In this section, we will introduce some of the key terminology and concepts that will support
your learning throughout the course.
Let’s start by understanding the difference between gender and sex, and exploring the
different ways in which people can identify and express themselves.
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2.1 Sex, gender, identity and orientation
Sex refers to the physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and females. Everyone
is assigned a sex at birth.
Gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society considers appropriate
for men and women. Gender plays a significant role in defining relationships and power dynamics
between and among people, and in shaping people's barriers and opportunities. In most societies
there is a binary understanding of gender: female and male. This does not accurately reflect
people's diverse identities and tends to make invisible some of the specific forms of exclusion faced
by LGBTQI+ people.
Gender identity refers to how an individual feels about their own gender. Individuals may identify
as male, female, or as something else; their gender identity may or may not be the same as the sex
that they were assigned at birth. Everyone has a gender identity and expresses their gender in a
unique and personal way.
Sexual orientation refers to each person’s capacity for profound emotional, affectional, and sexual
attraction to, and/or intimate and sexual relations with, individuals of a different sex or gender, the
same sex or gender, or more than one sex or gender.
LGBTQI+ refers to people that identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning,
and intersex. The + refers to an inclusive term for people who do not feel that they fit into traditional
categories of sexuality or gender.
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2.2 Social and Gender Norms
Around the world, gender norms shape the unequal status of women and girls and the
expectations of their role in society. They structure women’s, girls’, boys’, and men’s (often
unequal) access to resources and freedoms, thus affecting their voice, agency, power, and
social position.
Norms are shared beliefs about what is typical and appropriate behavior in a group of
people; they evolve over time and can differ from culture to culture.
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2.3 Inclusion and Exclusion
Everyone has the right to an inclusive and equitable quality education, and yet there are still
many children, adolescents, and young people around the world who are excluded from
learning.
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SOGIESC – Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity,
Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics.
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2.4 Equity, Equality, Justice and Parity
Gender transformative recognizes that unequal power relations exist between men and
boys, and women and girls, and seeks to redress these inequalities.
Duty-bearers are entities or individuals who have a particular obligation or
responsibility to respect, promote, and realize human rights and to abstain from
human rights violations. It is commonly used to refer to State actors, but non-State
actors can also be considered duty-bearers.
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Section 3 - Summary and Conclusion
Before we complete this module, you can review your learning and reflect on your
understanding. Check your understanding of the terminology and concepts explored in
this module by selecting the most appropriate term for each sentence.
Go to page 15 to check your answers
3.1 Check your understanding
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3.2 Answers
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3.3 Useful resources
If you would like to develop your understanding even further, use the resources below
as a starting point for further reading.
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3.4 Conclusion
Thank you for completing the preparatory module of our Gender Transformative
Education E-learning Course. We look forward to seeing you again in Module 1.
4. Glossary
Duty-bearers are entities or individuals who have a particular obligation or
responsibility to respect, promote, and realize human rights and to abstain from
human rights violations. It is commonly used to refer to State actors, but non-State
actors can also be considered duty-bearers.
Empowerment is a strategy to increase a person’s agency over their own lives, and
their capacity to influence the relationship and socials and social and political
conditions that affect them.
Exclusion is the process that prevents certain individuals or groups from fulfilling
their rights.
Gender refers to the roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a society
considers appropriate for men and women.
Gender equality means that all persons, regardless of their gender, enjoy the same
status in society; have the same entitlements to all human rights; enjoy the same
level of respect in the community; can take advantage of the same opportunities to
make choices about their lives; and have the same amount of power to shape the
outcomes of these choices.
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Gender equity is the process of being fair to women and men according to their
respective needs. Strategies and measures are needed to compensate for the
historical and social disadvantages that women face and that prevent women and
men from otherwise operating on a level playing field.
Gender identity refers to the gender that someone personally feels or identifies
with. It may or may not align with the sex they are assigned at birth.
Gender justice is the ideal endpoint and can be achieved by removing barriers to
opportunities and resources through addressing the root causes of gender
inequality.
Gender norms are the shared expectations or rules about how each gender should
behave. Gender norms tell us what it means to be a girl or a boy, a man or a woman
in a given society. Every society has distinct gender norms because gender itself is
not fixed, but the concept of gender norms has at its core the notion of unequal
power relations and prestige between men and boys, and women and girls, or of a
gender minority.
Gender parity is a statistical measure that provides a numerical value of female-to-
male or girl-to-boy ratio for indicators such as income, employment, or education.
Gender transformative education (GTE) seeks to utilise all part of an education
system to transform stereotypes, attitudes, norms and practice by challenging
power relations, rethinking gender norms and binaries, and raising critical
consciousness of inequality and systems of oppression.
Gender based violence (GBV) is an umbrella term for any harmful act that is
perpetrated against a person will and that is based on their gender.
Inclusion is about bringing people into a process in a meaningful manner. It is the
process of improving the terms for individuals and groups to take part in society
and to fully enjoy their rights.
Intersectionality, the interconnected nature of social categorisation such as race,
class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group, regarded as creating
overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination or disadvantage.
LGBTQI+ refers to people that identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer
or questioning, and intersex. The + refers to an inclusive term for people who do
not feel that they fit into traditional categories of sexuality or gender.
Norms are shared beliefs about what is typical and appropriate behavior in a group
of people; they evolve over time and can differ from culture to culture.
Sex refers to the physical and biological characteristics that distinguish males and
females.
Sexual orientation refers to each person’s capacity for profound emotional,
affectional, and sexual attraction to, and/or intimate and sexual relations with,
individuals of a different sex or gender, the same sex or gender, or more than one
sex or gender.
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Social norms are the perceived, informal, and mostly unwritten rules that define
acceptable and appropriate actions within a group or community. Social norms are
situated at the intersection between behaviour, beliefs and expectations. They
encompass our own actions and our beliefs around what others do, approve of, and
expect of us.
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