Building children's resilience through respectful and gender equitable relationships pilot project : a literature review

Abstract

The need to pursue cultural change to promote appropriate attitudes and behaviours towards women is being increasingly recognised, both within Australia and globally. The delivery of respectful relationships education (RRE) as part of the Australian curriculum is one significant part of this, and is supported by state-led initiatives to introduce preventive education to address gender-based violence (Department of Education and Training 2015). The City of Melbourne has taken a proactive approach to driving positive cultural change, in an effort to influence appropriate attitudes and behaviours towards women. The Building Children's Resilience through Respectful and Gender Equitable Relationships Pilot Project represents one facet of a broad suite of strategies to promote and normalise gender equity. As identified in the recent paper by Our Watch (Gleeson et al. 2015), one of the key elements that may predict violence against women is the promulgation and internalisation of 'structures, social norms and organisation practices supporting gender inequality' (Gleeson et al. 2015:7). Recent initiatives such as RRE target school-aged children, but there are no known initiatives aimed at preschool children. Recognising this gap, the City of Melbourne commissioned this research project to scope the potential to intervene in the early childhood years. The scoping project documented in this report presents the results of a rapid, comprehensive and systematic review of empirical evidence from the past 10 years, conducted with the following aims: • to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to promote gender equity and prevent gender bias among children aged 3-5 years • to synthesise empirical studies regarding the development of gender roles, bias and stereotypes among children aged 3-5 years.This project emphasises a primary prevention approach - that is, it focuses on population-level approaches rather than individual, treatment-focused action.