About This Event

GALE is a learning community focusing on education about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) issues. We promote the full inclusion of people who are disadvantaged because of their sexual orientation, sexual identity, and their expression by identifying, enhancing, and sharing educational expertise. The membership of the community is free and open to anyone actively involved in education about LGBT issues.

Dilemmas in rating antibullying quality of school policies

14 April 2020 - The European ABC-project attempted to develop a certification for antibullying policy in high schools. The project ends in May but was confronted with a series of dilemmas that are not yet solved. Especially scoring was a dilemma. Should we score school at all? If we do, how? Can we use scoring only as a diagnostic instrument or also as a public quality label? Will governments or the European Union be willing to adopt such a label or at least to encourage self-evaluation of schools? We need your advice and would like to encourage you to fill in a short questionnaire about these dilemmas.

Recommendations for European antibullying policy

7 April 2020 - A review of European policy on antibullying shows that international institutions claim to have little influence on education in general. They could possibly influence the quality of antibullying policy in schools by focusing on the broader concept of combating violence or discrimination. But in practice, combating bullying may have a different focus and requires a consistent school policy, which international institutions cannot influence because influence on the education system is taboo. The ABC-project, which experimented with certification of antibullying in schools, made six recommendations to build a European road map against bullying.

In Greece, even teachers make homophobic remarks about LGBT students

15 March 2020 - The Greek LGBT youth organization Colour Youth did a school climate survey and concluded that the situation of LGBTI using Greek schools is still deplorable. A majority of students here that even teachers use homophobic slurs to watch LGBTI students. The results are not surprising, previous research shows similar findings. But it seems the Greek government is hesitant to implement concrete measures to stop the blatant discrimination.

European trade union federation starts project for inclusive education

8 February 2020 - The European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE) has initiated a project to promote concrete measures for inclusive education. Previous research showed that teachers and other education personnel often do not feel prepared and supported to teach students from diverse socioeconomic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds The project promises to include LGBTI issues.

ALICE #prosociality conference supports coming out

12 January 2020 - The final conference of the ALICE-project led to students coming-out. The project promoted “prosociality” as a positive way to establish safe and pleasant school and community cultures. Although is was not specifically focused at combating bullying or discrimination, the both positive and generic way seemed to create opportunities to also create space for non-normative identities. That is, if the facilitators have the sensitivity to include diversity topics.