Professionals

As teachers and career advisers you are aware of the crucial role you play in supporting young people’s careers and subject choices.

We designed this campaign around the need to support young people to make decisions that were right for them and not based on gender stereotypes.

Purpose of Be What You Want

At Close the Gap we work to influence organisations and businesses to take action to close the gender pay gap. The current gender pay gap in Scotland is 11% when we compare men’s full-time hourly earnings with women’s full-time hourly earnings and 32% when we compare it to women’s part-time earnings.

One of the causes of the pay gap is occupational segregation, where women and men are concentrated into specific occupations and jobs based on gender stereotypes.

Evidence suggests that gender stereotyping influences girls and boys conceptualisation of work and careers at an early age. A survey conducted by Careers Scotland in 2004 found that by the time they reached S3, girls and boys had fixed ideas about gender roles: ‘women are better at caring and talking to people’ and ‘men are stronger.’ Girls in the study were also likely to express strong preferences in relation to not working in sectors traditionally associated with men i.e. engineering.

Subsequent reports and research has found similar patterns which contribute to the long term segregation of the labour market.

Part of the jigsaw is to encourage girls to enter ‘non-traditional’ areas of work such as science, engineering and technology. An area where girls and women are under-represented.

Curriculum for Excellence

The new Curriculum for Excellence aims to be flexible to respond to the individual needs of each pupil. The Be What You Want campaign meets many of the Health and Wellbeing Outcomes particularly the cross-cutting outcome:

I can expect my learning environment to support me to acknowledge diversity and understand that it is everyone’s responsibility to challenge discrimination.

As I explore the rights to which I and others are entitled, I am able to exercise these rights appropriately and accept the responsibilities that go with them. I show respect for the rights of others.

Outcomes: HWB 0-09a / HWB 1-09a / HWB 2-09a / HWB 3-09a / HWB 4-09a

The Be What You Want Resource for Teachers includes activities that can be used in the classroom and more ideas to help promote the messages of the campaign.