More information
Description
Conqueer the schools is a 12-month project that focuses on improving the quality of school life for LGBTIQ+ high school students and raising awareness and encouraging school staff and future school staff to actively participate in the creation of safe spaces within the school for queer students. More than one third of Slovenian queer students report that they often or very often hear remarks about their sexual orientation or identity at school. In order for queer young people to be able to have the same conditions for psychological and emotional progression as non-queer individuals, a supportive and safe environment is needed where their orientation and identity can develop. Through comprehensive research, we will provide guidelines for the organization of an optional school program within high schools. The DIH Association located in Ljubljana, in partnership with the Maribor Youth Cultural Centre (hereafter MKC), will organize 4 different activities per month for queer students at a specific high school in Maribor and a specific high school in Ljubljana. One of these monthly activities will be dedicated to the so-called “gay-straight alliance”, where a discussion group will be dedicated to all students, regardless of whether they are part of the queer community or not, in order to strengthen the connection of queer students with others and to increase the acceptance of queer individuals in their school environment. At the events we will go through the basic concepts of a queer community, address issues and problems that queer students have, conduct workshops that improve the mental well-being of the participants, and create a supportive community among them that will remain active in their schools after the end of our project. We will use the publication to encourage (future) teachers and other school staff to organize such activities regularly in their workplaces.
Summary of project results
According to research, queer female high school students are in an unequal position, facing discrimination and various forms of violence throughout the entire school process. "Within the School" focused on improving the quality of school life for LGBTIQ+ students and on raising awareness and encouraging school staff and future school staff to actively contribute to creating safe spaces within the school for queer students.
Društvo DIH and Mladinski kulturni center Maribor conducted research on the quality of school life for queer high school students, the violence they experience, and their self-image and self-acceptance. We explored how regular school activities affect queer female students. At the same time, we conducted regular activities for queer students at the high school and youth center in Maribor.
The key results of the project are certainly the identified need for more activities for young queer people, on different topics, in different environments, e.g. in school, youth centers, clubs, etc. The second key result is certainly the analysis of the needs and desires of young queer people, as it showed us extremely visible shortcomings in our system and draws attention to the still present discrimination and unequal opportunities for young members of the queer community. An important result are also the reports on the implementation of workshops, which present examples of the implementation of workshops that we implemented within the framework of our project; we believe that this knowledge can be used and adapted. An extremely important result is also the manual for school workers, which is available online and also in physical form. The manual has a nice appearance, is extremely readable - it is accessible to everyone, especially pedagogical workers (future and current), it contains an analysis of the needs research and also practical examples for implementing activities with young queer people.