On 29 January 2024, the University of Aveiro (UA) held an open event for the dissemination of the GUIDE project, attended by 20 participants from the Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional (IEFP) network, in the city of Aveiro, Portugal. Participants included: Career counsellors / advisors, individuals looking for career guidance/career transition, organizations working in the field of career guidance e centres of Educational and Counselling Support.
The event provided an opportunity to present the latest developments in the GUIDE project, namely a digital tool that can be used as a basis for everyone to gauge the persistence of unconscious gender stereotypes in their perceptions of different professional opportunities.
During the Open Event, the following were presented: the contextualisation of the project, the main stages and results of the project, the project website, best practices and interviews with career guidance experts, a digital tool for identifying stereotypes in career decisions and a group dynamic.
The group activities involved a dialogue and reflection exercise – “Does a profession have a gender?” – where the participants were invited to an interactive and dynamic debate where they could share their perspectives on the different professions, competences, and gender representativeness in each of them.
Objectives of the group dynamic: To generate reflection in the group about gender stereotypes. This involves unanimous decision-making, thus promoting conflict resolution and group cohesion about gender discrimination in the professions.
The event, in the University of Aveiro, made it possible to raise awareness of the importance of gender stereotypes in career decisions for all genders, through group dynamics to sensitise participants to the issues of gender stereotypes in the professions, making them reflect on the topic. To this end, the event’s participants expressed their interest in the project’s products and results. The event received positive feedback in its quality evaluation.
