In societies where there is a formal context of equal opportunities, there is an apparent free movement of people from one normative gender to another, depending on their situation or group of relationships. However, current research shows that gender models persist, are created during childhood and become more visible in adolescence.

The book Desfer la teranyina del gènere des de l’educació (Undoing the gender spiderweb from education), edited by Isabel Carrillo and published by Eumo Editorial this month, offers perspectives of critical pedagogy and guidelines to break the invisible threads of gender roles from the educational environment. Across five chapters, the publication analyses the way in which gender roles operate in our educational relations, and presents alternative proposals to avoid sexism and reduce tolerance for inequalities.

Among the authors, Milagros Sáinz, director of Gender and ICT, has contributed with an article that explores the social creation of stereotypes and how it preserves the conception of two gender identities with specific roles and abilities. Sáinz analyzes also the social determinants active in the educational settings that end up influencing different academic and professional choices for boys and girls, according to the options that are congruent with their gender roles. In other book sections, Rosa Guitart sets out the principles and actions that make equity in education possible; Carlos Lomas addresses the social learning of masculinity and the relationship between hegemonic masculinity and school failure, and Marta Burguet explores the transformation of educational relations based on the values of solidarity, fraternity and peace culture. Finally, Isabel Carrillo delves into the right to education as a fundamental human right, and relates its principles to the sex/gender system inequalities.