Peter Dankmeijer - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Peter Dankmeijer

This Dutch publication is a desktop review paper which functioned as a preparation for a guide to... more This Dutch publication is a desktop review paper which functioned as a preparation for a guide to help Dutch Regional Health School Advisors to stimulate and coach schools with the implementation and sustainability of sex education in schools. The review compares a range of theories and field work to explore how a consultancy guide could be based on a scientific fundament. The guide was published as "Stappenplan-Borging-Seksuele-Vorming-voor-Gezonde-School-adviseurs" (Dankmeijer, 2022).

Stappenplan Borging Seksuele Vorming in scholen voor Gezonde School adviseurs, 2022

This Dutch publication is a 12-step guide to help Regional Health School Advisors to stimulate an... more This Dutch publication is a 12-step guide to help Regional Health School Advisors to stimulate and coach schools with the implementation and sustainability of sex education in schools. The guide is based on the work of Everett Rogers and John Kotter and also based on concrete school conssultancy experiences by GALE, the Global Alliance for LGBT Education. For more background information, also check out the article "Overwegingen bij borging voor Gezonde School-adviseurs" (Considerations on sustainability of results of consultancy on sex education to schools, 2021).

The European My-ID project took part in 2022 and 2023 in Italy, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands... more The European My-ID project took part in 2022 and 2023 in Italy, Greece, Spain and the Netherlands. The project experimented with the “My-ID” pedagogy in high schools. The My-ID pedagogy holds that the fear and rejection of sexual and gender diversity is based on emotions, which get solidified in attitudes and which tend to be followed by negative behaviour. As a consequence, LGBTIQ+ exclusion needs to be combated by changing the related emotions, attitudes and behaviours in a systematic way. This focus on emotional intelligence is a more in-depth approach than traditional methods which rely more on providing ‘correct’ information, dispelling myths and showing positive role models. In this project, the 8 partners developed concrete classroom activities on sexual and gender diversity, developing tailored teacher training to help carry out such activities, and they developed 3 publications for cooperation with parents on this sensitive topic. This report describes the results of 4 evaluations.
International training - The international training in November 2022 was highly appreciated by the participants, except by the Dutch team. Their school is very multicultural and has a majority of challenged students, which they require specifically tailored interventions.
Piloted classroom activities - Of the 36 developed activities, 12 were piloted in 18 pilot lessons with 295 students participating. Greek and Italian teachers found activities more challenging to use than Dutch and Spanish teachers. Still, the impact assessment by the Greek and Italian teachers makes clear that they thought the activities had a substantial impact and were positively evaluated. Spanish teachers were happy with the tools and had not problem facilitating them. Dutch teachers had more doubts about the impact because some of their students were quite rude in their responses in lessons. Many of them did not accept sexual diversity (being lesbian, gay or bisexual) based on their culture and religion and some students felt incapable of understanding gender diversity (being transgender or non-binary).
Impact evaluation - The impact evaluation survey was filled in by 172 respondents. The results are not representative of the national populations of the countries involved: most participating schools were fairly progressive, with the exception of students of the Dutch school, where a substantial minority of ¼ of the students was very negative and even crude in their comments. Some of these students were supported and even reinforced in their negativity by their parents. Their teachers were LGBTIQ+ supportive, but found it challenging to control the most negative students and changing their attitudes to be more nuanced seemed an almost impossible task.
About 40% of all respondents across countries thought there was a high level of cis-normativity and hetero-normativity in their schools. The normativity was higher in the Netherlands and to some extent also in Italy. About half of the respondents think the project decreased the level of both cis- and hetero-normativity and we see this across all participating schools. There was a slightly larger (decreasing) effect on hetero-normativity, showing that gender diversity is more difficult to accept for students. Respondents noticed that attitudes became more supportive due to the project, but we still think that the approach to improve attitudes on sexual and gender diversity was not yet systematic enough in this project. Although we provided teachers with tools to make conscious choices for classroom activities and suggested flanking school interventions to create more positive and supportive attitudes, we get the impression that teachers chose activities more to tailor classroom activities to the perceived needs of their students (age, academic level, culture) than as a part of long-term planning of attitude change. The schools also did not have much time within the project to plan for school-wide culture change by establishing adapted school policies. This ‘planning for effect’ aspect - which is likely beyond the control of individual teachers and commonly takes more than a two-year project duration - should be a topic for follow-up projects.
The teachers rated themselves more confident in their skills after this project, but only one third of the students agreed with this. We recommend that in future training and coaching, there should be even more attention to the ‘locus of control’ (the confidence that the situation can be controlled and planned) of teachers and for even more practical ways of how they can create a safe class atmosphere and how to concretely facilitate activities. This is especially needed in cases where students disagree with each other, cannot ‘understand’ diversity or voice objections to sensitive topics.
The publications for parents were only available at the very end of the project and there was no time to really implement them. The focus of the project was on getting into dialogue with parents through focus groups, which formed the fundament of the publications. It is recommended to experiment more with implementation of integrated sexual and gender diversity school policies and with informing and involving parents in the development and implementation of such policies.
The participating schools in Spain and Greece were very progressive and supportive and did not really face serious challenges in implementing the activities. However, the multicultural and challenged student population of the Dutch school and the wider conservative cultural context in Italy posed specific challenges. We conclude there is a dire need for alternative and tailored methods to guide socially and culturally challenged students to understand and accept differences that are beyond their current mental or cultural framework. There is also a dire need to experiment with activities that helps schools to handle restricting influences in very conservative contexts and extremist hate speech and intimidation towards minorities.
One third of the respondents thought that the project activities were sufficient to reach the goals of LGBTIQ+ safety and inclusion, but most school staff agreed that more work needs to be done to fully integrate supportive attention for sexual and gender diversity in school. When social, cultural and political circumstances are more challenging, stakeholders in schools tend to have more doubts about the sustainability of activities. This can be caused by loud objections of a minority of students or parents, but also because of a lack of ‘locus of control’; or a lack of confidence that intimidating social, cultural and political challenges can be overcome.
Planned sustainability - The school partners intend to integrate the project results in their school with, but need more time than the project allowed for this. The project-funded NGOs focus on sustained general promotion, which is well within their locus of control.
For efforts to mainstream the results (adoption of the developed methods by other schools and in the formal school system), NGOs depend on the willingness of school partners, which limits their locus of control. This requires not only promoting awareness of sexual and gender diversity, but also overcoming structural barriers in education, like lack of regulations to give attention to sexuality and sexual/gender diversity and more general barriers like inadequate professionalization of teachers in the area of emotional intelligence and time to implement innovations. To broaden the locus of control NGOs, this would require more supportive educational policies and more funding.
There were some ideas to engage in commercial marketing, but these would encounter even more challenges. One of these challenges is that sexual and gender diversity is not a topic with a substantial market.

Maatwerk, Dec 1, 2007

Veel religies staan negatief ten opzichte van homoseksualiteit. Vooral gelovigen die de teksten v... more Veel religies staan negatief ten opzichte van homoseksualiteit. Vooral gelovigen die de teksten van de Bijbel en de Koran letterlijk willen volgen, veroordelen homoseksualiteit. Peter Dankmeijer gaat vanuit het perspectief van de voorlichter in op de vraag hoe met zulke veroordelingen om te gaan.

Revista de Estudios de Juventud, 2017

Peter Dankmeijer, Gale. Profesor. Consultor senior en temas de gays y lesbianas, en áreas de capa... more Peter Dankmeijer, Gale. Profesor. Consultor senior en temas de gays y lesbianas, en áreas de capacitación, educación y prevención de enfermedades (VIH/SIDA). Diarios sobre bullying: un documental acerca del acoso escolar De acuerdo a la organización Mundial de la Salud (2010), el bullying es un importante problema de salud pública ya que sus consecuencias se prolongan hasta la edad adulta. Hay una cantidad significativa de investigación que se centra en él y en métodos eficaces para su prevención y concienciación, especialmente en las escuelas. Asimismo, el uso de nuevos materiales audiovisuales e interactivos ayuda a modernizar las escuelas y hacer atractivo el proceso educativo, tanto para los alumnos como para los formadores. Sobre la base de lo anterior la Red Europea Antibullying ha producido un documental titulado "Diarios sobre el Bullying", para informar a estudiantes, profesores y padres sobre el mismo y algunas de sus formas específicas, tales como acoso sexual, homofóbico, por origen étnico o país de origen, además del el acoso físico y verbal. El miembro griego de la Red Europea Antibullying, "The Smile of a Child", que también ejerce la Presidencia de dicha Red, propone esta película como herramienta de información y prevención contra el bullying con una metodología de uso inherente.

Journal of gay & lesbian issues in education, Jul 19, 2006

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education, 2006

Journal of Homosexuality, 1993

The article, at its most general level, questions the requirement for "coming out&qu... more The article, at its most general level, questions the requirement for "coming out" in public, which the author sees as the central demand of gay liberation ideology upon its adherents. Using research on teachers, the article shows that the political demand that teachers come out professionally ignores the central professional and political concerns of several teachers and their need for professional survival. In this study, teachers were found to have varying lifestyles. Coming out fitted the lifestyle only of those teachers who took on the role of crusaders for gay liberation. This role was often a secondary concern for women, who were more strongly identified as feminists than lesbians, and for men for whom homosexuality was not a major aspect of their lifestyle. The author suggests that more attention should be given to the homophobic conditions under which such teachers work than to the requirement that they all come out.

tolerantescholen.net

Deze publicatie kwam tot stand dankzij een financiële bijdrage van het ministerie van Onderwijs, ... more Deze publicatie kwam tot stand dankzij een financiële bijdrage van het ministerie van Onderwijs, Cultuur en Wetenschappen en dankzij de samenwerking in de landelijke Hetero-Homo Onderwijsalliantie bestaande uit AOb (Algemene Onderwijsbond), CNV Onderwijs ( ...

Although Europe promotes human rights for all and the European Union has adopted several directiv... more Although Europe promotes human rights for all and the European Union has adopted several directives to assure equal treatment, some groups are still discriminated [1]. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth are still regular victims of social exclusion and discrimination [2]. Schools are structurally found to be unsafe environments for LGBT students, while they should be a place where respectful and critical citizenship is learned [3].

De acuerdo a la organizacion Mundial de la Salud (2010), el bullying es un importante problema de... more De acuerdo a la organizacion Mundial de la Salud (2010), el bullying es un importante problema de salud publica ya que sus consecuencias se prolongan hasta la edad adulta. Hay una cantidad significativa de investigacion que se centra en el y en metodos eficaces para su prevencion y concienciacion, especialmente en las escuelas. Asimismo, el uso de nuevos materiales audiovisuales e interactivos ayuda a modernizar las escuelas y hacer atractivo el proceso educativo, tanto para los alumnos como para los formadores. Sobre la base de lo anterior la Red Europea Antibullying ha producido un documental titulado “Diarios sobre el Bullying”, para informar a estudiantes, profesores y padres sobre el mismo y algunas de sus formas especificas, tales como acoso sexual, homofobico, por origen etnico o pais de origen, ademas del el acoso fisico y verbal.El miembro griego de la Red Europea Antibullying, “The Smile of a Child”, que tambien ejerce la Presidencia de dicha Red, propone esta pelicula com...

Maatwerk, 2007

Promotion and Education, Dec 1, 1994

Summary From a worldwide assessment to explore the needs for a Global Association for LGBT (lesbi... more Summary From a worldwide assessment to explore the needs for a Global Association for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Education, it became clear all respondents want to exchange their good practices. However, to be able to focus on educating mainstream organizations about sexual diversity, several challenges need to be faced. LGBT grassroots organizations have a great need for basic capacity building. They do have first hand experience with discrimination but usually lack the educational expertise to translate such knowledge into effective interventions for mainstream target groups. They are not used to specify their objectives or to monitor effect of educational interventions, which makes it unclear whether they are effective. Creating a transnational learning process by discussing discrimination processes, setting specific objectives and comparing the effect of interventions would be useful. To enable this, local educators will need to transcend their cultural and pe...

Zeitschrift Fur Inklusion, Nov 13, 2014

Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education, 2004