Daphne Programme – Year 2002
Final Report
Project No.:01/202/WYC
Title: Aware project: “Increasing Awareness in Educational Organisations of Sexualised and Gendered Violence” publication and web project 2001-2002
Start Date: 1.12.2001End Date: 28.2.2003
Co-ordinating Organisation’s name: University of Oulu
Contact person: Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies
Name: Vappu Sunnari
Address: PL 2000
Postal code: FIN-90014City:Oulu
Country: Finland
Tel. No.: +358-8-553 3720Fax No.: +358-8-553 3600
e-mail:
Partner Organisations’ names and countries:
University of Helsinki, Finland
The Research Center of Peace and Conflict, University of Tampere, Finland
University of Wolverhampton, UK
University of Umeå, Sweden
University of Vilnius, Lithuania
1. Aims of the project
1.1. Aims of the project
The aims of the Aware publication project were
1) to increase awareness of sexualised and gendered violence in educational organisations
2) to develop communication between existing networks researching gendered and sexualised violence
3) to produce a publication which is suitable educational material for pedagogical studies.
The Aware project resulted in the publication of the book Gendered and Sexualised Violence in Educational Environments and its Finnish language version Leimattuna, kontrolloituna, normitettuna – Seksualisoitunut ja sukupuolistunut väkivalta kasvatuksessa ja koulutuksessa containing articles, suitable for use as teaching material at university level in the fields of education and trainingas well as a website containing information on sexualised and gendered violence. The project also organised the series of lectures The myths, mysteries and misinterpretations of sexuality and sexuality education, held twice, as well as several symposia and seminars on violence which are listed in the list of tasks below.
The project met the needs which have arisen in educational and training organisations for information on sexualised and gendered violence and sought methods of preventing violence. In the whole of Europe there is only very little research-based teaching material on gendered and sexualised violence suitable for university education. The project produced suitable and up-to-date teaching material on this subject by publishing a collection of articles on gendered and sexualised violence in English and Finnish.
1.2. Beneficiaries of the project
The aim is to use the teaching material to increase the awareness of people working in different educational and training organisations of sexualised and gendered violence and through them affect attitudes and prevent violence at the level of the whole society. The teaching material will make it possible to provide university-level education in sexualised and gendered violence to people working in the field of education and training and to develop measures to prevent violence. Cumulatively, the beneficiary will be the whole of society, but the initial beneficiaries will be the children, young people and women who have experienced sexualised and gendered violence.
1.3. The result of the project
The results of the project are the book Gendered and Sexualised Violence in Educational Environments, the Finnish version of the book Leimattuna, kontrolloituna, normitettuna – Seksualisoitunut ja sukupuolistunut väkivalta kasvatuksessa ja koulutuksessa as well as an English and Finnish-language website. The books have also been published electronically. The English version can be downloaded from and the Finnish version from The book is suitable to be used as teaching material on sexualised and gendered violence in Europe. The bilingual website is suitable, among other things, as a source of information for authorities and the general public. In addition the project organised two series of lectures, both entitled The myths, mysteries and misinterpretations of sexuality and sexuality education, as well as several seminars and symposia on violence.
The primary target audience of the book is university students studying education and upbringing, researchers, teacher trainers, teachers, university pedagogues and education developers as well as authorities. The website is informative and bilingual (Finnish and English), which means it can also be used by the general public across Europe.
The book is based on research carried out by various research networks and material on sexual harassment collected during the project. Harassment was researched in university environments and in religious contexts. The context of the publication is the change in sexual culture, and its central focus is gendered and sexualised violence in different educational organisations, representations of gender and sexuality as violence, children and young adults as the victims of sexual violence and homophobia, as well as heterosexism and sexual dichotomies as forms of violence. The articles were published in the book produced by the project, Gendered and Sexualised Violence in Educational Environments. The book was also published in Finnish as Leimattuna, kontrolloituna, normitettuna – Seksualisoitunut ja sukupuolistunut väkivalta kasvatuksessa ja koulutuksessa. Both books are available on-line.
Communication between the networks researching gendered and sexualised violence was improved through co-operation via different networks; almost all the organisations involved in and supporting the project were members of existing networks researching sexualised and gendered violence. The project particularly worked with the Gender and Violence network, which also funded some of the travel costs associated with the project. Communication between experts and researchers was developed using the Discendum Optima web-based communication and learning environment.
The project was presented and the results of the project announced in several international conferences and seminars on violence and education as well as at meetings of the Gender and Violence network, whose research focuses on gendered violence. The English language version of the book was published in Umeå in conjunction with the conference Values in Education across Boundaries 27 – 28.11.2002, while the Finnish language version was published at the symposium Leimattuna, kontrolloituna, normitettuna – Seksualisoitunut ja sukupuolistunut väkivalta kasvatuksessa ja koulutuksessa organised 13 – 14.2.2003 at the end of the project at the University of Oulu. The symposium received a great deal of publicity and was reported in the national and local media.
In addition during the project articles dealing with the subjects addressed by the project were written for publication in international publications. The ATEE conference in Warsaw will produce a publication which includes two articles: Vappu Sunnari and Mervi Heikkinen, Globalisation, violence and heterosexism in educational organisations – challenges for transforming primary education and primary teacher education, and Jenny Kangasvuo, Changing Heterosexist Culture at School. Values in Education Across Boundaries conference in Umeå will produce a publication including the article:Vappu Sunnari, Jenny Kangasvuo and Mervi Heikkinen, Sexualised and gendered violence in educational environments as tools to reproduce and fight for heterosexist domination and pleasure.
2. Implementation of the project
2.1. Planned project activities
The planned project activities are shown as a task list. The task list is presented as submitted in the Daphne funding application. The task list had ten headings. The first was starting the project, which included publicising the project at two different conferences. The second heading was creating the website and using the Telsi open learning environment. The heading also included creating an on-line discussion environment for women, young people and children who had suffered sexualised and gendered violence. The third heading was the writing process, which also included meetings between the writers. Headings 4, 5 and 6 were all conferences, at which it was intended to present the results of the project. The seventh heading was a meeting between the writers and presenting the themes of the articles in autumn 2002. The eighth heading was putting together the publication, translating the articles and editing. The ninth was a conference and the tenth the symposium ending the project.
Planned task list
1. Initial project meeting in Luulaja, Sweden, November 2001
1.1. Publicising the project via various networks
1.2. Presenting the project at the meeting “A Network for Crisis Centres for Women in the Russian Barents Region (and in the Barents Region as a whole)” in November 2001 in Oulu.
1.3. Publicising the project and presenting results at the “Gender and Violence Nordic Countries” conference organised by the Gender and Violence research programme in Koge in Denmark.
2. Website
2.1. Creating the technical basis for the website
2.2. Creating the on-line discussion environment for women, young people and children who have suffered sexualised and gendered violence
2.3. Using the Telsi open learning environment and training in its use
2.4. Maintaining the website and the Telsi environment
3. Meetings between the writers and publicising the project in Umeå in spring 2002 in conjunction with the seminar on “Gendered Violence and Attitudes towards it in Teacher Education” organised by the Gender and Violence programme
3.1. Abstracts of the articles completed
3.2. The process of writing the articles using the Telsi environment
4. Publicising the project and presenting initial results at the GLEE seminar, spring 2002 in Oulu
5. Publicising the project and presenting initial results at the Atee conference in August-September 2002 (location to be notified later)
6. Publicising the project and presenting initial results at the TNTEE conference in August-September 2002 (location to be notified later)
7. Meeting between the writers and publicising the project in conjunction with the “Gendered Violence and Social Change” seminar organised by the Gender and Violence programme in Petrozavodsk in autumn 2002
7.1. Presenting and evaluating finished articles
8. Putting together the publication
8.1. Translating the articles
8.2. Editing
8.3. Putting the articles on the website
9. Publicising the project and presenting its results at the conference organised by the Gender and Violence research programme (location to be notified later)
10. Publication symposium in Oulu at the end of 2002
10.1. Presentation of the entire project
10.2. Final evaluation of the project in Luulaja
The planned task list and the final task list are structured differently. In the final task list the conferences and seminars were gathered together under their own heading. Conferences and seminars have also been itemised in the plan. The project was not presented at all the conferences and seminars listed in the plan, because, for example, the TNTEE conference, contrary to our previous information, was not run at all. However, the project was presented at as many seminars and conferences as planned. The location of the initial project meeting was also changed. The final plan is also more specific and does not include the tasks which were not realised during the project period.
2.2. Project activities
Activities are presented strictly in line with the task list on the following pages, which describes the tasks carried out during the project. The task list was updated constantly throughout the project period and the report presents the final task list which describes all the tasks in the project. The timing of these tasks will be shown in the project timetable below. The task list was written in English.
The task list is divided into six central headings, which are divided into sub-tasks. The first heading is project administration, which included holding project meetings, managing the project budget, project evaluation, following and updating the project plan and the project schedule. Project administration structured the project and was necessary for the smooth running of the project.
The second heading was informing about the project through different networks. Sub-tasks here were organising the series of lectures on sexuality and sexuality education, taking part in conferences and seminars and presenting the project at these, organising seminars and creating press releases and newspaper articles and taking part in organising the Naisten Linja helpline for women suffering from violence in Oulu.
Informing about the project has not merely involved advertising the project or publicising it but also resulted in gaining more partners for the project, such as writers and experts as well as referees. The conferences, seminars and the final symposium offered the chance to present the results of the project within the academic community and highlight the theme of gendered and sexualised violence, in other words increase awareness of it in practice. Informing about the project also included sending the books to various players. As well as increasing the visibility of the project, taking part in organising the Naisten Linja helpline also provided practical help for women who have experienced violence and made it possible for the viewpoint of women who have experienced violence to be brought out in the project.
The third heading involved maintaining the project website and the Discendum Optima learning environment. This heading covered creating the website and the Aware writing process environment, updating, drawing up a questionnaire on violence and sexual harassment and analysing the results of the questionnaire. The website also played a role in informing about the project: the address of the website was shown in all leaflets and posters. The website was also advertised in the newspaper articles presenting the Aware project. The website is also a source of information on sexualised and gendered violence, through which the book Gendered and Sexualised Violence in Educational Environments is available in electronic form. Using the Discendum Optima learning environment the writers working on the project were able to exchange ideas and discuss their writing processes. Unfortunately however, Discendum Optima did not in practice prove to be a very efficient channel for writers to keep in touch. The main reason for this is that the writers were using very different computers and there were major differences in their basic computer skills. Nor did the writers necessarily enjoy using the Optima system. Not enough time was set aside for using Optima either.
The questionnaire produced by the project and uploaded to the project website collected material from staff and students at the University of Oulu who had experienced gendered and sexualised harassment and coercion to be used for the articles to be published in the book. The aim of the questionnaire was to include the voices of people who had experienced gendered and sexualised violence in the project. The questionnaire was answered by both women and men, although women were more often the object of gendered and sexual harassment and coercion.
The fourth heading was the process of writing the articles. This included creating the outline for the publication, receiving and going through the abstracts, commenting on the articles at different stages, organising the writers’ summer school in Oulu in July 2002, and adapting the English articles for Finnish publication. The writing process was the most essential of the headings and its success was the most important thing in terms of the success of the project. The writing process was supported by discussions with the writers via e-mail and face to face and by commenting on the articles throughout the writing process. The writers’ summer school in 2002 also provided support.
The fifth heading concerned putting the publication together. Sub-tasks were finding referees to comment on the articles, discussing the referees’ comments, translating the articles and checking the translations, drawing up the layout, producing the cover art for the book, producing writer biographies, proof-reading and preparing the articles for publication on the web. Putting together the publication was another important heading in the project, through which the different articles were turned into two entire publications, the book. This heading was the most time-critical as the stages of putting the publication together had to take place in the right order. These stages were: comments from the referees, corrections, translation, checking, layout, proof-reading, and finally printing. Translation, checking and printing were carried out by people who were not part of the project so these stages were also dependent on their schedules. It was this heading which saw the most deviation from the schedule. This heading clearly showed that a year is not enough time for a publication project.
The sixth heading involved organising the publication launch. The launch of the first, English, publication was organised in Umeå in conjunction with the Values in Education across Boundaries conference 27 – 28.11.2002. Sub-tasks were organising travel arrangements, planning and realising conference workshops, looking after conference guests and organising the launch party. The second launch was organised in the form of a symposium on violence entitled Leimattuna, kontrolloituna, normitettuna – Seksualisoitunut ja sukupuolistunut väkivalta kasvatuksessa ja koulutuksessa held in Oulu 13 – 14.2.2003. Sub-tasks included making travel arrangements for the participants, drawing up a programme for the symposium, looking after symposium guests and organising the symposium. The launch received a great deal of publicity in Oulu. The launch event increased awareness of the book and gave it publicity as well as offering the writers the opportunity to meet each other and discuss the themes of the project, possible future plans and co-operation. Writers from Russia, the UK, Canada, Sweden and Finland attended the launches.