Gender Sensitization Program Among Adolescents: A Narrative Review

The gender sensitization program is an effective intervention that alters people's stereotypical mindsets and fosters the development of egalitarian gender attitudes. It plays a preventive role in reducing gender-based violence. This review aims to understand and evaluate existing such programs and their methods. The study employed is a narrative review with analysis of articles, modules, and books from 2010 to 2024, yielding 21 articles. The researchers used specific books, websites, journal sites, and search engines such as Google Scholar, Scopus, and PubMed to locate the above studies. These studies were reviewed based on eligibility, exclusion, and inclusion criteria. The review indicates that previous gender sensitization programs predominantly had a binary focus on gender and did not address nonbinary aspects. Additionally, it also revealed that most programs were not developed in a structured manner and lacked thorough literature reviews, needs assessment, expert validation, and try-outs. Furthermore, the majority of gender sensitization programs had not used structured assessments to study their effectiveness. Future gender sensitization programs need to include standard psychometric procedures to develop modules that are brief, include all genders, and can be administered to adolescents in a school setting by appropriately trained teachers/facilitators.