+M Foundation June 10th, 2025 4 MINS READ
+M Foundation
3MIN
May 30th, 2025
+M Foundation
3MIN
May 30th, 2025
The Common Ground Project is helping boys ‘unlearn’ gender norms through the Foundation for Positive Masculinity’s program, writes Sue Osborne.
IEU [Independent Education Union] members, especially female teachers, have reported an increase in disrespectful and offensive behaviour towards them in the classroom in recent years.
And throughout Australia during 2024, 78 women were killed in incidents of gender-based violence, up from 64 in 2023.
This prompted the federal government to call the problem a “national crisis” and provide funding of $3.5 million for several initiatives to encourage healthy masculinity and respectful relationships in school-aged boys.
Three projects will trial activities focused on influencing and changing attitudes and behaviours that may lead to gender-based violence. The projects include:
The Common Ground Project has its roots in Melbourne’s Brighton Grammar School. Deputy Headmaster and Executive Director of the Foundation for Positive Masculinity, Dr Ray Swann (pictured above, far left, with members of the Positive Masculinity Foundation Advisory group), says the program was tested at Brighton Grammar School and expanded to more schools through the foundation.
The three-year trial will run in several schools, both government and non-government, in South Australia, NSW, Victoria and Canberra. The schools were invited to participate based on several criteria, including their location.
For students in Years 7-9, teachers will use a five-week lesson sequence with three phases.
The “learning phase” will identify what students understand.
The “unlearning phase” gives students the counterfactuals to help stimulate their thinking around the impact of what they’re seeing and the influence of gender norms.
During the “relearning phase”, students are given tools for making healthy choices.
For students in Years 11 and 12, facilitators run four workshops, where factors such as the “bro code” and other “manosphere” tropes are debunked.
“We are teaching them how they might liberate themselves from rigid, stereotypical views that we know lead to poor health outcomes not only for kids now, but adults across the course of life,” Dr Swann says.
“Some research came out last year that 25 per cent of young men aged 18 to 24 report having no close friends.”
While teachers are already feeling the strain of a packed curriculum, Dr Swann is confident that this program could be integrated into existing lessons.
“It’s a series of PowerPoints and lesson outlines, designed by teachers for teachers, but it still demands time and effort from already busy teachers,” Dr Swann says.
“However, we have designed the program so it can be rolled out in any subject – English, humanities, health, or in pastoral time, to alleviate some of these pressures.
“The upside of it is about building engagement and awareness and taking a stand on an important issue which is moving towards ending gender-based violence and improving healthy masculinity and engagement of boys.”
One of the aims is to provide students with some critical thinking strategies around the technology they’re using and the content it serves up to them.
“Through the algorithms that tech relies on, students are just being shown more and more content to create polarity,” Dr Swann says. “But schools and teachers have the power to help students question and interrogate sources of information.”
“I think people underestimate the incredible power teachers have in helping shape lives not only of the children in their care, but in the country as a whole.”
This article was first published for the Independent Education magazine, Issue 1, Vol 55 in April 2025
