Resources
Explore a wide range of valuable resources on GCED to deepen your understanding and enhance your research, advocacy, teaching, and learning.
792 Results found
Countering Holocaust Denial and Distortion through Education: Lesson Activities for Secondary Education Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Adaptable lessons to foster critical thinking, empathy and tolerance Holocaust denial rejects historical facts outright, while distortion manipulates the narrative. Both phenomena undermine historical truth, fuel antisemitism, and attack democratic values. By addressing these issues, this set of lesson activities for secondary education seeks to build students’ resilience against falsehoods through fostering critical thinking, empathy, and global citizenship. It was developed by UNESCO and funded by the European Commission to equip educators with tools to confront the dangerous spread of Holocaust denial and distortion. With 12 engaging lessons, students aged 14 to 18 will explore the historical facts of the Holocaust while learning to critically evaluate misinformation in today’s digital world. From analyzing survivor testimonies to deconstructing harmful memes and conspiracy theories, this resource features 12 adaptable lessons that focus on historical literacy, media analysis, and social-emotional competencies. Topics range from identifying denial and distortion, evaluating media and online sources, analyzing primary evidence like survivor testimonies, and understanding the misuse of Holocaust history in memes and conspiracy theories. Activities are scaffolded with questions, examples, and practical exercises to encourage analytical skills and promote meaningful classroom discussions. The lessons also include suggestions for incorporating primary sources, visiting memorial sites, and addressing broader issues of genocide and hate. In doing so, the guide aims to not only preserve Holocaust memory but also strengthen the values of truth, empathy, and tolerance in younger generations. 
Covering Hate Speech: A Guide for Journalists Year of publication: 2025 Author: Cherian George Corporate author: UNESCO This guide is the first in a series of guides for journalists prepared jointly by the UNESCO Communication and Information and Education Sectors on covering hate speech and its different manifestations.This guide explains what may count as hate speech, the harms it may cause, the way it works, and how media gatekeepers and other actors can address it. Many debates around hate speech are about law and regulation. Understanding the law, especially international law, can help journalists when reporting incidents where speakers are accused of hate speech. It can also help them analyse whether existing laws, as written and as applied, comply with international human rights approaches for striking the right balance between freedom of expression and the right to dignity, equality and non-discrimination. 
Strategies to Counter Antisemitism: A Handbook for Educators Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Education is the first line of defence against hate and prejudice. By targeting the root causes of hate ideologies, deconstructing the stereotypes that underlie them from an early age, and promoting inclusive models, education is the keystone of a holistic approach to combating discrimination. Tackling antisemitism through education requires tailored content that addresses its complex, shifting and multilayered forms, both past and present.Acknowledging the topic’s complexity and the paucity of resources available to education stakeholders, this concise guide developed by UNESCO and funded by the European Commission aims to provide a roadmap for policymakers, curriculum developers and educators on current approaches and initiatives. It presents ten educational practices, each grounded in academic literature and illustrated by a promising educational initiative that operationalizes core pedagogical principles. The handbook is built around the three core learning domains which inform UNESCO’s approach to Global Citizenship Education: cognitive, socio-emotional, and behavioural learning.Conceived as an accessible operational guide for practitioners, this resource sets out to start a larger conversation about the needs of educators for tackling contemporary forms of antisemitism. It aims to encourage investments in high-quality empirical research that can pave the way for a better approach to combat antisemitism. 
The Representation of Jews, Judaism and Antisemitism in School Textbooks and Curricula in Europe Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Jewish communities have been integral to Europe’s social fabric for centuries, preserving rich religious and cultural traditions while facing recurring periods of exclusion, persecution, and resilience. School textbooks are important vantage points to understand how this history and heritage is represented, (de)constructed and embedded into a shared historical and cultural memory. They are also important practical tools used daily by students, teachers, and parents.This comprehensive research, carried out by UNESCO in collaboration with the Georg-Eckert-Institute and supported by funding from the European Commission, examines the ways in which Jewish culture, history, life, and anti-Jewish prejudice are represented in secondary school materials across eight European nations.The publication highlights opportunities within curricula to address Jewish experiences and antisemitism, reviews how these themes are incorporated into textbooks, and analyzes the narratives and portrayals that arise. The study also looks at the use of visual sources and assesses whether Jewish viewpoints and agency are sufficiently reflected. The findings highlight both recurring stereotypes and promising practices. By showcasing these contrasts, the study provides targeted recommendations to guide the creation of more inclusive educational materials. 
Mainstreaming the General History of Africa into Education Systems: The Curriculum Pathway Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Education about the history of Africa in formal, non-formal and informal learning settings continues to be dominated by Eurocentric perspectives, which has led to imbalanced representation of Africa’s history and preconceptions.This publication is a tool to support countries in challenging the skewed perspectives on how African history is taught and how Africa is perceived. It aims to bring to the foreground Africa’s history, cultures and heritage through the curriculum to strengthen knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that contribute towards addressing long-standing hegemonic, colonial thinking and connected racial bias, while forging a united, prosperous and peaceful Africa and world.Stemming from the decolonial vision and content of the volumes of the General History of Africa, the publication proposes guiding principles and approaches for designing and implementing the General History of Africa into the curriculum. It puts forth curriculum outlines for basic and secondary education to offer renewed and broader perspectives on the history of Africa and its diasporas, and their contributions to humanity.The curriculum outlines are structured around nine thematic Learning Units, arranged chronologically from the origins of humanity and civilizations to Africa’s most recent history. 
Monitoring Progress towards SDG Target 4.7 on Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO | Global Education Monitoring Report Team This document introduces key messages from the GEM Reports and other related publications and online resources regarding the progress towards SDG Target 4.7. 
School Leadership Roles and Standards: Observations from the International Study of Teacher Leadership Year of publication: 2024 Author: Charles F. Webber | Dorothy Andrews | C.P. van der Vyver | Clelia Pineda-Báez | Janet M. Okoko | Edith J. Cisneros-Cohernour | José Gabriel Domínguez-Castillo | Mohammed Elmeski | Molly P. Fuller | Joan M. Conway | Cristina Moral-Santaella | Gloria Gratacós | Samira Idelcadi Corporate author: UNESCO | Global Education Monitoring Report Team This paper was commissioned by the Global Education Monitoring Report as background information to assist in drafting the 2024/5 GEM Report, Leadership in education. This report summarizes the findings of the International Study of Teacher Leadership(ISTL), conducted in 12 countries. The researchers share descriptions of the increasing interest in teacher leadershipas a factor in student learning and school improvement. ISTL researchers focus primarily on classroom-based teachers who—in collaboration with formal school leaders, parents, community members, and colleagues—impact school-wide decision making and pedagogical practices. The report offers insights related to teacher leader behaviours, the complexity of teacher leadership, how teacher leaders learn to lead, and the importance of contextual factors that support and impede teachers who provide informal leadership to schools and the communities they serve. The researchers compare cross-cultural requirements of good leadership and offer contextually situated analyses of leadership visions and goals, the impact of teacher leadership on educational outcomes, necessary preconditions for effective leadership, and policies that develop teacher leadership. The researchers also describe the readiness of school communities to embrace teacher leadership, described variously as parallel leadership, shared leadership, and distributed leadership. The report argues for a shift from considering standards for teacher leadership—too often based on the assumption that leadership is consistent across cultural and organizational settings—to the more flexible and contextualized conceptualization of leadership dimensions such as purpose, self-awareness, intentionality, and culture building. The ISTL researchers also argue that teacher leadership is but one component of an integrated approach to educational governance that addresses the complexities of teaching and learning in relation to rapid socioeconomic change, global migration, political tensions, and the emergence of new technologies. The ISTL also reinforces the ongoing importance of classroom teachers in the achievement of educational objectives. The ISTL team concludes this report with a set of research recommendations. 
The Global State of Play: Report and Recommendations on Quality Physical Education Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO | Loughborough University Active lifestyles are key to ensuring both individual well-being and sustainable, social development. Quality Physical Education (QPE) plays a key role in achieving this by fostering lifelong physical activity, improving young people’s mental and emotional well-being, and developing critical life skills. UNESCO’s sport initiative, Fit for Life, advocates QPE as a cost-effective investment. Despite its potential as a core curricula subject, UNESCO data reveal that PE is often under-prioritized and due to a lack of investment in certain areas, such as staff training and facilities, potential benefits are not fully realised for students around the world. This investment gap connects directly to a delivery gap. Although 83% of countries worldwide report PE as compulsory in schools, there remain significant issues with the quality of delivery and the diversity of lesson planning within curricula:• Only 1 in 3 secondary school students worldwide meet the minimum requirement of 180 minutes of PE minutes per week set out in UNESCO’s Quality Physical Education Policy Guidelines.• Only 61.7% of schools fully include students with disabilities alongside their peers without disabilities in PE classes.• Only 7.1% of schools implement equal PE time for boys and girls, despite 54.5% of countries having policies or plans for it. Policymakers, PE practitioners and academia are encouraged to take action to implement PE policies, increase investment in PE, upskill PE teachers, enhance PE curricula and promote more equitable and inclusive PE environment. 
Global Education Monitoring Report 2024: Gender Report; Technology on Her Terms Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO | Global Education Monitoring Report Team The 2024 Gender Report tells the increasingly positive story of girls’ education access, attainment and achievement, which is helping reverse decades of discrimination. But there is much more to say on gender equality in and through education. A companion to the 2023 GEM Report, this report looks at the interaction between education and technology with a gender lens. First, it looks at the impact of technology on girls’ education opportunities and outcomes. Although many instances are seen of radio, television and mobile phones providing a learning lifeline for girls, particularly in crisis contexts, gender divides exist globally in both access to technology and in digital skills, although the latter are smaller among youth compared to among adults. Biased social and cultural norms inhibit equitable access to and engagement with technology in and outside of school, with girls always left on the wrong side of the divide. While technology offers many girls opportunities to access important education content in safe environments, for instance on comprehensive sexuality education, technology in practice often exacerbates negative gender norms or stereotypes. Social media usage impacts learners’ and particularly girls’ well-being and self-esteem. The ease with which cyberbullying can be magnified through the use of online devices in the school environment is a cause of concern, as is the biased design of artificial intelligence algorithms. Second, the report looks into the role of education on the shape of future technological development. It shows that women struggle to pursue STEM careers, which manifests from an early age in the form of anxiety in mathematics and develops into a reluctance to study STEM subjects, ultimately resulting in a lack of women in the technology workforce. Women make up only 35% STEM graduates, and hold only a quarter of science, engineering and ICT jobs. Ensuring women participate on equal terms in shaping the world’s ongoing digital transformation will ensure that technology works for everyone and takes into consideration the needs of all humanity. 
Can African Countries Afford Their National SDG 4 Benchmarks? Year of publication: 2024 Corporate author: UNESCO | Global Education Monitoring Report Team This brief paper follows the broad methodological approach of the two previous SDG 4 costing exercises and their main assumptions (UNESCO, 2015a; UNESCO, 2020). It introduces the SDG 4 benchmarking process and how to estimate the cost of achieving these targets set by countries, largely based on their sector plans. Finally, it presents the revised assumptions of the model and the key findings. Despite lowering ambition, there is still an average national financing gap of USD 78 billion per year in the 44 low- and lower-middle-income countries in Africa.