Although gender equity is a fundamental right, the 2020 gender equality index (GEI) places Portugal at 16th in the European Union, below average, despite recent progress. According to the Portuguese Government, education and communication are the two areas that can transform more the rigid conceptions of gender social roles, pointing to technological and digital developments that integrate artificial intelligence as one of the biggest challenges for the future of gender equality, with education being a priority area of intervention.  The 2020 GEI also accounts for the enormous segregation in education and the labor market in Portugal for ICT graduates (18.6% women), specialists (15.7% women), and scientists and engineers in highly technological sectors (20.2% women). Considering the impact of these fields to present and future societies, it is urgent to revert such figures.

According to UNESCO, efforts to promote gender equality should start early, as children begin to understand the concept of gender in the 3-7 age group. On STEM Education, UNESCO considers that children can be exposed to learning opportunities in science and mathematics from an early age, that initial educational experiences have a positive effect on the subsequent choice for science and mathematics courses, as well as on career  aspirations and that in primary education,… gender role stereotypes are reinforced in this age group. On the other hand, UNESCO also highlights how teachers' pedagogical practices are partially shaped by their prejudices, which in turn affect students' values and learning.

Considering that in Portugal, and compulsory schooling, it is in the 1st level of basic education that the percentage of women teachers is higher (87.0% in 2020), this can sharpen the difficulty of STEM education at this level.

We consider that the use of emergency remote education motivated by the COVID-19 pandemic forced teachers to use digital media in a way that would hardly have happened outside this context, constituting an opportunity to build knowledge about digital literacy, pedagogical practices and gender equality and how they intersect. Therefore, we seek to answer the following research questions: how current 1st level teachers perceive or integrate their existing digital knowledge into their teaching? how current 1st level teachers perceive differences between boys’ and girls’ digital skills? how current 1st level teachers support differently boys and girls, to achieve equity regarding digital skills? How teachers’ characteristics, both personal and from context, explain their perceptions and practices concerning digital skills promotion among pupils?

To answer the research questions, the research focused on 1st level teachers, as they are those who can make a difference concerning digital skills among students from an early age, thus contributing to diminish the gender gap. Considering the Portuguese population of 1st level teachers, 22 182 in 2020 (Instituto Nacional de Estatística – National Statistical Institute), we aimed to reach at least 15%, following a cluster sample process. To do so, schools and their directors were the path to reach the teachers. An online questionnaire survey was carried out with teachers from April to June of 2022, having obtained 3871 valid responses, representing 17.5% of the population. The questionnaire was organized in three sections. The first section (S1-questionnaire) was a Lickert scale to measure “gender equality in digital skills awareness” (GEDSA), which comprises three subscales: 1) teachers’ digital knowledge; 2) their actions by using digital tools in the classroom; ans 3) perceptions regarding gender differences concerning students’ digital skills. The second section (S2-questionnaire) regarded the support teachers give to gender equality promotion and had a descriptive approach with closed questions aiming to organize teachers’ answers in trends that frame teachers’ practices regarding GEDSA. The third section (S3-questionnaire), designed to collect data concerning personal and professional information of teachers, allowed the characterization of the sample in terms of clusters and have been used as independent variables. It combined closed questions with others with predefined answers. We used Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for the statistical analysis of data. Which was mainly descriptive.

It was found that teachers perceive themselves as digitally competent to develop the essentials of their teaching tasks. Most have already carried out a diverse set of pedagogical practices and activities using digital resources. However, as the overwhelming majority did not find differences between the uses that boys and girls make of digital, they also do not act in a way to promote digital skills differently among girls. The small group of teachers that recognizes differences between boys and girls (n=173), use activities most frequently perceived as favoring boys. Therefore, even these teachers do not contribute to gender equality in terms of digital skills.

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