GEMINI Newsletter no. 2

Empowering youth through series

Discover the GEMINI e-platform
for gender equality

May 12 2025

Dear educators, media scholars, and gender equality advocates,

The GEMINI project is proud to announce the launch of one of our most exciting and transformative tools to date – the GEMINI e-platform, a dynamic, interactive educational resource aimed at promoting gender equality through the lens of serial drama. This innovative online platform is designed for high school students and teachers across Europe, encouraging critical reflection on gender issues in modern media narratives while equipping young people with the tools to become storytellers of inclusive futures.

Our world is shaped by the stories we tell, and in the age of streaming, serial dramas are among the most influential narrative forms consumed by youth today. From Euphoria to Sex Education, series can subtly reinforce stereotypes or powerfully challenge them. The GEMINI e-platform harnesses this potential – not merely to entertain or critique, but to educate, question, and ultimately transform the ways young people think about gender and identity.

From collaborative research to educational strategies

Developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, educators, sociologists, and media experts across Europe, the e-platform represents a major step forward in our mission to raise awareness and support for gender equality through innovative educational strategies. Grounded in both rigorous academic research and real-world classroom application, this platform is the result of months of collaborative effort, testing, and refinement.

At its core, the platform is built around three comprehensive learning units, each of which approaches gender issues and media analysis from a different angle while maintaining a consistent pedagogical vision. It does not offer top-down instruction but instead provides tools for discovery and dialogue – encouraging students and teachers to explore, challenge, and reconstruct media narratives together.

Educational units of the e-platform

Unit 1 is focused on identifying gender stereotypes and understanding their cultural and social origins. Students are introduced to how these stereotypes manifest in serial drama, how they are perpetuated across different genres and formats, and what their consequences are in real life. This unit invites students to become aware of implicit biases, both in media and in themselves, and lays the groundwork for a critical understanding of gender as a social construct. Lessons are enriched with video clips, case studies, and guided activities, fostering both individual reflection and group discussion.

Unit 2 takes a deeper dive into the mechanics of serial drama, introducing students to the narrative, productive, technical, and ethical foundations of the format. This unit is not simply about content but about process – how series are created, what choices are made in storytelling, what production conditions shape the final product, and how values are transmitted through visuals, dialogue, and character development. Students are empowered to deconstruct media as informed viewers and potential creators, bridging media literacy with civic engagement.

Unit 3 moves into the realm of creation. Building on the analytical skills developed in the previous units, this section teaches the basics of writing for serial drama, with a focus on inclusive storytelling and gender-sensitive narrative structures. Students learn how to shape characters, conflicts, and themes in ways that reflect diversity, equity, and social awareness. This unit culminates in a creative challenge in Unit 4: students are encouraged to produce their own short scripts or storyboards, imagining narratives that promote empathy and representation.

From curriculum to social change

But the e-platform is more than a curriculum – it is a space for collaboration, creativity, and co-learning. Teachers are provided with structured lesson plans, methodological guidance, and assessment tools that allow for flexible use in various educational settings. Whether integrated into language classes, media studies, civic education, or extracurricular programs, the GEMINI E-platform adapts to the needs of educators and students alike.

The platform also reflects a remarkable collaboration among institutions across Europe, with each partner contributing distinct expertise to its design. Link Campus University of Rome, the project’s coordinator, played a key role in developing the overall structure and pedagogical philosophy of the platform while the Fondazione Centro Studi Villa Montesca enriched the resource with the innovative platform set-up. Together, all GEMINI partners shaped an educational resource that speaks to European diversity while fostering shared values.

The E-platform embodies the GEMINI project’s central belief: that education and media can intersect in transformative ways. Our goal is not just to teach students about gender equality, but to empower them to tell new stories – stories in which gender is not a limitation, but a lens for empathy, complexity, and social change.

Testing teaching tools and pitching new series

The GEMINI E-platform has already been successfully tested in classrooms across Italy, Ireland, and Bulgaria, where it was met with enthusiastic responses from both educators and students. Teachers observed a noticeable increase in student engagement, particularly when lessons tapped into series and characters students were already familiar with and emotionally invested in. Students expressed that the platform gave them a unique opportunity to analyze their favorite shows through a new lens, empowering them to question gender norms and imagine more inclusive narratives. The adaptability of the platform proved key to its success – teachers were able to tailor its structure and content to fit their local curriculum, time constraints, and student demographics without compromising the core message.

The successful piloting of the GEMINI Educational Toolkit in Italy, Ireland, and Bulgaria culminated in an inspiring celebration of youth creativity and inclusive storytelling through the GEMINI Screenwriting Contest. Following classroom implementation, students from all three countries were invited to apply what they had learned by participating in a collaborative screenwriting competition hosted on the GEMINI e-platform. A total of 22 original scripts were submitted and evaluated by an international jury of media experts and academics. From this pool, five finalist projects were selected for the GEMINI Workshop, where student teams refined their scripts and produced professional-quality audiovisual teasers of their stories. The journey concluded with the GEMINI Final Conference in Rome, where the winning teaser, Mismatch. Beyond the Rules, was officially announced and awarded on April 11, 2025. Created by students from Liceo Lucio Anneo Seneca and Istituto San Giovanni Battista in Rome, the story impressed the jury with its powerful message on gender bias in sports, dynamic editing, and creative use of archival footage. This contest powerfully demonstrated the toolkit’s ability to empower young people not only to analyze existing narratives but also to craft new, inclusive ones – proving the educational potential of the GEMINI e-platform beyond the classroom and onto the creative stage.

As with all aspects of GEMINI, the e-platform is aligned with our broader vision of equality, participation, and empowerment. We believe in the capacity of young people to challenge stereotypes, rewrite the script, and take active roles in shaping more inclusive societies. Through the e-platform, we invite them – and the teachers who guide them – to do just that.

We warmly encourage you to visit the GEMINI E-platform at the dedicated site for the e-platform. Whether you are an educator looking to inspire your classroom, a researcher seeking new models of media pedagogy, or simply someone passionate about gender justice, this resource is designed for you.

Together, let’s build a future where media empowers, educates, and includes.

With enthusiasm and solidarity,
The GEMINI Project Team