Gender Issues in the Classroom

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Gender Issues in the Classroom

• Reynolds Miller Chapter 12

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Gendered socialization ?how male and female
students Receive and interpret different
messages about appropriate Classroom behaviors

• Central Questions
• To what extent do schools and teachers
  expectations of males and
• females influence their development,
  behavior, and academic success?
• 2. How do classroom interactions and school
  curriculum socially construct
• what it means to be female and male and in
  what way does it limit
• possibilities for girls and boys in school?

Let answer these questions first by a)
describing the developmental structures, b)
chemical differences, c) hormonal differences, d)
functional differences, and e) differences in
processing emotions.
a)
3
b)
Intra- Gender V A R I A B I L I T Y
c)
4
d)
5
e)
Defining Gender Issues Equity in Education
Practice or policy that limit learning
opportunities for females and males
2 types of sexual harassment quid pro
quo Environment harassment
Title XI 1972
Title VII 1964
OCR Title IX
UN 1995
Gender Equitable Learning Environments Caring,
safe, routines, curriculum experiences
Gender Issues in Education
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Gender Issues Facing Educators
Gender Issues Facing Educators
Gender Issues Facing Educators

• Hidden, Formal and Null
• Curriculum
• Teacher behaviors tacit
• messages
• Due to unconscious or
• unexamined behaviors
• Class, give examples at the
• elementary, middle, high schools
• and college

• Gender Issues in the Classroom
• Gaps
• Risks for girls
• Drop out rates
• Risks for boys
• Sports and physical activities
• Course taking
• and testing

• Classroom Climate
• Teacher questions and student responses (type and
• Student voice or air time sanctions)
• Teacher attention to student appearance
• Amount of wait time
• Teacher student coaching
• Teacher assigned jobs

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• Gender Issues in Early Childhood Environments
• Girls receive more praise
• Boys are more socialized
• Girls needs are more overlooked than boys
• Girls come to kindergarten with better fine motor
  skills?they should be
• exposed to activities with large motor skills
• The needs of boys were met during instructional
  class time
• Segregated play do not meet both sexes needs
• Segregated play is encouraged by media
  advertising
• Gender and Identity in Primary Grades
• Bad boys silent girls?sweeping generalizations
• 30 months gender labels
• By preschool internalized gender roles
• Teacher interactions reinforce internalized norms
• Therefore, teachers should empower these children
  to
• new possibilities

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• Gender Equity and early Childhood Pedagogy and
  Curriculum
• Peer discovery learning center
• Provide learning variety of experiences to both
  girls and boys
• Rename centers from playhouse etc. to drama
  center
• Avoid action figures glamour dolls
• Participate in creative role playing
• Equip this center with boys/girls clothes,
  anatomically correct dolls
• Gender segregation happens without teacher
  knowledge detrimental
• With teacher knowledge enlightening
• Gender Equity in the Middle Grades
• Adolescence difficult period for girls?this
  stem from disconnections
• Women often silence themselves rather than cause
  conflicts or risk
• isolation
• Girls at this stage begin to question
  themselves?struggle to keep
• connected with friends and at the same time see
  themselves as part
• of a larger social environment womanhood

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• Body image and Secondary School Student
• Advertisement, thinness, dieting
• Distorted perceptions
• Obesity, anorexia and bulimia?eating disorders
  8 million
• Glial cells

• Sexual harassment and Secondary School Student
• unwanted and unwelcome sexual behavior that
  interferes with life
• 83 of girls and 79 of boys have reported sexual
  harassment ?
• boys harassment have increased in the last 10
  years
• Mostly it occurs under the nose of the teachers

• Five Phases of McIntosh Curriculum
• Interdisciplinary way of teaching the subject
  areas
• Phase 1. Womanless history?minorities do not
  matter
• Phase 2. Women in history?womens history early
  1970
• Phase 3. Women as a problem?barrier faced and
  discrimination
• Phase 4. Women as history?real work in the life
• Phase 5. History redefined or reconstructed to
  include all