GENDER AND LEARNING

 

GENDER AND LEARNING

General Overview

Gender is related to sex but there are two different concepts

Sex is a physiological/biological difference between females and males (maleness and femaleness in the biological context)

Gender is the behaviour and social roles played by males and females (social construct).

Gender roles are the social beliefs, attitudes and behaviours which are associated with being female or male. For example, girls participate in kitchen errands than boys while boys look after cows

Gender roles determine social expectation on what an individual ‘should’ or ‘ought’ to be in a certain culture

Gender Typing is the learning about gender roles or behaviours, attitudes and beliefs  appropriate to certain gender

The term refers specifically to the acquisition of male behaviour by a boy and female behaviour by a girl. For example, young boy are told ‘men do not cry’

DEVELOPMENT OF GENDER ROLES

Biological/genetic influences

•      Chromosomal combination controls the outcome of the fertilization.

•      When x combines with y forms a male zygote while x and x forms a female zygote.

•      Chances of producing a male or female zygote are always equal.

Biological/genetic influences

•      Sex hormones determine how we behave as females or males.

•      Testosterone controls most of the masculinity behaviours.

•      Oestrogen controls most of the femininity characteristics.

Environmental influences

•      The impact of environment is summarized in what is termed as gender schema theory.

•      The child begins with no notion gender identity.

•      The notion of gender identity begins to develop very early in life by what is known as gender schemas (characteristics associated with being male or female)

Environmental influences

•      Parents and significant others influence the development of gender role in children. For example, gender specific instructions they give to children develop stereotypes of masculinity and femininity.

•      Once developed, gender schemas act as powerful guides for children’s behaviours.

GENDER AND TEACHING

•      Gender equality is important in education

•      Teachers need to know the effects of proliferating gender stereotypes which clearly affects how we help students learn.

PREVALENCE OF GENDER INEQUALITY

•      Girls are seen as less capable in some of the ‘superior’ subjects. Does this have any value in education?

•      The public expects that girls will not outperform boys in examination. The belief is that girls are intellectually inferior to boys.

•      Education administration posts including Head of schools are male dominated.

•      Sexual stereotypes exist in books, in classroom examples and the general teaching.

•      In some societies, parents would still prefer girls to stay home (not qualified enough for education)

EFFECTS OF GENDER INEQUALITY

•      Poor participation of girls in academic activities since education appears to be in favour of males

•      Poor performance of girls because, among other things, parents demand more girls participation in errands than boys

•      Women expectation are limited and their motivation for success is lowered

WHAT CAN WE DO AS TEACHERS

Change Our Attitude

•      Teachers need to be in favour of gender equality (fair treatment)

•      In order to model the non gender stereotyped behaviour in classrooms we need to change our attitude.

Change Students’ Cognition

•      Students should know that being a male or female is biological and should not, in anyway, determine our cultural and social roles we attribute to sex.

•      In achieving this, teachers may arrange for demonstrations, role plays, debate and discussions to influence students’ views on gender roles.

Increase Gender Contact

•      Arrange for cross gender activities to increase contact between girls and boys.

•      Contacts expose students to unique abilities of the opposite sex which may reduce gender stereotypes.

•      Such activities could be sitting arrangements, discussion groups, practical groups and errands allocation. 

•      Teachers should therefore avoid using gender as a criterion for classroom activities.

Reinforce Equality

•      Reward students for practicing non-gender behaviour or for breaking the gender stereotypes.

•      Rewarding these changes reinforces positive behaviour.