Gender as a Social Construct, Gender Roles, Gender-Bias and Educational Practice is the TET Notes to each chapter is provided in the list so that you can easily browse throughout different TET syllabus wise notes for Gender as a Social Construct, Gender Roles, Gender-Bias and Educational Practice .
Gender as a Social Construct, Gender Roles, Gender-Bias and Educational Practice
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Gender as a Social Construct, Gender Roles, Gender-Bias and Educational Practice
CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND PEDAGOGY
GENDER AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT; GENDER ROLES, GENDER-BIAS AND EDUCATIONAL PRACTICE
Gender refers to the social distinctions between boys and girls and men and women that are socially constructed rather than biologically determined. These distinctions are reflected in the roles that boys and girls play in society and the status that they occupy within it. Gender roles tend to be dynamic. They vary from one culture and time period to another and are characterized by unequal power relationships.
Ending gender bias and discrimination is crucial to the empowerment of women and girls and to the achievement of gender equality in education. Applying a gender perspective helps to make differences in power relations visible. It also helps us to see more clearly the needs and rights of girls and boys in particular geographical, cultural and economic contexts.
The ultimate goal is to eliminate gender biases and discriminatory practices and policies, both overt and covert. This is at the heart of gender analysis. Gender analysis should therefore be a prerequisite for identifying and understanding problems as they relate to education, and especially to the continued exclusion of girls from quality schooling. Gender analysis guides the process of finding viable and sustainable solutions to the problems of access, quality and learning achievement.
Gender analysis of what learners bring to education (including early childhood socialization, feeding and health access, cultural heritage and language), the content of education, teaching and learning processes, learning environments and learning outcomes help to highlight bad (and good) educational practices and policies. This analysis, in turn, should form the basis for educational interventions that are sensitive to both gender and human rights
Gender Bias in Teaching
A common response from teachers when asked about gender inequity in classrooms is that they treat all their students the same. There are two problems with this statement. First, students are diverse and have different learning issues, thus treating all students in the same way means that some students will have a better learning experience than their peers. Second, teachers may be ignoring their unconscious gender biases towards their students, their schools and themselves. If ignored, these gender biases, which may have developed from cultural norms, may lead to bias in the classroom.
Gender bias occurs when people make assumptions regarding behaviours, abilities or preferences of others based upon their gender. Because there are strong gender role stereotypes for masculinity and femininity, students who do not match them can encounter problems with teachers and with their peers. For example, the expectation is that boys naturally exhibit boisterous, unruly behaviour, are academically able, rational, and socially uncommunicative, whereas girls are quiet, polite, and studious, Girls are also expected to possess better social skills than boys and to excel at reading and the language arts. So girls who present discipline problems for teachers, or quiet, studi boys, may encounter a lack of understanding from peers and teachers. Within the classroom, these biases unfold in students practices and teachers’ acceptance of certain behaviours from one student or another based upon the students’ gender. Also, bias due to person’s gender is not mutually exclusive of other social categories such as race, ethnicity, class, religion, and language. For example, some teachers may perceive African American or other Black girls as loud and uncontrollable because the girls do not exhibit the feminine behaviours associated with White women. such as quiet, self-effacing and malleable.
Gender bias can occur within subject areas and school activities. For example, in subjects such as mathematics and the sciences, there are different participation patterns for girls and boys. Gender bias promulgates a myth that boys are naturally better at mathematics and science than girls. The implications are that if girls succeed in these subjects it is due to their hard work, not their intelligence, whereas boys’ success is credited to their natural talent. There are some signs that gender bias in schools may be decreasing in some areas. The percentage of girls participating in science has increased and achieved parity with boys in biology, chemistry and algebra. However, subjects that are prerequisites for majors such as engineering or physics remain dominated by men. Only 25% of high school students enrolled in physics are female. Moreover, has been little increase in the percentage of women in college engineering programs. Males are also more likely than females to be in remedial programs and students’ race also impacts these patterns. For example, African American males are more likely than White or female peers to enroll in remedial reading and mathematics courses. And non-White students have a higher representation in vocational and noncollege preparatory courses than their White peers. Teachers are critical components in challenging gender bias in schooling, but they also can be major contributors to it as well, through their pedagogical practices, curriculum choices, and assessment strategies
Gender Bias in Teachers
Teachers’ unconscious gender biases can produce stereo-typical expectations for students success and participation in the classroom. Teachers view male students domination of the classroom and their time as typical masculine behaviour. However, these biases have consequences for the students and the class classroom climate. More than two decades ago, researchers identified and named groups of students who dominated the teacher’s time and the classroom resources as “target students” (Tobin & Gallagher, 1987). Target students were typically white and male. They answered most of the teacher’s questions and also asked most of the questions. This behaviour pattern was particularly insidious in mathematics and science classrooms because teachers did not expect girls to have competent knowledge in these subject areas. Classroom observations documented that target students typically called out answers to the teacher’s questions, thus denying other students the opportunity to engage in dialogue with the teacher or get to grips with the subject matter. Furthermore, because boys are perceived as having natural talent in science, teachers asked boys harder and more complicated questions than girls. If girls attempted to answer more difficult 1 questions than boys and faltered, teachers often repeated the question and asked that another student, typically a boy, provide the answer. However, if a boy failed to answer correctly, teachers reframed the question or broke it into a series simpler questions that could help the student find the answer. Teachers’ unconscious stereotyped gender bias that boys are smarter than girls, especially in mathematics and the sciences, meant they were willing to work with boys to reach the answer because they perceived boys were capable of achieving that goal but girls were not. Conversely, teachers of subjects perceived as feminine will spend more time engaged with girls.
Teachers’ gendered perceptions of students’ ility is also reflected in the type of praise and expectations they have of their students. Teachers often give girls less meaningful and less critical praise than boys. Boys’ work is described as unique or brilliant, while girls work is often undervalued. critically ignored and praised for its appearance. This aspect of teachers’ behaviour is particularly detrimental to girls because it means they do not receive feedback. on their work that could help them develop deeper understandings of concepts (Liu, 2006).
Teachers also use target students to maintain the tempo and pace classroom instruction. For example, in a lecture or whole class discussion when a teacher is posing questions to the class, he or she may encourage target students to call out answers in order to keep the lesson moving, rather than wait for the other students to process the question and provide an answer. This short “wait time” may be detrimental to learning. More than three decades ago, researchers found that if teachers waited three to five seconds before accepting a student’s answer, more students became engaged in the classroom and also improved their understanding of the content. Moreover, the longer wait time meant that teachers began to ask more cognitively challenging questions. However, the existence of target students in classes who often call out answers without direction from teachers meant that fewer students, especially girls, engaged in the lessons. In the absence of proactive teacher intervention, these patterns in which males dominate classroom interactions also occur in mixed-gender. small groups.
Target students dominate classroom interactions and exchanges at all education levels. In the early 2000s, researchers identified these same patterns of for science teachers, When alerted to the invasive behaviours of the male teachers in the cohort, faculty began using overt breaching strategies to stop the arget students calling out answers, dominating the human and materials resources of the classroom, and showing disrespect to their peers (Martin Milne & Scuntlebury, 2006),
Teachers’ gender bias towards students can also extend to their response to students who challenge their authority. Such risk-taking behaviour in boys is expected and at times praised, but assertiveness in pirks is viewed negatively and labelled unfeminine. Similarly, boys who do not exhibit stereotypic masculine behaviours may be ridiculed (Renold, 2006).
Teachers use gender expectations as a means of maintaining classroom control. For example, teachers will seat undisciplined boys next to girls as a classroom management strategy. Further, teachers use the gendered expectation that girls nurturing characteristics will lead them to place others’ needs before their own. In other words, teachers often ask girls to assume mothering roles towards students who have fallen behind with learning because of inanentiveness, absenteeism through truancy, or in school disciplinary procedures, and often those students are male.
Effects of Gender Bias
Gender bias can impact students’ attitudes towards learning and their engagement with the subject. If affected by gender bias, girls will tend to believe that any soccer success they have is due to hard work rather than innate talent or intelligence. Boys may be encouraged to believe that success in science and mathematics should come easily to their gender. Some males report to them because they are dropping out of college science and mathematics programs because they do not perceive these subjects as easy. Overall, teachers have lower expectations for girls’ academic success compared to boys, and their attitudes are shown through the type and quality of the student-teacher interaction. The type and quality of critique teachers give their students can also have an impact. Teachers’ comments on girls’ work focuses on its appearance but with boys’ work teachers focus on the content. Girls often do not receive substantive comments or criticism from teachers from which they could improve their ability to learn. During the many hours spent in classrooms, girls receive less time and attention from teachers than their male peers. Teachers usually ask girls easier questions than they ask boys. Typically, girls receive fewer opportunities to engage in classroom discourse, use equipment and assert their knowledge in classrooms.
Reducing Gender Bias
Gender bias in education is a series of microinequities whose impact is cumulative and often ignored. Girls are rewarded and praised for compliant behaviour. Teachers do not challenge girls with questions and rarely offer criticisms of their works. Teachers can reduce and challenge gender bias through an examination of their pedagogical practices and by posing simple questions about their practices. For example, which students do they frequently interact with? Are target students evident in their classroom? If so, how does the teacher deal with those students? What questioning techniques does the teacher use to engage students? Does the teacher ask complicated questions to girls well as boys? Does the teacher use a variety of pedagogical and assessment practices? Which students are engaged with the curriculum?
Another way of reducing gender bias would be for teachers to videotape their classes and review their interactions with the students. Or they could invite a colleague to watch their teaching and record which students are being asked questions and what type of questions. However, teachers must also prepare for the consequences of changing their practices. Girls are conditioned to receiving less of the teacher’s attention, and they do not usually cause discipline problems if they are not receiving their fair share, but boys can react negatively to losing the teacher’s attention, causing disruption to lessons and becoming discipline problems. Moreover, research has also shown that boys avoid written work and often have poor communication skills when asked to work in singlesex groups.
However, the gains in reducing gender bias in education may disappear with the requirements of high-stakes testing required by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) NCLB requires that states report academic achievement data in most social categories, except gender (Kahle, 2004). This may result in less attention being placed on gender bias and less data that might reveal it. Continued monitoring of gender bias is necessary to minimize its impact on students’ opportunities for learning and achievement.
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