Module 18: Gender Differences
After completing this module you will be able to:
List ways that gender differences affect students in day-to-day
classroom life
Discuss the implications of gender differences in the classroom
Identify differences in the way that boys and girls usually socially
interact
Identify three ways that teachers can influence gender roles
Introduction to Gender Differences
Gender roles are the patterns of behaviours, attitudes and expectations
associated with a particular sex - with being either male or female.
For clarity, psychologists sometimes distinguish gender differences, which are
related to social roles, from sex differences, which are related only to
physiology and anatomy.
Using this terminology, gender matters in teaching more than sex.
Although there are many exceptions, boys and girls do differ on average in
ways that parallel conventional gender stereotypes and that affect how the
sexes behave at school and in class.
The differences have to do with:
Physical behaviours
Styles of social interaction
Academic motivations, behaviours, and choices
They have a variety of sources - primarily parents, peers, and the media.
Teachers are certainly not the primary cause of gender role differences, but
sometimes teachers influence them by their responses to and choices made
on behalf of students.
Physical Differences in Gender Roles
Physically, boys tend to be more active than girls, and by the same token
more restless if they have to sit for long periods. They are also more prone
than girls to rely on physical aggression if they are frustrated (Espelage &
Swearer, 2004).
Both tendencies are inconsistent with the usual demands of classroom life, of
course, and make it a little more likely that school will be a difficult experience
for boys, even for boys who never actually get in trouble for being restless or
aggressive.
During the first two or three years of formal school, gross motor skills develop
at almost the same average rate for boys and girls.
As a group, both sexes can run, jump, throw a ball, and the like with about
equal ease, though there are of course wide significant differences among
individuals of both sexes.
Toward the end of first level schooling (aged 9-11 approximately), boys pull
ahead of girls at these skills even though neither sex has begun yet to
experience puberty.
The most likely reason is that boys participate more actively in formal
and informal sports because of expectations and support from parents, peers
and society (Braddock, Sokol-Katz, Greene, & Basinger- Fleischman, 2005;
Messner, Duncan, & Cooky, 2003)
Puberty eventually adds to this advantage by making boys taller and stronger
than girls, on average, and therefore more suited at least for sports that rely
on height and strength.
In thinking about these differences, it should be kept in mind that they refer to
average trends and that there are numerous individual exceptions.
Every teacher knows of individual boys who are not athletic, for example, or of
particular girls who are especially restless in class.
The individual differences mean, among other things, that it is hard to justify
providing different levels of support or resources to boys than to girls for
sports, athletics, or physical education.
The differences also suggest, though, that individual students who contradict
gender stereotypes about physical abilities may benefit from emotional
support or affirmation from teachers, simply because they may be less likely
than usual to get such affirmation from elsewhere.
Social, Academic and Cognitive Difference in
Gender Roles
Social differences in gender roles
Boys, when relaxing socially, more often gravitate to large groups. Whether
on the playground, in a school hallway, or on the street, boys’ social groups
tend literally to fill up a lot of space, and often include significant amounts of
roughhousing as well as organised and “semi-organised” competitive games
or sports.
Girls, for their part, are more likely to seek and maintain one or two close
friends and to share more intimate information and feelings with these
individuals.
To the extent that these gender differences occur, they can make girls less
visible or noticeable than boys, at least in leisure play situations where
children or youth choose their companions freely.
As with physical differences, however, keep in mind that differences in social
interactions do not occur uniformly for all boys and girls. There are boys with
close friends, contradicting the general trend, and girls who play primarily in
large groups.
Differences in social interaction styles happen in the classroom as well. Boys,
on average, are more likely to speak up during a class discussion, sometimes
even if not called on, or even if they do not know as much about the topic as
others in the class (Sadker, 2002).
When working on a project in a small co-educational group, furthermore they
have a tendency to ignore girls’ comments and contributions to the group.
In this respect co-educational student groups parallel interaction patterns in
many parts of society, where men also have a tendency to ignore women’s
comments and contributions (Tannen, 2001).
Academic and cognitive differences in gender
On average, girls are more motivated than boys to perform well in school, at
least during the early years of school. By the time girls reach second level,
however, some may try to down play their own academic ability in order make
themselves more likeable by both sexes (Davies, 2005).
Even if this occurs, though, it does not affect their grades: throughout the
early school years, girls earn slightly higher average grades than boys
(Freeman, 2004).
This fact does not lead to similar achievement, however, because as
youngsters move into second level, they tend to choose courses or subjects
conventionally associated with their gender - math and science for boys, in
particular, and literature and the arts for girls.
By the end of high school, this difference in course selection makes a
measurable difference in boys’ and girls’ academic performance in these
subjects.L
Stereotyping
Stereotyping needs to considered here also: there are individuals of both
sexes whose behaviours and choices run counter to the group trends.
Differences within each gender group generally are far larger than any
differences between the groups.
Example:
A good example is the “difference” in cognitive ability of boys and girls. Many
studies have found none at all. A few others have found small differences,
with boys slightly better at math and girls slightly better at reading and
literature.
How teachers influence gender roles?
Teachers often intend to interact with both sexes equally, and frequently
succeed at doing so. Research has found, though, that they do sometimes
respond to boys and girls differently, perhaps without realising it. Three kinds
of differences have been noticed.
These differences are related to:
The visibility or “publicity” of conversations.
The overall amount of attention paid to each sex.
The type of behaviour that prompts teachers to support or criticise students.
Attention paid to each sex
In general, teachers interact with boys more often than with girls by a margin
of 10% to 30%, depending on the class level of the students and the
personality of the teacher (Measor & Sykes, 1992).
One possible reason for the difference is related to the greater assertiveness
of boys that was mentioned earlier. If boys are speaking up more frequently in
discussions or at other times, then a teacher may be “forced” to pay more
attention to them.
Another possibility is that some teachers may feel that boys are especially
prone to getting into mischief, so they may interact with them more frequently
to keep them focused on the task at hand (Erden & Wolfgang, 2004).
Still another possibility is that boys, compared to girls, may interact in a wider
variety of styles and situations, so there may simply be richer opportunities to
interact with them. This last possibility is partially supported by another gender
difference in classroom interaction, the amount of public versus private talk.
Public talk versus private talk
Teachers have a tendency to talk to boys from a greater physical distance
than when they talk to girls (Wilkinson & Marrett, 1985).
The difference may be both a cause and an effect of general gender
expectations, expressive nurturing is expected more often of girls and women,
and a business-like task orientation is expected more often of boys and men,
particularly in mixed-sex groups (Basow & Rubenfeld, 2003; Myaskovsky,
Unikel, & Dew, 2005).
Whatever the reason, the effect is to give interactions with boys more
“publicity”. When two people converse with each other from across the
classroom, many others can overhear them; when they are at each other’s
elbows, though, few others can overhear.
Distributing praise and criticism
In spite of most teachers’ desire to be fair to all students, it turns out that they
sometimes distribute praise and criticism differently to boys and girls. The
differences are summarised in the table below:
Types of
response from Boys Girls
teacher
"Good" or compliant
Praises Correct knowledge
behaviour
"Good" or compliant
Overlooks or Misbehaviour; Correct
behaviour; Incorrect
ignores knowledge
knowledge
Critisises Misbehaviour Incorrect knowledge
The tendency is to praise boys more than girls for displaying knowledge
correctly, but to criticise girls more than boys for displaying knowledge
incorrectly (Golombok & Fivush, 1994; Delamont, 1996).
Another way of stating this difference is by what teachers tend to overlook:
with boys, they tend to overlook wrong answers, but with girls, they tend to
overlook right answers.
The result (which is probably unintended) is a tendency to make boys’
knowledge seem more important and boys themselves more competent. A
second result is the other side of this coin: a tendency to make girls’
knowledge less visible and girls themselves less competent.
Gender differences also occur in the realm of classroom behaviour. Teachers
tend to praise girls for “good” behaviour, regardless of its relevance to content
or to the lesson at hand, and tend to criticise boys for “bad” or inappropriate
behaviour (Golombok & Fivush, 1994).
This difference can also be stated in terms of what teachers overlook: with
girls, they tend to overlook behaviour that is not appropriate, but with boys
they tend to overlook behaviour that is appropriate.
The net result in this case is to make girls’ seem more good than they may
really be, and also to make their “goodness” seem more important than their
academic competence.
By the same token, the teacher’s patterns of response imply that boys are
more “bad” than they may really be.
At first glance, the gender differences in interaction can seem discouraging
and critical of teachers because they imply that teachers as a group are
biased about gender.
But this conclusion is too simplistic for a couple of reasons:
1. Similar to all differences between groups, interaction patterns are trends,
and as such they hide a lot of variation within them.
2. The trends suggest what often tends in fact to happen, not what can in fact
happen if a teacher consciously sets about to avoid interaction patterns like
the ones described here.
Fortunately for us all, teaching does not need to be unthinking; teachers have
choices that they can make, even during a busy class.
The main points from this module are as follows:
Gender differences that affect students are related to:
- Physical behaviours
- Styles of social interaction
- Academic motivations, behaviours, and choices
Physically, boys tend to be more active than girls, and by the same token
more restless if they have to sit for long periods. They are also more prone
than girls to rely on physical aggression if they are frustrated.
During the first two or three years of formal school, gross motor skills develop
at almost the same average rate for boys and girls.
In thinking about these gender differences, it should be kept in mind that they
refer to average trends and that there are numerous individual exceptions.
There are social, academic and cognitive differences in gender roles that
affect classroom life on a day-to-day basis
Stereotyping needs to considered in relation to social, academic and cognitive
differences: there are individuals of both sexes whose behaviours and choices
run counter to the group trends.
Teachers often intend to interact with both sexes equally, and frequently
succeed at doing so. Research has found, though, that they do sometimes
respond to boys and girls differently, perhaps without realising it.
These differences are related to:
- The overall amount of attention paid to each sex
- The visibility or “publicity” of conversations
- The type of behaviour that prompts teachers to support or criticise students