Gender Bias in a Classroom
Despite the fact that girls and boys formally enjoy equal rights to education, their academic achievements and educational practices and preferences are rather different. Instead of attributing this phenomenon to the innate differences between the genders, the scientists have started to investigate the effect of other factors such as social conditioning and bias. Sadker and Zittleman (2016) point out that sexism and gender bias are not immediately visible to educators not because they do not exist, but because they are very common and encompass every aspect of education. Therefore, purposeful inquiry is needed to investigate gender issues, which exist in a classroom. In the article “Gender Insights Coming to Your Classroom”, Sadker and Koch (2016) review recent research and draw relevant conclusions as to the existence and outcomes of gender bias in schools and the means to prevent it.
Sadker and Koch (2016) suggest that modern research have helped them to gain five gender insights. The first insight the authors present is that the threat of stereotyping is powerful but malleable. In particular, various researches show that the stereotype that girls are not as good as boys in mathematics have perceived impact on the achievements of the both sexes (Sadker & Koch, 2016). At the same time, even subtle changes in the instructions such as the indication that the tests are gender neutral or the demand to indicate gender after the completion of the test may mitigate the effect of the stereotype and improve girls’ scores (Sadker & Koch, 2016). Another insight, gained from the research in neuroscience is that boys’ and girls’ brains have no large cognitive and physiological differences and are subjects to change. Therefore, this is socialization and practicing of particular activity that makes girls and boys better at this or that field (Sadker & Koch, 2016). The appreciation of the fact can make both educators and students confident that student’s sex does not prevent them from succeeding in the field, which is not traditionally associated with their gender. The third insight suggests that gender and minorities underrepresentation in STEM carriers have identified causes and may be efficiently mitigated (Sadker & Koch, 2016). In particular, the factors, which lead to the exclusion of girls and minorities from computer science are the lack of access to technology, because of not having adequate resources, social expectations and parental attitudes in particular, lack of role models, as well as the lack of understanding of the social impact of the science (Sadker & Koch, 2016). These factors may be addressed by computer science curriculums and after school activities, which would engage girls and minorities and demonstrate how computer science may be applied to work collaboratively on the solution of societal issues.
Other two insights, presented by Sadker and Koch (2016) relate to boys and transgender students, which demonstrates that gender bias in a classroom is not limited to girls’ issues only. Thus, Sadker and Koch (2016) suggest that the problematic behavior of boy …
