Gender Bias in the Classroom

Part One

A few years ago Myra and David Sadker published a book called “Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls.”  They spent 20 years collecting evidence about boys and girls attitudes towards school and each other.  It is the most comprehensive look at the bias girls face from preschool through high school.  It found that students who have survived this treatment in middle and high school experience a continuing erosion of self-confidence in many colleges and universities.

“There is no doubt that girls show up on their first day of grammar school just as ready, willing and able to succeed as do boys.  At the elementary school level, girls and boys scored equally high in math and science, but by the middle school years girl’s achievement in these areas, particularly in science begins to take a downward slide.

The Sadkers’ showed in their survey of classroom settings across the country that teachers call on boys more frequently, spend more time with them and encourage their initiative and inquisitiveness more than they do girls.  By grade six, girls have become more tentative, far less likely to call out answers and more reluctant to take part in class demonstrations.

The slip has been attributed to the efforts of the lingering perception that science and math are simply things “that men do.” But, even when girls do well in these subjects, they receive less encouragement to pursue such disciplines, the study stated. 

Although differences in math achievement are narrowing, the study said, the gender gap in science may be increasing.  In addition, girls seldom get a chance to learn about the accomplishments of women. I am in agreement that a majority of visual arts and narrative materials are overwhelming male dominated.   Even the central them in movies is dominated with violence against women.

Once children enter middle school, the situation worsens, Girls who have previously held the edge in subjects, including mathematics, begin to lose points in every category of national tests.  This decline most precipitous in math, continues throughout high school, so that by the time juniors take National Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Tests, boys outscore girls by an average of 50 points.  While 18,000 boys typically reach the highest PSAT categories only 8,000 girls do.

Acting President of the AAUW Sharon Schuster commissioned a study that reported that of 13 popular U.S. history texts revealed that 1% of the 13 textbooks had any material on women, and women’s lives were often trivialized, distorted, or omitted.

A review of 35 major reports over two decades found only four that made any substantive references to girl’s problems in the educational system.  Further, the report found that sexual harassment of girls by boys is on the rise, in part, the Sadker’s stated, because school authorities tend to dismiss the incidents a “harmless instances of “boys being boys.”

Sadly, this is true on many elementary campuses. Some teachers seem to feel that girls need to learn to handle themselves in these types of situations.  However, when I speak to former female students they are acutely aware that the boys are being treated differently.  Many give up on taking their complaints to the teachers because of the lack of support they receive.  They feel that the teachers feel that somehow they must have contributed to the problem.  I have found that many girls begin their academic decline because the boys who instigate many of the problem always manage to get the teacher attention and multiple second tries to get it right.  Therefore, the girls begin to emulate the boy’s behavior in a effort to receive the same amount of attention.  The new problem is now the attention is based on negative behavior and not academic achievement.

Although girls surpass boys academically in the early grades, outdistancing them in all the elementary subjects, by middle school the boys have not only caught up but have begun to sprint ahead, not only in math and science, but in the subjects where girls had the most conspicuous lead: spelling, reading, history and geography.

The trend accelerates in high school when the gender gap becomes a chasm.  Girls are desperately concerned with what others think, terrified of being branded with the expletives reserved for the brainy girls, they conceal their intelligence and downplay their achievements. 

Unfortunately, this type of peer pressure begins in elementary when girls are allowed to do girly things, like nail polish, purses, and changes in attire.  The response from teachers changes from how smart to, I like that color; that’s a cute handbag and or I like your hair.  They begin to learn that being feminine is as important as being smart.  Regrettably, many lost sight of the purpose of school and the external appearance become paramount.  However, I should state that adjusting to middle school is a challenge in of itself.  Now add gender bias and for many the culture of school becomes a struggle that many girls never recover from and mediocrity sets in.

However, the college board reported that female students have increased scores in the verbal and math section of the SAT, girls still are not pursuing math-related careers in the same proportion as boys are, and a large, and perhaps growing, gender gap persist in the science.  Since 1999, the computer science AP exam consistently has had the lowest female percentage of any AP exam, hovering at 18% [i]

Women earn more than half of all associate, bachelors and masters degrees; they receive almost half of the doctorates, law, and medical degrees; they are increasingly enrolling at top colleges and universities. 

Although girl’s grades may remain high, good grades are too often given for behavior rather than for ideas.  When these A students are confronted with the SAT their ladylike habits of difference and deference are a distinct handicap.  The Sadker’s remind us that the SAT is an outgrowth of a test designed during the World War II to sort out Army recruits, and despite extensive revisions, it remains “male friendly.”  The male route [to the test] may be more direct, the female more circuitous and although both sexes will eventually offer and equal number of correct answers, standardized test are weighted in favor of speed.

Noting that the majority of workers entering the job market by the turn of the century will be women or minorities, AAUW officials said the inequities evidenced in the study must be reversed if the United States is to be competitive in global markets.  The reason is that most jobs will be math or science related.

“Construction of the glass ceiling begins not in the executive suite but in the classroom,” Alice McKee, then acting president of the AAUW Educational Foundation, said of women’s difficulties in rising to key leadership position in business, the professions, and academia. 

“It starts in preschool, when girls get less teacher attention, and the lesson focus on the developmental needs of boys,” McKee added, “By the time girls reach high school, they have been systematically tracked towards traditional, sex-segregated jobs, and away from areas of study that lead to high-paying jobs in science, technology and engineering.  American cannot afford to squander half its talent.”

I can agree with this observation.  Before, reading this study, I found I was unconsciously guilty of this injustice.  The classroom dynamite of boys and girls can force a teacher to fall into this pit of inequality.  It takes a daily, conscious effort to  teach without gender bias.  I developed some techniques that allow me to circumvent this injustice.  However, with each year of new students, it takes them time to adapt to being treated equally.  It forces them to pay attention to more instructional details.  When everyone has the same opportunity to participate in the process, the students are more aware that at any minute anyone can be called on to participate.  However, before this adjustment, you will find that most teachers allow students to fall into a rut of non-participation.  To an untrained eye it can appear that the students are being laxed in the classroom, but what has actually occurred is that, they know they are no longer part of the classroom dynamics.  I hate to admit, that even after 14 years as an educator, when I do classroom observations, gender bias is still the norm in school culture.

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[i] The college board, AP national summaries 1999-2009

Myra and David Sadker “Failing at Fairness: How America’s Schools Cheat Girls

Comments about your experiences of gender bias in education or the workplace.