Boys’ and girls’ conversational participation across four grade levels in Norwegian classrooms: taking the floor or being given the floor?

The participation of girls and boys in teacher‐led classroom conversations in Norway was examined across four grade levels (first, third, sixth and ninth). Boys participated more across all grade levels. The difference in girls’ and boys’ participation was least in the first grade and greatest in the ninth grade. A greater proportion of the girls’ utterances was initiated by the teacher allocating turns. The boys had more overlapping utterances with the teacher and contributed more comments that were not invited by the teacher. The difference in girls’ and boys’ participation was less in a classroom with a female rather than a male teacher. Boys made many uninvited comments in classrooms with male teachers. The discussion draws attention to relationships between conversation participation and learning, between participation and influence, and between participation and developing skills to take the floor in public.     

Interrogating single‐sex classes as a strategy for addressing boys’ educational and social needs

This paper explores the policy of single‐sex classes that is currently being adopted in some schools as a strategy for addressing boys’ educational and social needs. It draws on research in one Australian government, coeducational primary school to examine teachers’ and students’ experiences of this strategy. Interviews with the principal, male and female teachers responsible for teaching the single‐sex classes and the students involved in these classes are used to illustrate the impact and effect of the strategy on pedagogical practices in this particular school. The data are used to raise critical questions about the impact and effects of teachers’ pedagogical practices in light of the current literature and research about single‐sex classes. In this case study, it was found that teachers had a tendency to modify their pedagogical practices and the curriculum to suit stereotypical constructions about boys’ and girls’ supposed oppositional orientations to learning. It is concluded that teacher knowledges and assumptions about gender play an important role in the execution of their pedagogies in the single‐sex classroom.     

Boys lag behind: How teachers’ gender biases affect student achievement

I use a combination of blind and non-blind test scores to show that middle school teachers favor girls in their evaluations. This favoritism, estimated as individual teacher effects, has long-term consequences: as measured by their national evaluations three years later, male students make less progress than their female counterparts. On the other hand, girls who benefit from gender bias in math are more likely to select a science track in high school. Without teachers’ bias in favor of girls, the gender gap in choosing a science track would be 12.5% larger in favor of boys.     

The Participation of Boys and Girls in Home Economics

This study examined whether male students dominated classroom interactions in home economics lessons and whether other classroom processes sustained gender divisions in this subject in two Form I and two Form II classes in two schools. The sample included two female home economics teachers and all the students in the four classes (34 boys and 31 girls). Data were collected during five 60‐minute observation sessions in each class (inter‐observer reliability reached 94%) and structured interviews with both teachers and 24 students (three boys and three girls from each class). Statistically significant (p < 0.001) differences were found in the number of times students were helped by the teachers (boys received 76% of teachers’ help) and in the number of reprimands they received (boys received 87%). Boys and girls received a comparable amount of praise but boys received a greater amount of interaction in all other categories (direction of teacher questions, choice of students to answer questions, call‐outs and calling students by name) although these differences were not statistically significant. There were major individual differences between students of the same sex in all the categories. More boys (19) than girls (seven) were high participants in different classroom processes. Most of the students in mixed‐gender kitchenettes co‐operated in cleaning up. Teachers expected the same standard of work from all the students but they allotted more special jobs to girls.     

Role models,school improvement and the ‘gender gap’—do men bring out the best in boys and women the best in girls?1

A number of countries are running role model recruitment drives under the assumption that like is good for like: ethnic minority teachers should teach ethnic minority children, women should teach girls, and so on. The empirical basis for this would appear to be case study and personal reflection. This article will examine quantitative data to test the hypothesis that male teachers produce more positive attitudes amongst boys and female teachers amongst girls. Using data from the Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) Project, information from 413 separate classes for 11 year‐olds (in England) was examined. One hundred and thirteen were taught by males and 300 by females. All the pupils completed questionnaires that were designed to measure attitude to school, reading, mathematics and science. In addition, background data on those pupils were collected, including cognitive measures, attainment scores, ability measures and home background measures. The data were examined to look at attitudes using multilevel models controlling for background factors. The analysis concentrated on interaction effects between the gender of the teacher and the gender of the pupil and the results gave little support for those who advocate recruitment drives with role models in mind.     

Associations of student temperament and educational competence with academic achievement: The role of teacher age and teacher and student gender

We examined associations of teacher-perceived student temperament and educational competence with school achievement, and how these associations were modified by students’ gender and teachers’ gender and age. Participants were 1063 Finnish ninth-graders (534 boys) and their 29 Mother Language teachers (all female) and 43 Mathematics teachers (17 male) from a population-based sample. All temperament and educational competence traits were associated with both grades, but more clearly with Mathematics. Boys received systematically lower Mother Language grades but higher Mathematics grades than girls. Teacher gender had no effect on school grades, while teacher age had an effect only on Mother Language.     

Bad boys,good girls? Implicit and explicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students among elementary and secondary school teachers

Teachers’ attitudes toward ethnic minority students might differ by students’ gender and the type of school teachers are working in because of different motivations for teaching and different school practices. Hence, the aim of the current research was to investigate elementary (n = 82) and secondary school (n = 82) teachers’ implicit and explicit attitudes toward male and female ethnic minority students. Teachers worked on either a male or a female Implicit Association Test and filled out a gender-specific questionnaire for measuring explicit attitudes. The results showed that elementary and secondary school teachers had negative implicit attitudes toward ethnic minority students, independent of students’ gender. Whereas secondary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward boys, elementary school teachers were implicitly more positive toward girls. Elementary school teachers were more enthusiastic about teaching ethnic minority boys than girls. The findings provide the first insights into differences in attitudes between elementary and secondary school teachers.     

The role of popular girls in bullying and intimidating boys and other popular girls in secondary school

Despite a large amount of research focusing on bullying and exclusion in secondary schools, there is far less research focusing on cross‐gender bullying and ‘popular’ students who experience bullying. This research provides an analysis of interactions between male and female students (aged 13–14) in a school in England. The data provides multiple examples, both in the form of observations and group interviews, of girls teasing, intimidating and bullying boys and other popular girls. The analysis also considers teachers’ reactions to this behaviour, highlighting that it is often unnoticed. This paper raises this as an area for concern and suggests that future research should explore this further, both gaining more in‐depth knowledge of female bullying and intimidation of boys and popular girls, and exploring ways of working with teachers and schools to support students.     

Does the gender of the teacher matter in the teaching of reading literacy? Teacher gender and pupil attainment in reading literacy in Hong Kong

A study of 148 primary school teachers and 4867 Grade 4 pupils in Hong Kong found no support for the proposal that boys learn to read better when taught by men teachers. In fact, it was found that both boys and girls learnt better when taught by women. Responses to a teacher questionnaire indicate significant differences in the preferred patterns of teaching favoured by male and female teachers. Responses from men teachers suggest they are more authoritarian, prefer to control pupils' learning, engage pupils in whole-class reading and like to read passages aloud while pupils follow the text. Responses from women teachers suggest they prefer to teach reading in groups, to group pupils according to reading ability, set tasks that suit pupils' stage of learning, allocate more time for pupils to read books and use the school library and encourage pupils to discover for themselves the meaning of new vocabulary encountered in text. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Gender Effects in Children’s Development and Education

This paper attempts to clarify several lines of research on gender in development and education, inter‐relating findings from studies on intuitive/informal knowledge with those from research on achievements and attitudes in science. It acknowledges the declining proportions of male teachers world‐wide and examination successes which indicate a reversal of educational disadvantage from female to male; as well as the recent evidence on the effects of the gender of teachers upon student success. An empirical contribution to the literature is offered, drawing from the gender‐related findings from research on children’s cosmologies in China and New Zealand with 346 boys and 340 girls (of whom 119 boys and 121 girls participated in the current study). The investigation focused on children’s concepts of the motion and shape of the Earth through observational astronomy and gave children opportunities to express their ideas in several modalities. The in‐depth interviews allowed children to share their meanings with gender differences becoming apparent (e.g. girls’ superior ability to visually represent their cosmologies and boys’ greater awareness of gravity). However, these differences were not universal across genders or cultures and marked similarities were apparent both in the content of children’s responses and in their reasoning processes. By comparing boy/girl cosmological concept categories and by tracking their developmental trends by age, statistical evidence revealed the extent of the similarities within and across these diverse cultures. The findings reinforce those from the authors’ knowledge restructuring and cultural mediation studies and provide support for the view that boys and girls have similar, holistic‐rather‐than‐fragmented, cosmologies which have features in common across cultures and ethnic groups.     

Exploring teacher trust in technical/vocational secondary schools: Male teachers’ preference for girls

This article explores whether teachers’ trust in pupils in technical/vocational schools is associated with teachers’ and pupils’ gender. As for the teachers, besides gender, age, socioeconomic origin, and subject taught are considered and, as for the pupils, the gender composition of the school (proportion of girls at school), the socioeconomic context of the school and the grades teachers instruct. Multilevel analyses of data of 391 teachers in a sample of 19 technical/vocational schools demonstrate that initially none of the teacher features relates to teacher trust. Adding gender composition to the model yields an effect of teachers’ gender: Female teachers have less trust in their pupils than male teachers have. Also, teachers’ trust increases with the proportion of girls at school. Finally, a significant interaction effect indicates that male teachers seem to prefer female pupils.     

Does the gender of the teacher really matter? Seven‐ to eight‐year‐olds’ accounts of their interactions with their teachers

In recent years, policy‐makers in England, Australia and other countries have called for measures to increase male recruitment to the teaching profession, particularly to the primary sector. This policy of targeted recruitment is predicated upon a number of unexamined assumptions about the benefits of matching teachers and pupils by gender. For example, it is held that the dearth of male ‘role models’ in schools continues to have an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Utilizing data from interviews with more than 300 7‐ to 8‐year‐olds attending primary schools in the north‐east and south‐east of England, the paper sets out to scrutinize these claims. The findings revealed that the gender of teachers had little apparent effect on the academic motivation and engagement of either boys or girls. For the majority of the children, the gender of the teacher was largely immaterial. They valued teachers, whether men or women, who were consistent and even‐handed and supportive of them as learners.     

“… We have learnt not just to sit back,twiddle our thumbs and let them take over.” Single‐sex settings and the development of a pedagogy for girls and a pedagogy for boys in Danish schools

Teachers in the Danish co‐educational elementary school system (the ‘folkeskole’ with pupils from 7 to 16 years) who are involved in innovative pedagogical projects have used segregation as an organisational method in introducing and developing equal opportunities and anti‐sexist pedagogical initiatives. The idea of arranging single‐sex settings started out as a means to provide space for girls and to enhance their competence professionally as well as to empower them personally. In setting up ‘Project Girls’ Class—Boys’ Class’, an ongoing developmental project about gender equity, the teachers, a woman and a man, have mixed their two classes and segregated the girls and the boys for longer or shorter periods or for a whole term in certain subjects, thus giving them space and tutoring on their own terms. It started in 1987/88, when the pupils were 10‐11 years old. Here for the first time they were segregated for 2 months. The involved girls developed self‐confidence and prefer to be in their girls‐only setting whereas it is the teachers (more than the involved boys themselves) that find that the boys’ class can provide important learning experiences for boys in raising their awareness of values and attitudes—both among the boys themselves and in relation to the girls. From the point of view of educational theory and how learning can become true learning, affecting the cognitive, emotional as well as moral and behaviourial attitudes, the paper reflects on why the segregation projects have given such clear results, whereas much other excellent tutoring by committed teachers seems not to have had the same impact. It comes to the preliminary conclusion that, in the hands of devoted teachers (people committed to the issues of gender equity and anti‐sexism and who are close to their pupils) the technique of polarising can be very effective.     

Relationship between Cognitive Style and Teachers’ Perceptions of Young Children’s Academic Competence

The study investigated the significance of matching cognitive style of first- and third-grade students to their teachers. The Articulation of the Body-Concept Scale was administered as a measure of cognitive style to 20 first- and 20 third-grade female teachers and a sample (480) of six boys and six girls for each teacher. Teachers ranked their students according to their judgment of the students’ academic competence. Discrepancy scores were obtained based on the degree to which teachers differed in ranking their students in comparison to rankings on the Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills. A repeated measures analysis of variance indicated statistically significant main effects for grade level and a statistically significant interaction among the cognitive styles of teachers in ranking their matched and mismatched students according to sex in relation to the students’ academic achievement scores.     

Predictability of the Length of Educational Routes and the Development of Career Lines

The study was based on data from the Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Social Development where about 90% of a sample (173 girls, 196 boys) was followed from the age of eight until the age of 26. The question investigated and reported concerned whether class teachers are able to estimate pupils’ resources for finding their way later on in life, and if so, what are their estimations based on. The estimations predicted the length of male and female educational route and the stability of male career lines. The estimations correlated with teacher assessment of school achievement and peer nominations of socially skilled behaviour. More attention in school could be paid to the development of socially skilled behaviour necessary in life to reduce self‐prophecy in education.     

Early adolescents' and their parents' mental imagery in relation to perceived reading competence

This cross‐sectional survey study examined the relation between mental imagery (i.e., seeing images of a story ‘in the mind's eye’) and perceived self‐competence in reading. The study was conducted with a group of seventh‐grade to ninth‐grade students in the prevocational educational track of secondary schools in the Netherlands and their parents. Results showed a moderate relation between mental imagery and self‐competence beliefs, also after controlling for the quality of students' home literacy environment. Examination of gender differences revealed that girls outperformed boys in self‐competence beliefs. Furthermore, boys perceived themselves as better readers when their parents had higher mental imagery skills. No direct relation was found between parents' and adolescents' mental imagery skills. These findings imply that parents and teachers may need to be made aware of the importance of mental imagery strategies as it may enhance the reading experiences of boys as well as girls.     

Supporting Scientific Conceptual Consciousness or Learning in ‘a Roundabout Way’ in Play‐based Contexts

Little change has been noted over 10 years of research into teacher knowledge and confidence to teach science in the early and primary years of schooling. There is a significant body of research demonstrating that early childhood and primary teachers lack confidence and competence in teaching science. However, much of this research blames the victim, and offers little analysis for the systemic reasons for teachers’ confidence and competence in science education other than a lack of science knowledge. This paper reports on a study that examined teacher philosophy and pedagogical practices within the context of an analysis of children’s concept formation within playful early childhood settings. Through teacher interviews, video recordings of science play, and photographic documentation of children’s science activities in one rural preschool, it was noted that teacher philosophy about how young children learn is a significant contributing factor to learning in science. It is argued that teacher philosophy makes more of a difference to children’s scientific learning than does teacher confidence to teach science or knowledge of science. The study also shows that without a mediational scientific framework for using materials in play‐based contexts, children will generate their own imaginary, often non‐scientific, narratives for making sense of the materials provided.     

EXAMINATION OF EARLY CHILDHOOD PRACTITIONERS’ GENERAL PERCEPTION OF GENDER DIFFERENCES IN YOUNG CHILDREN

This study attempts to explore and discuss preschool teachers’ perception of gender differences in young children through their verbal expression. The teachers (Study I, n —121, Study II, n= 31) in this study perceive female preschoolers as positive and sensitive learners. While many learner qualities such as inventive, problem‐solver, builder, hands‐on, questioning, etc. are identified more often for boys than girls, overall the teachers’ perception of the boys’ group is less “teachable” and “easy to work with” than the girls group. In addition, one of the most intriguing and concerning observations is that girls are perceived as “passive learners” and therefore they are more “teachable” than boys. As implications of the study, the paper discusses an important understanding of gender‐fair and gender‐congruent pedagogical awareness for developmentally and culturally appropriate practice in early childhood education.

This study was originally presented at the 1999 AERA Annual Meeting, April 19‐23, Montreal, Canada, and was titled Examination of Preschool Teachers’ Biased Perception on Gender Difference.     

Excluded girls: interpersonal,institutional and structural violence in schooling

School exclusion and violence are defined with boys as the reference point and relatively little attention is given to the various forms of exclusion—disciplinary exclusion, self‐exclusion and withdrawal from learning—to which girls are subject. Girls in difficulty at school receive less attention than their male peers from policy‐makers, teachers and researchers. They find it more difficult to access resources. The concept of exclusion needs to be expanded to encompass girls’ experiences. This paper explores the policy context in which girls’ exclusion occurs and examines contributory factors, arguing that together they constitute systemic violence. Forms of violence include verbal abuse, psychological violence and the everyday “incivilities” which often go unchallenged in school cultures. The paper draws on research which privileged student voices and considered them alongside those of service providers, to analyse girls’ school experiences, examining violence and exclusion at interpersonal, institutional and structural levels. Issues such as bullying, self‐exclusion, learning difficulties, peer relationships, teacher–student relationships and student pregnancies are considered.