At their children's expense: How parents' gender stereotypes affect their children's reading outcomes

Following expectancy-value theory, we investigated the role parents' reading-related gender stereotypes favoring girls play in explaining students' reading-related competence beliefs, intrinsic task values, and achievement. Drawing on a sample of 1508 students (49% girls, age at T1: 10.89 years) from 60 schools in Germany, we collected data at the beginning of Grade 5 and in the second half of Grade 6 using parent and student questionnaires. Structural equation modeling yielded two main results: First, parents' gender stereotypes favoring girls in reading and their sons' reading-related competence beliefs and intrinsic task values were negatively related. Second, we found indirect effects from parents' gender stereotypes through boys' reading-related intrinsic task values and competence beliefs to boys' reading achievement. Our results provide evidence for the assumption that parents' gender stereotypes are important in the perpetuation of gender differences, as they may affect the development of children's competence beliefs, intrinsic task values, and achievement.     

Helping counts: predicting children's intentions to disclose being bullied to teachers from prior social support experiences

Despite possible negative effects, many children do not tell their teachers when they have been bullied. This study examined junior school pupils' (N = 294) reports of instrumental, emotional and validation social support received after disclosing being bullied to teachers, and associations with intentions to disclose in the future. Overall, participants reported receiving modest to high levels of social support. The three social support variables accounted for a significant proportion (16.3%) of the variance in intentions to disclose. Each of them also emerged as significant non unique predictors (i.e. not controlling for their shared variance), and validation social support did so even after controlling for the influence of the other two types. These effects were stronger for boys than for girls, and some varied by age. Findings are discussed in terms of outcome‐ expectancy theory and practical implications.     

Her physics,his physics: Gender issues in Israeli advanced placement physics classes

Gender gaps in physics in favour of boys are more prominent in Israel than in other countries. The main research question is to find out what gender issues are at play in Israeli advanced placement physics classes. Matriculation exam scores from approximately 400 high schools were analysed across 12 years. In addition, semi-constructed interviews were conducted with 50 advanced placement physics students (25 girls and 25 boys). In terms of participation, it was found that the ratio of girls to boys has been unchanged from 1988 to 2000 and is roughly 1:3. In terms of performance, it was found that the final matriculation scores of boys and girls are similar. However, breaking up the final scores into its two components - teachers' given grades and matriculation test scores - showed that boy's test scores are usually higher than girls' test scores, while girls' teachers' given grades are usually higher than boys'. Results from semi-constructed interviews pointed to two factors that are especially unfavourable to many girls: excessive competitiveness and lack of teaching for understanding. Girls' yearning for deep understanding is seen as a form of questing for connected knowledge. It is suggested that instructional methods that foster students' understanding while decreasing competitiveness in physics classes might contribute to girls' participation and performance in advanced physics classes while also supporting the learning of many boys.     

The ‘Affective Place-Making’ Practices of Girls at a High School in Cape Town,South Africa

This article focuses on the affective place-making practices of girls at a private high school on the outskirts of Cape Town. The article responds to the question: How do high school girls' affects and social bodies contribute to their place-making practices and to the type of place they make of their school? Our focus is on understanding the affective, emotional, and interactional dimensions that constitute 5 girls' strategic interactions in the out-of-classroom spaces of their school. Drawing on theories of affect, the article is based on a 6-month ethnographic research study at Mount Valley High (pseudonym). We present 3 specific incidents from our data to illustrate each of the key dimensions that we believe relate to the girls' affective place-making practices. We develop the idea that spaces such as schools become places as a result of the interaction between the expressive institutional culture of the school, on the one hand, and the vigorous interaction of the students' engagement with each other in the various spaces of school, on the other. We present the 3 critical incidents to advance a conceptual argument about the link between affect and place-making in the light of the school's expressive culture. We argue that the girls in our study interpret the culture of their school and act in response to its discourses. They go on to make place in highly specific ways by recreating the school as a place through a combination of individual, group and strategic place-making practices, turning the school into a particular place.     

Who Is a Good Student?

The junior middle school phase is one in which students first come into formal contact with science subjects and is a key period in the formation of their attitudes toward the sciences. Any setback in science studies in this period inevitably affects the students' studies in the senior middle school phase and even their future choice of specializations and the direction of their career development. Thus science education during the junior middle school phase is of the utmost importance for the students' growth. Studies by scholars abroad show that the great majority of girls have the same intelligence and ambitions as boys when they enter school, but by the time they graduate from junior and senior middle schools they have much less confidence in their abilities and their self-esteem has conspicuously declined. There is also a big difference between boys and girls in terms of their choice of advancement to higher schools, and a relatively small proportion of girls choose to take science courses in senior middle school. In terms of choice of vocations, most girls remain stuck in the narrow field of traditional occupations for females, such as nursing, health care, and secretarial work, and display a clear tendency toward job gender patternization. The rate of school dropouts and discontinued schooling is much higher among girls than boys.¹ Studies by scholars in China show that stereotyped gender impressions among teachers leads to incorrect conduct in education and teaching. For instance, teachers believe that boys are more clever. They make different dispositions for girls' and boys' learning activities, and lavish more attention on boys. Such different feedback to learning information [sic] from boys and girls widens the difference between students of different genders.²     

‘She doesn't shout at no girls’: pupils' perceptions of gender equity in the classroom

Based on a larger, cross phase study investigating underachieving boys, this article explores pupil's responses to a single interview question inviting pupils to articulate their perceptions of whether teachers treat boys and girls the same. The article records that the predominant perception is that teachers treat boys more negatively than girls, and that this perception increases with age. Pupils speak of teachers' expectations of boys and girls as being different, more being expected of girls both in terms of achievement and behaviour. Unsolicited, the pupils make reference to the gender of the teacher as pertinent, female teachers being perceived as less influenced by gender expectations. The article raises concerns as to the role of education in amplifying society's stereotypes rather than challenging them and aiming for a climate of gender equity in the classroom.     

Spelling and Learning Style in Children

Summary Seventy‐two 11‐year‐old children were given a spelling test of 32 dictated words containing two levels of both visual and phonemic complexity. They were grouped, within sexes, in terms of their extraversion scores on the Junior Eysenck Personality Inventory and quotients on Raven's Matrices. Their spelling performance was found to interact significantly with their level of extraversion, Raven's score and sex. Introvert boys were inferior in performance to girls in the high Raven's score group, but superior in the low group with little difference in the case of extraverts. The results were discussed in terms of the learning styles that are likely to underly extraversion and performance on Raven's Matrices.     

Rural adolescents' reading motivation,achievement and behavior across transition to high school

The authors examined 1,781 rural students' reading motivation and behavior across the transition from middle to high school. Using expectancy-value theory, they investigated how motivational variables predicted changes in reading behavior and achievement across the transition in terms of their expectancies, values, and out-of-school reading behaviors. A repeated measures analysis of variance indicated significant increases in vocabulary, intrinsic value, and out-of-school reading, whereas significant decreases were found in attainment value. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated students' subjective expectancy for success was a significant predictor of increases in both comprehension and vocabulary scores. Students' utility value interacted with intrinsic value in predicting reading comprehension scores. In terms of change in students' reading behavior, their perceptions of intrinsic value and utility value were significant predictors. Gender interacted significantly with expectancies in predicting behaviors. Findings have implications for instructional support, particularly as it relates to reading motivation across the transition from middle to high school.     

Culture,motivation, and reading achievement: High school students in 41 countries

This study examined how cultural values and family cultural capital were linked to adolescents' motivation and reading achievement using multilevel analyses on reading tests and questionnaire responses of 193,841 fifteen-year-olds in 41 countries. In countries that valued more rigid gender roles, girls had lower reading achievement than girls in other countries. Also, the link between extrinsic motivation and achievement was weaker for both boys and girls in more masculine countries than those in other countries, supporting the view that discouraging students from their preferred non-traditional career tracks reduces competition for the remaining students. This reduces the impact of extrinsic motivation on reading achievement for both types of students. Students with more family cultural capital (cultural possessions and cultural communication) had higher interest in reading, extrinsic motivation, effort and perseverance, and higher reading achievement than other students. These findings can inform education policy to improve students' reading achievement.     

Mean girls,homosociality and football: an education on social and power dynamics between girls and women

Relationships between girls and women have typically been explored through the lexicon of ‘friendship’ or, where there is a presence of sexual desire, ‘lesbian’. This article suggests the complexity and impact of female (same-sex) sociality, and its relationship to heteronormativity and power dynamics between girls and women runs deeper than the terms ‘friendship’ or ‘lesbian’ give rise to. Exploring social and power dynamics amongst girls and women, this article explores how gender is policed and negotiated within a framework of homosociality. Drawing on empirical research within a women's Australian Rules football team, I explore the complexity of female same-sex bonds, the negotiation of gender embodiment and performance within female homosocial spaces, and the emergence of women's own lexicons in making sense of their relationships with other women in this particular social sphere, further considering how this might be applied to other female homosocial spaces, including same-sex educational and sporting sites.     

Imagined adulthood under transition – Somali-Swedish girls’ life-planning in a late modernity context

This article examines how Muslim girls of Somali origin raised in Sweden imagine their adulthood in regard to career and family life. The theoretical framework is social constructionist in that it assumes that children have agency and are capable and competent actors, in contrast to what has previously been generally assumed about children from ethnic minorities, particularly Muslim girls.

The qualitative study consists of an analysis of girls' essays. The findings reveal that their dreams are both consistent with the expectations of their families (in particular, high educational ambitions) and inspired from elsewhere (particularly in terms of future family life). How the girls imagine their adulthood may be seen as an example of how their original culture is subject to change in a new environment that influences possibilities, the pace of detraditionalisation and the extent of individualisation, all of which are typical characteristics of a society in late modernity.     

Personal Narratives of Students With and Without Learning Disabilities

This study investigated personal narratives produced by children with and without learning disabilities in the context of naturalistic conversation. The high‐point analysis was applied to compare the referential and evaluative aspects of children's personal narratives. Participants were 60 students in Grades 4 and 5 in public suburban schools, with an almost equal number of boys and girls. The participants with learning disabilities were matched individually with typically achieving peers for chronological age, grade, ethnicity, and gender. Despite significant differences in expressive semantic and syntactic skills, both groups produced narratives that were equivalent in terms of length, structural organization, and global coherence. Group differences centered around the decreased inclusion of high points in narratives produced by girls with learning disabilities, indicating that these girls may struggle with generating coherent personal narratives and communicating their own perspective on the recounted personal experiences. This specific narrative performance is accounted for by the unique profile of cognitive and academic characteristics demonstrated by girls with learning disabilities. Practical implications for the multifaceted assessment of referential and evaluative narrative functions are discussed, and interventions for enhancing narrative skills are suggested. The study's findings are also discussed in the context of previous research and directions for future inquiries.     

Engagement in self-regulated deep learning of successful immigrant and non-immigrant students in inner city schools

In order to examine and explain differences in self-regulated (SR) deep learning of successful immigrant and non-immigrant students we investigated a population of 650 high track 10th grade students in Amsterdam, of which 39% had an immigrant background. By means of a questionnaire based on the MSLQ of Pintrich and De Groot (1990) the students reported their use of learning and resource management strategies, and their motivational values and attitudes. Two tests measured vocabulary and mathematical reasoning. Background characteristics, grades, track position and school composition (i.e., proportions of immigrant students) were registered as well. A factor analysis yielded two learning patterns: self-regulated deep learning and self-regulated surface learning. Subsequent analyses of variance showed that, compared to boys, girls prefer SR surface learning. However, immigrant girls fit best in the SR deep learning pattem. The contrast between immigrant and non-immigrant girls is substantial. Explanations for this particular group difference, and for variance in SR deep learning in general, were explored. Of the achievement measures, only average grade explains variance in SR deep learning. Motivational values and resource management strategies do so as well. Track position does not, but school composition does affect the way immigrant students learn. Schools with more than 60% immigrant students enhance more SR deep learning than schools with less than 20% immigrant students. As the difference in SR deep learning between immigrant and non-immigrant girls is not explained by any of the covariates, we suggest alternative explanations in the discussion section.     

“Brains before ‘beauty’?” High achieving girls,school and gender identities

In recent years educational policy on gender and achievement has concentrated on boys' underachievement, frequently comparing it with the academic success of girls. This has encouraged a perception of girls as the “winners” of the educational stakes and assumes that they no longer experience the kinds of gender inequalities identified in earlier studies. However, trying to balance academic achievement with being seen as a “proper girl” presents girls with difficult challenges, particularly in terms of being accepted and approved of by classmates and securing the attention of teachers. This paper explores the views of a group of high achieving 12‐ to 13‐year‐old girls who indicate that being regarded as “clever” continues to be negotiated within acceptable frameworks of femininity.     

Learning to be Violent: The role of the school in developing adolescent gendered behaviour

This paper examines the role of the school, and of the peer group culture in particular, in constructing male and female identity among adolescents within the context of high levels of gender violence. It draws on a DfID-funded study into the abuse of girls in schools in three African countries (Zimbabwe, Malawi and Ghana). This study documents incidents of male teachers and older male pupils aggressively propositioning female pupils for sex, 'sugar daddies' preying on schoolgirls in the vicinity of the school, and generally high levels of corporal punishment and bullying. The abusive behaviour of boys towards girls (and also towards younger or more vulnerable boys) in school is in part the product of a peer culture which stresses male competition and sexual prowess as part of the process of learning to 'be a man'. Alongside other studies (Wood & Jewkes, 1998; Leach & Machakanja, 2000; Human Rights Watch, 2001) it reveals a worrying sexual socialisation process in which male violence is accepted as the norm in adolescent relationships while obedience and tolerance continue to be expected of girls. This can lead to aggressive male behaviour being normalised and perpetuated in adulthood. Schools and education authorities are guilty of contributing to this socialisation as long as they fail to take vigorous measures to stamp out all forms of violent behaviour and to actively promote constructive adolescent relationships. Lessons can be learnt from those few innovative programmes with adolescents which provide genuine examples of the promotion of equal gender relations, personal responsibility, respect for others and cooperation between individuals. It is part of the school's mission not just to foster academic learning but to teach life skills which include supporting adolescents in developing constructive relationships.     

Masculinity and violence: Gender,poverty and culture in a rural primary school in South Africa

This qualitative study draws from focus group discussions with primary school boys,girls and their teachers to examine how violence is experienced at a rural school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The study draws attention to ‘amaphara' masculinity’ as conceptualized by Hunter (2021) and stick fighting as key to understanding the local expressions of violence and its problematic relationship with girls and 'other' boys.Examining these practices, and the wider sociocultural contexts in which they are embedded, we argue is vital for gender violence prevention in rural schools.     

The Production of 'Girl' in an Educational Setting

Producing 'girl' in educational discourse is defined with two strategic features: Interruptions and framing. Hypotheses are: (1) the teacher interrupts girls differently and more often than boys; and (2) the teacher offers different discursive spaces for girls and boys by framing and introducing their speech differently. The data are a Finnish native tongue lesson in the fifth grade (16 girls, 14 boys) with a female teacher. Students were asked to continue a drawing in groups (girls' groups and boys' groups) and to give a presentation to the class. The girls were interrupted more often and in a different way than were the boys. The style with the boys was a kind of conversation. With the girls the style could be summarised as 'let the girls have the floor'. The teacher also framed girls' and boys' speech differently. For the boys she offered authority and with the girls she encouraged co-operation. Two different discursive spaces were produced for girls and boys.     

Gender Differences in Arithmetic Strategy Use: A Function of Skill and Preference

This study was designed to examine whether first-grade boys' use of retrieval and first-grade girls' use of manipulatives reflected gender differences in their abilities to use these strategies or gender differences in preferences for strategy use. Eighty-four first-grade students, 42 boys and 42 girls, from two suburban elementary schools participated in this study. The children solved basic arithmetic problems under two conditions: a free-choice condition in which they were allowed to solve the problems any way they preferred and a game condition in which the children's strategy use was constrained so that all children used the same strategies on the same arithmetic problems. Strategy use during the free-choice session replicated the findings of earlier research indicating that girls tend to use strategies utilizing manipulatives and boys tend to use retrieval. During the game condition, when we controlled the types of strategies children used on different problems we found that boys were as able as girls to calculate solutions using manipulatives. Girls, however, were not as capable as boys in their retrieval of answers to arithmetic problems from memory. No differences were found in error rates or speed of retrieval. Gender differences were found in the variability of correct retrieval, with boys being significantly more variable than girls.     

Using photovoice to engage orphans to explore sexual violence in and around a township secondary school in South Africa

ABSTRACT

This article examines the vulnerability of orphans to sexual violence in and around their township secondary school. Using photovoice as a methodology with which to unearth these experiences and narratives, we examine how such an approach might engage the voices of orphans to inform thinking regarding sexual violence. Our analysis was informed by our desire to engage learners as critical and creative thinkers who are capable of grounding and thinking critically about their own issues. Findings highlight the vulnerability of orphaned girls both in and outside school. The photographs they produced demonstrate the pervasive nature of sexual violence directed against them. Photovoice enabled both ourselves and our participants to investigate experiences of sexual violence among orphaned learners. In particular, as a participatory visual method, photovoice facilitated the development of a transformative pedagogy in which we created a safe space for orphaned learners, a group that is often marginalised and silenced in many spaces to speak about their experiences. While many groups, particularly poor girls and women, experience high rates of sexual violence, the vulnerability of orphaned girls and boys is further increased by their social status within their families, communities and at school.