Gender Equality in the Classroom

It is no secret that, in general, boys and girls differ in their learning styles. Capitalizing on these differences could advance classroom performance. With on-going concerns about student success in school, any changes in the classroom that could increase student achievement should be considered. Recognizing the learning differences between boys and girls, one of the changes that could be instituted is single-gender classrooms.

Secondly, the interaction between teachers and male and female students. Sociologist Francis (2000) argues that classrooms are still male dominated and that boys are disciplined more frequently and harshly by teachers compared to girls. Therefore, it is seen that boys get more attention than girls as they are disciplined more harshly than girls, leading to girls getting less attention than boys, also in terms of ethnicity, boys from African Caribbean backgrounds are also more likely to be disciplined than white British boys. This may result in boys feeling picked on in school which may result in gender and ethnic differences in achievement.

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

Schlosser. She carried out the study while on a post-doctoral fellowship at Princeton University, and will study the effects of gender in higher education lecture halls next. This is one of few studies of its kind to use scientific data to address the question of gender effects in school. Boys with more female peers in their classes show higher enrollment rates in both advanced math and science classes, but overall benefits were found in all grades for both sexes. Prof. Schlosser found that primary-school classrooms with a female majority showed increased academic success for both boys and girls, along with a notable improvement in subjects like science and math. In the middle schools, girls were found to have better academic achievement in English, languages and math. And in high school, the classrooms which had the best academic achievements overall were consistently those that had a higher proportion of girls enrolled. A higher percentage of girls lowers the amount of classroom disruption and fosters a better relationship between pupils and their teacher, a study of the data suggests. Teachers are less tired in classrooms with more girls, and pupils overall seem to be more satisfied when a high female-to-male ratio persists. Prof. Schlosser was inspired to the study by a “renewed interest on the effects of classroom gender composition on students’ learning, since a new amendment to America’s Title IX

Imagine that you were in a classroom full of your gender how would you feel? Well, if you feel that you're not ok with that well, In school year 2004-05 122 public schools offered single sex classes and 34 public schools were single sex classes mandatory according to “Old Tactic Gets New Use: Public Schools Separate Boys and Girls.” Article. Close to 70% of kids in single sex classes raised their math and reading scores in “Old Tactic Gets New Use: Public Schools Separate Boys and Girls.” Article. Although this may seem bad and shouldn't happen it's really not. Kids in single sex classes will have more of a chance to succeed than students in non single sex class because of most kids have no problem with this in their school, less discipline, and most of all higher grades.

This is called gender socialization, which exaggerates sexual differences physically, experimentally, academically, and psychologically. Most parents are unaware that they play such a large role in creating a male or female child. But they are the first and one of the largest influences on their child. When parents have a female child she is viewed as sweet and gentle. The parents will even hold their daughter closer than they would a son. As they grow older boys are encouraged to explore while girls are kept closer to their parents. They are taught different approaches to many different problems in life. They may not realize it but through their interactions with their children they are encouraging their children to grow into a certain type of person based on their gender. The toys they are introduced to are even gender-based. Toys for males encourage them to develop such abilities of spatial perception, creativity, competition, aggression, and constructiveness. Toys for girls encouraged creativity, nurturance, and attractiveness. Children’s rooms and clothing are specific color: girls are pink and boys are blue. Girls often wear dresses and skirts that limit their physical activity. These types of influences at such an early age lay a foundation for the child’s personality. By the time they reach school age they already have a sense of being male or female. In school peers and teachers enforce these differences even further. (Lips, 1979,

Did you know that single-sex classrooms are the worst classes ever? Over the past decade, single-gender classrooms have been opened in at least 230 schools in the rural, suburban, and the urban areas. Single-gender classrooms are classrooms where either young girls’ are in one class together, or young boys are in another class together. Single-sex classrooms were created because studies showed that boys and girls learn differently and they could benefit from being in a classroom with peers to whom they can relate. Since 2008, single-gender education has been the key to improved educational performance among boys and girls throughout the years. Today, gender differences among girls and boys are steadily rising in the classrooms they are in,

As Gentry was in class, he was making eye contact with a girl, which is distracting him.this distraction could be prevented by separating girls from boys.Teachers should separate classes by gender.

Single sex education, which is also known as single gender school is an old approach that’s is gaining new momentum. Single sex education consists of separating males and females into different classrooms or in separate buildings or schools. Advocates of single-sex education believe that there are persistent in how boys and girls learn and behave in educational settings such difference merit educating them separately. One version of this argument holds that brains of males and females develop differently. Proponents reference these developmental differences to argue that by separating students according to their sex, the educator is able to meet the needs according to the developmental trajectory of the different genders. In addition to that,

Stereotypes are a big part of our society, whether we talked about it/notice it or not, stereotypes are there. Children are usually taught stereotypes at a young age, you may not notice you are teaching them because they became a part of our common world. The most common stereotype that is drilled in our heads today in society is gender stereotypes. These stereotypes do have effects towards children development. Also, these mindset of stereotypes of how a person should be, can be link to relational aggression. Relational aggression is a huge problem in grade schools and this aggression has a negative impact on the victim’s development.

That's why it doesn't make sense to put students into separate classes based on gender. Girls are better for everyone in the class, in reality women and men all live together, and kid can help eachother out. Studies have found that being with more girls is better for everyone. Prof. Schlosser concluded that classes with more than 55 percent of girls resulted in better exam results and less violent outbursts overall. This is a positive influence that the girls are adding to the classroom environment.

Gender stereotypes are mostly taken for granted at a young age: girls are told to play with dolls and boys are told to play with trucks. But as children grow older they find themselves in a world where the reality of gender roles and stereotypes aren’t acknowledged, and the illusion of gender neutrality is commended. If gender roles are becoming more neutral, then it would follow that gender role stereotypes are also becoming more lax. However, in actuality this is not true.

The brains of both boys and girls function differently, and this leads to different styles of learning and understanding between the genders. In most classrooms, girls are always passive learners while boys always move around asking questions and participating actively in classroom activities. According to Boyd, Andre says “Boys learn through doing while girls learn better through group discussions, visual and audio aids. Boys, for example, talk more as compared to girls in the classroom (Krupnick). Being in different classes”, therefore, results in an uniform method of study that encompasses everyone. In a same-sex classroom, teachers can use a similar instructional method and this helps to save time, better the understanding of students and complete the syllabus in time (Kirschenbaum). Boys and girls also respond to different stimuli during learning. This makes it difficult to involve both stimuli in the classroom since the stimuli that engage the boys will lose the girls during lessons while that which engages the girls will leave boys clueless during lessons. The teachers in same-sex schools do not have much problem when it comes to stimulating the memories and learning capabilities of students. In most cases, girls are always better at languages and show great verbal abilities in English and other languages. Boys, on the other hand, lean towards math

Our girls are getting the message that boys are better capable of handling different tasks, and therefore, need to be trained by giving them more responsibilities. I bet that Madeline Alberight or Dr. Elizabeth Verba did not accept this philosophy in life. Such methods of thinking reduces a girls self esteem and decreases her chances of getting a higher education and fulfilling goals of becoming world leaders, scientists, inventors, educators or even good mothers.

Males and Females no matter the age face gender stereotypes everyday of their lives. As we are brought up we are taught to be our own individuals with our own ideas, but society tends to break that down. When we think about school, Gender Stereotyping doesn’t really come to mind, but if you think about it that’s where is all begins. In school, they have “dress code”, wear everyone falls under, meaning you can’t just wear whatever you want. Also, in schools when it comes to activities boys are pushed more to do outside activates compared to girls that do inside activities. Overall kids themselves start to separate themselves into two categories, boy with boys and girls with girls. Even though males and females are different, we should still take the time to teach kids that they aren’t put into two separate categories, but that they should be the person they want to be.