Are boys and girls treated differently in school? Are they just naturally different in such significant ways it leads to different outcomes in the classroom? If yes, in what ways? And how do these differences affect those children when they become adults?

Prepare yourselves for a lot of incoming information below!

Research & Literature

Boys

  • Earn the majority of D's and F's in school

  • Make up 2/3 of "learning disabled" students

  • Responsible for 9 of 10 alcohol and drug violations and the suspected perpetrators in 4 out of 5 crimes that end up in juvenile court

  • They account for 80 percent of high school dropouts and attention deficit disorder diagnoses.

  • Slightly outperform girls in math and science

  • Dominate classroom talk and leadership roles, speak longer and more frequently in classroom discussions

  • More likely to call out or act out, demanding and receiving teacher attention.

Girls

  • React more negatively to friction between students, strict rules, and teacher favoritism

  • Less likely to take part in class discussions, and if they do are more likely to be interrupted before they finish, speak more quietly and for a shorter time, and use less assertive language

  • Ask questions rather than give statements, even if they know an answer

  • More likely to be interrupted when they speak or to have other students answer questions directed to them

  • Less likely to have their comments credited, developed, adopted, or even remembered by the group

  • Less likely to receive peers' approval if they "break rules"

  • Outperform boys at all levels of reading and writing, almost matching them in math and science

How Instructors Differ in Treatment of Boys and Girls

  • Call on male students more frequently than female students.

  • Are more likely to use male students’ names when calling upon students and in attributing ideas advanced in discussion

  • Ask male students more abstract questions and female students more factual questions

  • Are less likely to elaborate upon points made by female students

  • Teachers are more likely to offer boys specific feedback on their work – including praise, criticism and remediation

  • More positive feedback and remediation to males

  • Females receive less attention from teachers and the attention that female students do receive is often more negative than attention received by boys

  • Usually males receive more teacher questions than females, more frequent follow-up questions with males..."teachers give boys greater opportunity to expand ideas and be animated than they do girls and that they reinforce boys more for general responses than they do for girls."

  • Minimal wait time for females’ answers

  • Boys are more likely to be called up to the front of the room to do demonstrations (for example a science demonstration)

  • Boys are more likely to be disciplined than girls, even when the misbehavior is identical

  • Assertive behavior from girls is often seen as disruptive and may be viewed more negatively by adults...[Causing]"...girls' misbehavior to be looked upon as a character defect, whilst boys' misbehavior is viewed as a desire to assert themselves." (Reay, 2001)

  • Talking in class is often perceived as ‘showing off’, especially if it is girl-talk.

    Sometimes I feel like saying that I disagree, that there are other ways of looking at it, but where would that get me? My teacher thinks I’m showing off, and the boys jeer. But if I pretend I don’t understand, it’s very different. The teacher is sympathetic and the boys are helpful. They really respond if they can show YOU how it is done, but there’s nothing but ‘aggro’ if you give any signs of showing THEM how it is done.

  • Teachers are often unaware of the gender distribution of talk in their classrooms. They usually consider that they give equal amounts of attention to girls and boys, and it is only when they make a tape recording that they realize that boys are dominating the interactions. Dale Spender, an Australian feminist who has been a strong advocate of female rights in this area, noted that teachers who tried to restore the balance by deliberately ‘favouring’ the girls were astounded to find that despite their efforts they continued to devote more time to the boys in their classrooms. Another study reported that a male science teacher who managed to create an atmosphere in which girls and boys contributed more equally to discussion felt that he was devoting 90 per cent of his attention to the girls. And so did his male pupils. They complained vociferously that the girls were getting too much talking time.

  • Girls are praised for being neat, quiet, and calm, whereas boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up

  • Boys are more likely to receive attributions to effort and ability, teacher comments giving them confidence that success and competence is simply a matter of applying themselves

  • Girls are often told, "It’s okay, as long as you try." For example, a teacher may take the litmus paper from a female student and "does" it for her, but talks a male student through the correct us of litmus paper

Classroom Materals

  • School textbooks and supplemental resource materials tend to be filled with male protagonists and stories

  • Pictures of women appear less frequently than men and more often show women in traditional roles.

  • When men and women are shown in the same picture, the woman is in a subordinate role, such as the female nurse with the male doctor.

  • Further examination of textbooks reveal that even when the pictures show equal numbers of men and women in traditional and non-traditional roles, the text may still use sex-biased language and contain no examples of women scientists.

  • Many of the traditional topics of science and examples favor boys' interests and experiences. Girls favor topics that emphasize health, food, and safety rather than the more common topics that relate science to industry and the military. Examples from contact sports may help the boys understand a concept or law, but for girls, they confuse more than clarify.

  • Researchers at a 1990 conference reported that even texts designed to fit within the current California guidelines on gender and race equity for textbook adoption showed subtle language bias, neglect of scholarship on women, omission of women as developers of history and initiators of events, and absence of women from accounts of technological developments. (Bailey, 1992)

How do these differences shape adults' lives?

  • Men receive longer/harsher sentences than women for the same crime

  • Violent men are seen as more dangerous and threatening than violent women

  • Men are seen as better and more competent leaders, are offered higher salaries than women with similar qualifications

  • Women who attempt to negotiate salary, raises or promotions face penalties compared with men

  • Despite the widespread belief that women talk more than men, most of the available evidence suggests just the opposite. When women and men are together, it is the men who talk most.

  • Evidence collected by American, British, and New Zealand researchers shows that men dominate the talking time in committee meetings, staff meetings, seminars and task-oriented decision-making groups.

  • Even when they hold influential positions, women sometimes find it hard to contribute as much as men to a discussion. A British company appointed four women and four men to the eight most highly paid management positions. The managing director commented that the men often patronized the women and tended to dominate meetings.

    I had a meeting with a [female] sales manager and three of my [male] directors once…it took about two hours. She only spoke once and one of my fellow directors cut across her and said ‘What Anne is trying to say Roger is…’ and I think that about sums it up. He knew better than Anne what she was trying to say, and she never got anything said.

  • Men dominated the conversations between couples with traditional gender roles and expectations, but when the women were associated with a feminist organization they tended to talk more than their husbands.

  • In other public contexts, too, such as seminars and debates, when women and men are deliberately given an equal amount of the highly valued talking time, there is often a perception that they are getting more than their fair share. Dale Spender explains this as follows:

    The talkativeness of women has been gauged in comparison not with men but with silence. Women have not been judged on the grounds of whether they talk more than men, but of whether they talk more than silent women.

  • In other words, if women talk at all, this may be perceived as ‘too much’ by men who expect them to provide a silent, decorative background in many social contexts. This may sound outrageous, but think about how you react when precocious children dominate the talk at an adult party. As women begin to make inroads into formerly ‘male’ domains such as business and professional contexts, we should not be surprised to find that their contributions are not always perceived positively or even accurately.

Source List

Teaching for Gender Difference

Gender Bias

Gender Bias in Education

Gender Issues in the College Classroom

Language Myth #6: Women Talk Too Much

Glass Escalator #1, #2

Issues Affecting Women in STEM