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Gender And Language In Education

Presentation · July 2020

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.32028.72327

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Hasanat Ahmad
Minhaj University Lahore
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Hasanat Ahmad
Email: [email protected]
Department of English
University Of Gujrat
Gender and language in
education
 Difference B/w Sex and Gender
• Sex and Gender: "Sex" alludes to our natural
and physiological characteristics; “gender"
alludes to the jobs society doles out individuals
dependent on their sex.

• Gender orientation separation is when there is a

predisposition dependent on an individual's sex,
that prompts characterizing the jobs he/she
should play in the public arena.
• Sex contrasts in education are a kind of sex
segregation in the training framework
influencing the both male and female during
and after their instructive encounters.
• Male and Female can have a similar degree of
training, it is progressively hard for female to
have higher administration occupations, and
future work and money related concerns can
strengthen
 GENDER AND LANGUAGE STUDIES IN
THE CLASSROOM

• Interactions that take place in educational settings

enable students to develop sensitivity towards their
own and others’ rights and responsibilities as citizens in
a community.
• Particularly important is collaborative and exploratory
talk in classrooms,
which allows students to construct knowledge together
and negotiate their own and
others’ views
• Usually males receive more teacher questions
than females. * Minimal wait time for females’
answers
• More frequent follow-up questions with males
• Uneven ratio of student/teacher interactions
• Males are also more likely to call out or act
out, demanding and receiving teacher attention.
• Boys are more likely to be called up to the
front of the room
• Boys are more likely to be disciplined than
girls, even when the misbehavior is identical
• Girls are more likely to be praised for the
appearance and neatness of their work
• Females often stereotyped into clerical role
because of neat notes
• Teachers are more likely to offer boys specific feedback
on their work – including praise, criticism and
remediation
• 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
• School textbooks and supplemental resource
materials tend to be filled with male
protagonists and stories
• More positive feedback and remediation to
males
• Males are allowed to speak over females
 1. The differences in choice of
subjects
• In terms of subject choice, early studies
revealed that girls favored social sciences
and languages, while boys favored maths and
science
• However, recent studies in the UK show that
increasingly more girls are choosing
maths and sciences, and more boys are
choosing languages as subject areas of study

(e.g. Francis, 2000).

• The majority of girls in mixed-sex schools
prefer gender stereotypical subjects
• girls in single-sex schools choose
less stereotypical subjects and develop
themselves in those areas
(Elwood and Gipps,
1998; Dennison and Coleman, 2000).
 2. Level of achievement
• Some studies focus on concerns about boys’
underachievement in a particular skill, such as
reading (Brophy and Good, 1974)
• Others focus on girls’ position in school and in
society, and how this affects their academic
achievement (Wernersson, 1982).
• Educational achievement is a notion that varies
from one socio-cultural context to the next.
 3. Interactional strategies of female and male students in the
classroom

• Women tend to focus on:

• initiating and maintaining conversations
• asking more questions
• generally facilitating interaction through back-
channelling
• other verbal and non-verbal clues that
support the male speakers
• Male conversational patterns reflect;
• the struggle and maintenance of power
against others which enables them to
hold positions of high status in society
(Spender, 1982; Swann, 1992)
• far more appreciation of the different types of
argument, of argument as a two-way
process, as sometimes simply a sharing
experience or a weighing-up in oneself; as
something which may not necessarily result in
winning or beating an opponent, as
many of the boys saw it.
(Sargeant, 1993)
 GENDER AND LANGUAGE IN THE
FOREIGN LANGUAGE
CLASSROOM
• This section provides an overview of research on
gender and language in the FLC;
• classroom interaction (teacher-to student and
student-to-teacher talk, as well as student-to-
student talk)
• language learning and assessment
• language teaching materials
 1. Classroom Interaction
• Classroom interaction refers to
• teacher-to-student talk- such as initiating
conversation, asking questions, giving
directives
• student-to-teacher talk- answering
questions or asking for clarification
• student-to-student talk- during group work
and pair work activities.
 i. teacher-to-student talk
• Spender (1982) found that she spent more
time with boys than girls, contrary to her own
belief that she was treating both gender
groups fairly.
• In her study, she reported that she was
spending 58 per cent of her classroom time
interacting with boys and 42 per cent with
girls.
. Grace & Gravestock listed the following gender-based trends
with gender equality implications and gender stereotyping:

• Call on male students more frequently.

• Wait longer for males to respond to questions. Give
male students more eye contact following questions.
• Remember the names of male students.
• Use these names when calling on male students.
• Attribute male students’ comments in class
discussion. Interrupt female students before the end
of their response.
• Ask males more questions that call for ‘higher-order’
critical thinking as opposed to ‘lower-order’
recounting of facts
• *2009 cited in UNESCO
• In her study in a German as a Foreign
Language classroom, Sunderland (1996)
examined specific ways in which the teacher
tended to treat the girls and boys differently.
She used the concept of
• Solicit - involving academic behaviour
• non-academic solicits -disciplinary
• The teacher interacted more often with the boys, but
this interaction did not involve any academic
exchanges.
• On the other hand, girls seemed to be more
academically involved in the interaction.
• Other researchers, particularly those following early
‘dominance’ paradigms, would have interpreted the
boys’ taking up more classroom time as an educational
disadvantage for the girls, and would have criticized
the teacher for favoring the boys over the girls.
 In university classroom
• Majority of the late comers to the classroom
are boys.
• Male students disturb male teachers’ lecture
more than that of female teachers.
• Males try to recede from disturbing female
teachers lectures to protect their
masculinity to avoid being scolded by a
female teacher
• Male students, by cutting down male teachers
and lectures and remaining silent in female
teachers’ classes, try to demonstrate their
perceived masculinity and superiority.
• In Pakistan, especially in public sector
universities, majority of students regularly
absent themselves from lectures.
• It was found that male students bunk classes
and remain absent from lectures more than
females.
• In-class attendance from the point of view of
gender revealed that fake attendance is
marked by boys for boys. Except some case
girls never mark proxy in the class
attendence
• The proxy by boys for boys shows group
solidarity.
 Males and Females Students
engagement in classroom discussion
• Male students in Pakistani university
classrooms dominate class discussions,
female students and students from rural
background feel hesitant to engage in
classroom discussion and debate.
• Boys reply to teacher’s question more
than girls, but girls are found more
quick and correct, with genuine
interest, in class discussion.
• Boys just speak to be prominent but
girls speak when they have substance to
share with their teachers and class
fellows.
• Males often speak loudly with
confused statements, whereas girls
engaged in conversation with clear
mind and opinion.
• Teachers wait longer for girls to
explain their point of view.
• Men talk more, particularly in formal
interaction in the public domain.
• Male students are expected to assert
themselves, whereas females supposed
to be quite and polite.
 Other than that……
• Classroom is a gendered space which young men/boys
and young women/girls experience differently.
• Boys vividly dominate classroom interaction and
see it one of the places where they demonstrate
their masculinities in various ways, i.e. coming
late, disrupting lectures, asking for early ending
of lecture and distracting teacher from the main
subject.
• Girls with good schooling background are outspoken
and engage in classroom conversation more than
rural boys and boys with poor study habits and
educational background.
• Today the number of female teachers in university
is encouraging when compared to the past.

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