Gender in S120

[Anonymous]

In S120 at Northfield High School, gender does seem to play a role in how the students and instructors interact. It was notable how the boys in class would get attended to about 70-75 percent more often than girls (this is a rough estimate). From trivial things like sitting in front of the boys more often to check on them or converse with them, to differences in the degree to which the instructor is actively involved in the plan-making of the students, such as physically writing a to-do list for boys while briefly mentioning the to-do for girls, different “regimes” seem to be in place to target different genders.

First of all, it should be noted that because seat arrangement is freely decided by the students, the class ends up having different “bubbles” of groups that are more often than not, gendered. There’s a clear existence of a corner where “the boys sit” versus where “the girls sit” — and even in the small room that S120 occupies, the atmosphere is different in each of these bubbles.

For the corner where “the boys sit,” there is always at least one teacher or TA that’s attending to them, asking them questions about homework, asking them about what they need to get done for the day, and so forth. I observed at most two teachers (out of four) that were just interacting with the two boys (that were friends) that were sitting comfortably, sprawled across the sofa, conversing with the TAs but displaying not so much motivation as it would have been desired.

On the side of the room where I was sitting, there were two girls sitting at separate desks and two boys that were sitting at their own desks as well. This was more of the quiet side, and one girl was drawing on her notebook, while another girl was on her phone, and the two boys were also on their tablets, seemingly puzzled but still not asking any questions. Because this was more of the quiet side, the teachers did not come by as often, and only conducted minimal check-ins occasionally (“Hey how you doing”) rather than engaging in prolonged conversation as they did on the other side. I did not think so much that this was due to different gender treatments, but what came right after made me question this initial thought a little bit.

I’m still sitting at the “quiet side” when a TA comes along, talks to one of the boys that were looking at their tablets, and talks to him about what he needs to get done for the day. The TA then goes to a girl who was on her phone, tells her what she needs to get done for the day. Yes, the TA spent a little more time with the boy than with the girl, but nothing out of the ordinary. And then, a moment later, the TA hands the same boy, a piece of paper titled “To Do” with the list of things that she reminded him of a few minutes ago. The same treatment did not go to the girl. Is this purely coincidental? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Perhaps, as we read in the article about the differences in teacher treatment of boys and girls, boys might just get more attention because they are seemingly thought of as more “disorganized” or “unmotivated” than girls. Or maybe boys are, at least from what I observed, more vocal about the fact that they do not want to do work than girls, and thus get more attention from the teachers. As it could be illustrated by this small, rather insignificant instance, teachers might hold an implicit bias against the boys by underestimating their level of motivation or organizational skills, and at the same time disadvantage girls by not giving them the proper attention they need.

In general, though, the students did not seem particularly interested in questioning this different treatment. If anything, the students seemed like they would much rather be left alone.

In terms of my own educational experience, there were definitely gendered expectations or reinforced behaviors. For one, our school uniform was that girls wear skirts and boys wear pants. From the onset, the two genders were distinguished and not much opportunity was given to explore it any other way. Second, teachers would usually jokingly “pick on” boys during class (i.e. calling on them more often, making jokes on them etc). This may partly have been due to the fact that boys were louder and therefore more “visible.” On the other hand, rarely would girls get the same treatment, perhaps due to the expectation that they are quieter and less likely to refute the teacher’s joke with another joke of their own or a funny reaction even (which boys more readily displayed).

Additional comments on S120 would be how I noticed that often female instructors would spend more time with the male students while male instructors spend more time with the female students. I’m not exactly sure what I was supposed to make of this observation, but it was the case that when both gender instructors was present, it was more likely that the gender of the instructor and student would be different. I wonder what kind of implication this has for the overall discussion of gender socialization we’re currently having. And a related question would be, does the teacher’s gender have an effect on how students behave towards them, or how they listen to them? I wonder not having equal amounts of conversation with students of both gender would be considered a gender bias in itself, too.

 

 

 

• This topic was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by admin.

[Author]

Posts