Adolescent DevelopmentAshley Jo Clark

University of Cincinnati, Communication Sciences and Disordersclark2aj@mail.uc.edu

IntroductionThe purpose of this study was to investigate how a teacher may effect their class with any gender bias they may possess. Age and gender of the teacher were also taken into consideration. Is it possible this bias may be unknown to the teacher, but felt by the students and affect their participation and learning abilities and does a certain gender feel these biases more than another?

Background Literature

Gender bias is the unconscious stereo-typing a teacher can have for their students based on preconceived gender ideas (Scantlebury). Typically, males are viewed as the more masculine gender. Because of this teachers can view their domination of conversation and answering of questions as typical for males. Researchers have also identified a group of students they call “target students”. Target students were the group of students in each class that dominated most of the teacher’s time, the classroom time, and their resources. These students were typically white and male, especially in science and math classrooms. They answer and ask most of the questions because teachers didn’t expect the girls to by competent in these subjects. They were also more likely to work with the boys to reach the answer because they expected them to know.This bias was also reflected in the interactions with their students on praise and the things they expected from them. Girls would receive less meaningful praise then males because it was thought they needed more of a push to work hard. This could be of extreme detriment to a girl’s learning because the lack of feedback they receive hinders their development of the understanding of the topic.

MethodsTo test my question I visited a high school in a rural Northwestern town. This was a small school with graduating class averaging 130 students. I observed four different classrooms in this school. Room A had a male teacher- late 50s, Room B female teacher late 60s, Room C female teacher- late 30s, Room D male teacher- early 40s. I sat in the back of the classroom and observed the way the different teachers spoke to the students and asked them questions. I watched to see if they would word their questions or use a different tone of voice if they were talking to a specific gender. I then observed how the students reacted to their methods and if there were times when one gender would answer more than another. Research Question

How does gender bias in teachers affect a students affect a student’s success and participation?

Professional ImplicationsThis question allowed me to look into gender biases and how they can affect learning. As a future speech pathologist I will be forced to “teach” many different people how to fix their speech problems. This is already a very sensitive subject. Knowing this information will allow me to focus on how I speak to my patients and make sure they get the most out of our time together as possible.

ReferencesScantlebury, Kathryn. "Gender Bias in Teaching." . education.com, 23 Dec 2009. Web. 5 Nov 2013. <http://www.education.com/reference/article/gender-bias-in-teaching/>.

Scantelbury, Kathryn. "Gender Bias in Teaching." New York Times 12 Jan 2012, n. pag. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.

ResultsThere was a definite difference between the teachings of the male and the female teachers. This also transferred into the way their students reacted to their lessons. The first difference I noticed was who would talk in the class. In both male classrooms, there were almost zero times I heard a girl answer a question. These environments were male dominated. In Room A there were jokes made about girls that the teacher laughed at. There was also a time when a girl finally did ask a question and he changed his tone and was very thorough with his explanation compared to a few moments before. A male asked a similar question and the explanation was rushed and had the feeling that the teacher thought the male student should have already understood. In Room D, the teacher would ask football questions and expect only males to know and would sit and have “buddy talk” with the males in the room. The male domination ran into the female classes too though. Room B was a math class and here I still saw little girl participation. Males were more likely to answer all questions and girls only offered answers if the whole class was answering and males led the response. The female teacher didn’t seem to have a problem with this though becuase she would ask open ended quesetions but then make eye contact with the boys. In Room C males continued to speak out but it was allowed. She would make harsher comments to the boys but allow them to make the final comment anyway. She also turned a blind eye to the girls, allowing them to push their desks together. It was as if she was just focusing on the guys even though they weren’t taking things seriously and not worrying what the girls were doing. Overall I noticed that the gender bias in a class with a male or female teacher inhibited participation from the females in the class.

Why I Chose This TopicIt is believed that in many cases these gender biases are made accidentally without the knowledge of the instructor. Preconceived ideas of how different genders should act and respond to questions and criticism can affect the way a person speaks to someone. As a person in the helping profession I wanted to make sure I was aware of these stereotypes to try to prevent myself from allowing these to affect my teachings with my patients and clients.