GENDER AND

SCHOOL
GENDER (MEANING/NATURE/PERSPECTIVE)
 is a social construct that impacts attitudes, roles,
responsibilities and behavior patterns of boys and
girls, men and women in all societies

 includes the expectations held about the

characteristics, aptitudes and likely behaviours
of both women and men (femininity and
masculinity).

 Gender perspective looks at the impact of

gender on people's opportunities, social roles and
interactions
SCHOOL

 is the place where our children should be

exploring ideas and discovering new skills.

 It is inexcusable that any child might be

prevented from pursuing their passions simply
based on others’ perceptions of their gender.

 schools have a tremendous opportunity and

responsibility to be inclusive of all students,
regardless of their Gender identity or expression.
 SCHOOL AS GENDER SOCIALIZATION

 Gender socialization is the process by which

we learn our culture's gender-related rules,
norms, and expectations.

 Through gender socialization, children begin to

develop their own beliefs about gender and
ultimately form their own gender identity.

 Schools can magnify or diminish gender

differences by providing environments that
promote within-gender similarity and between-
gender differences, or the inverse (within-gender
variability and between group similarity).
 Schools are major contexts for gender
socialization, in part because children spend
large amounts of time engaged with peers in such
settings.

 Schools are important contexts for the

socialization of young children’s gender attitudes
and behaviour.

 Teachers and school administrators model

gender roles and sometimes demonstrate gender
stereotypes by responding to male and female
students in different ways.
GENDER DIFFERENCES
 are variances between males and females that
are based on biological adaptations that are the
same for both sexes.

EXAMPLE:
 Teachers tend to praise girls for “good” behavior,
regardless of its relevance to content or to the
lesson at hand, and tend to criticize boys for
“bad” or inappropriate behavior
(Golombok&Fivush, 1994).
GENDER BIAS
 is a preference or prejudice toward one gender
over the other. Bias can be conscious or
unconscious, and may manifest in many ways,
both subtle and obvious.

 occurs when people make assumptions regarding

behaviors, abilities or preferences of others based
upon their gender. Because there are strong
gender role stereotypes for masculinity and
femininity, students who do not match them can
encounter problems with teachers and with their
peers.
 Teachers tend to pay more attention to boys than
girls by having more interactions with them.

 They tolerate behavior in boys that they don’t

tolerate in girls, and they tend to provide boys
with more criticism and praise.

 Boys simply tend to demand more attention,

while girls tend to be quieter and more reticent.
Boys tend to dominate classroom discussion, and
they also access computers and technology more
often than girls do.
GENDER INEQUITIES
 The Gender inequities pervading society are
carried into the school environment.

 This is evidenced in school processes such as

teaching, teacher–student interaction, school
management, and the plan and design of the
physical infrastructure.

 Teaching and learning materials, for example,

may contain gender stereotypes.
 WAYS TO PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY
IN SCHOOLS

 Establish an award to recognize children who

promote equity

 Do a play about gender equity in school

 Write an equity column or article in the paper

 Organize a walk, race, or athletic event for equity

 Honor people who foster gender equity in their

work and life spirit

 Develop posters that promote equity

IMPLICATIONS FOR PARENT, SERVICES,
AND POLICY

 Educational policy makers should resist the

creation of gender segregated educational
contexts (e.g., single-sex schools) and instead
seek to enhance co-educational schools’
promotion of gender egalitarian attitudes and
behaviour.

 Teachers need training to recognize their own

explicit and implicit biases and how these biases
affect their classroom behaviours.
 Teachers should receive explicit training in
confronting children’s biases, so that they reduce
peer policing of gender normativity.

 Parents should seek educational settings for their

students that are gender integrated and that
make use of curricula that directly teach about,
and challenge, gender bias and inequality.
POLICY RESPONSES FOR THE PROMOTION AND ACHIEVEMENT OF
GENDER EQUALITY IN EDUCATION

 First, partnership approaches that bring together

governments, donors and civil society are key.

 Second, is the need for enacting multiple and

multi-sectoral interventions to address the
complex demand and supply-side challenges to
girls’ education and gender equality in education
more broadly.

 Third, there is a need for strategic and evidence-

based policy advocacy and support for continued
research, monitoring and evaluation.
 Fourth, there must be commitment on the part of
governments and their partners to the promotion
of gender equality in education.

 Fifth, governments, with the support of donors

and civil society, must ensure adequate and
sustainable education financing ibid.
IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL IN RELATION TO
GENDER/GENDER SOCIALIZATION

 Schools can play an important role in inculcating

gender sensitivity in etiquettes and manners of
students.

 Classrooms need to be gender sensitive. We have

to take care of few do’s and don’ts for making
classroom interaction gender sensitive.
 Encourage both males and females to be class
leaders (perhaps one of each sex).

 Address and call on girls and boys equally.

 Make mixes groups for group activities and

games

 Try to ‘switch role’ for breaking down gender

barriers and stereotyping of gender roles

 Make both boys and girls share activities like

cleaning, moving furniture, to the chalkboard
during a lesson.

 Plan and conduct activities that give opportunity

to all children accepting one another as equals.
 ROLE OF SCHOOLS IN CHALLENGING GENDER
INEQUALITIES

 Schools must be promoted to develop a healthy

relationship between all the genders. This will
not only ensure gender equality but will also
helpful in developing respect for the other gender
in future.

 Infrastructure School should provide equal

infrastructural facilities to all the students
without doing any discrimination based on the
gender. Special attention must be given for
students with special needs.
 Admission to all School should take care of giving
admission to the students of all categories
without considering any differences based on
caste or gender. As part of inclusive policy school
can take initiatives to accommodate all types of
learners including transgender.

 Providing textbooks Care must be taken to

provide textbooks to all the students equally
without considering their gender.

 Scholarships must be provided to the needful

without considering their gender, caste, or their
high status in the society. Their economical
background can be considered.
 No discrimination should be there in distributing
or making available of the sports equipment’s to
the students.

 School Programs. Equal participation must be

given to all the genders in all the activities in the
schools. Equal responsibilities like leadership
must be given to all the genders in school
programs.

 Promote Education for girls in rural and remote

areas in most of the remote and rural parts of our
nation; there is a huge restriction for girl children
to go to school.
 Awareness programs. School can arrange
awareness programs for teachers, students as
well as for the parents on gender equality and
also for the need of educating female children.
 ROLE OF TEACHERS IN CHALLENGING GENDER
INEQUALITIES

 Teachers should make sure that all the students

get seating arrangements as per their need
irrespective of their gender or caste or religion
etc.

 The practice of writing names of the students as

per alphabetical order irrespective of their gender
can be followed to ensure gender equality.
 Care must be taken to ensure equal participation
of boys and girls in all the classroom activities.

 It’s the responsibility of the teacher to make sure

that opportunities are provided to all the
students irrespective of their gender in all the
classroom activities.

 Teacher must assign roles and responsibilities to

the students without considering their gender.

 Teachers should ensure that all the learning

materials are distributed to all the students
equally without any discrimination based on the
gender of the learners.
 Awareness programs on ‘health’ should be
organized considering both the gender.

 While organizing awareness programs on ‘sex

education’ also, there must be initiatives to
provide knowledge to both the gender.

 Teacher can use gender fair examples, suitable to

both the gender while teaching.
 To ensure gender equality teacher can use moral
stories on the importance of mutual respect
between men and women in the classrooms.

 Inspirational videos and films depicting the need

and importance of gender equality for the
improvement of the society can be shown in the
classroom during leisure time or at some
occasion.