Gender Stereotype and learning Mathematics

Believing Stereotype Undermines Girls' Math Performance: Elementary School Women Teachers Transfer Their Fear of Doing Math to Girls, Study Finds

 Female elementary school teachers who are anxious about math pass on to female students the stereotype that boys, not girls, are good at math. Girls who endorse this belief then do worse at math, research at the University of Chicago shows.

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These findings are the product of a year-long study on 17 first- and second-grade teachers and 52 boys and 65 girls who were their students. The researchers found that boys' math performance was not related to their teacher's math anxiety while girls' math achievement was affected.

"Having a highly math-anxious female teacher may push girls to confirm the stereotype that they are not as good as boys at math, which in turn, affects girls' math achievement," said Sian Beilock, Associate Professor in Psychology and the Committee on Education at the University of Chicago, lead author of a paper.

More than 90 percent of elementary school teachers in the country are women and they are able to get their teaching certificates with very little mathematics preparation, according to the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education. Other research shows that elementary education majors have the highest rate of mathematics anxiety of any college major.

The potential of these teachers to impact girls' performance by transmitting their own anxiety about mathematics has important consequences. Teachers' anxiety might undermine female students' confidence in learning mathematics throughout their years of schooling and also decrease their performance in other subjects, such as science and engineering, which are dependent on mathematical understanding.

To determine the impact of teachers' mathematics anxiety on students, the team assessed teachers' anxiety about math. Then, at both the beginning and end of the school year, the research team also tested the students' level of mathematics achievement and the gender stereotypes the students held.
To assess stereotypes, the students were told gender neutral stories about students who were good at mathematics and good at reading and then asked to draw a picture of a student who was good at mathematics and one that was good at reading. Researchers were interested in examining the genders of the drawings that children produced for each story.
At the beginning of the school year, student math achievement was unrelated to teacher math anxiety in both boys and girls. By the end of the school year, however, the more anxious teachers were about math, the more likely girls, but not boys, were to endorse the view that "boys are good at math and girls are good at reading." Girls who accepted this stereotype did significantly worse on math achievement measures at the end of the school year than girls who did not accept the stereotype and than boys overall.

Girls who confirmed a belief that boys are better in math than girls scored six points lower in math achievement than did boys or girls who had not developed a belief in the stereotype (102 for the girls who accepted the stereotype, versus 108 for the other students).

Other research has shown that elementary school children are highly influenced by the attitudes of adults and that this relationship is strongest for students and adults of the same gender. "Thus it may be that first- and second-grade girls are more likely to be influenced by their teachers' anxieties than their male classmates, because most early elementary school teachers are female and the high levels of math anxiety in this teacher population confirm a societal stereotype about girls' math ability," Beilock said.

The authors suggest that elementary teacher preparation programs could be strengthened by requiring more mathematics preparation for future teachers as well as by addressing issues of math attitudes and anxiety in these teachers.

 

Cluster level workshop in Kolkata Region

I had great experiences of sharing the ideas with talented teachers of KVs of Kolkata Region.

A REPORT ONHUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER SENSITIZATION—CLUSTER LEVEL WORKSHOP FOR TEACHERS

CLUSTER VENUES

—KV BALLYGUNGE, KV DURGAPUR, KV DUMDUM, KV IIT KHARAGPUR, KV PORT BLAIRE,KV KANCHRAPARA, KV MALDA

Master trainers:
Mrs.Pratima Nayak &  Mrs.C.P.Bhatia 

                       DAY 1

Inaugural ceremony

The workshop on Human Rights and Gender Sensitization at cluster level for teachers began with the traditional lighting of the lamp and the venue principal outlined the objectives of the workshop and highlighted on the fact that this workshop will raise the awareness of teachers and train them to address the prevailing gender and social issues in academic settings and in the society at large. The very aim of this two-day Teachers’ Workshop is to foster and carry forward the message, spirit and skills of self-defence and self-management through a plethora of activities, thereafter this will be followed by sensitization of students on the issue to enable them to stand up against odds and face untoward situations in future through capacity building activities.

Learning how to learn is life's most important skill.”

The Session began by exploring Life skill module where participants were made aware of Ten Core Life Skills. Life-skills based education is behavior change or behavior development approach designed to address a balance of three areas: knowledge, attitude, and skills. Life skills arethe abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enables individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life, there after the Framework for life skills was discussed. Through the story THE CROW AND THE PITCHER participants were taught how to integrate skills through fables and stories.

Immediately after the orientation to the concept of life skill education, participations were divided into groups and situations were assigned for Role Plays where participants enjoyed preforming. The aim of Role Play was to give the message that role development can be influenced by a number of additional factors, including social, genetic predisposition, cultural or situational.

SESSION ON EXPLORING BELIEFS,VALUES AND ATTITUDES

                             The session started with brainstorming questions that what are beliefs, values and attitudes the characters of the role plays had to emphasize that the behaviour reflects the values as deep rooted beliefs. An attitude is the way a person expresses or applies their beliefs and values, and is expressed through words and behaviour.

Through power point presentation, the components of attitudes as well as learning theories were discussed about how attitudes can be changed for positive and desirable behaviour. It was discussed how the attitudes are learned and relearned.

Value education is the need of the hour. Value education is needed in school to guide the human beings in the right path, to inculcate the concept of ‘universal brotherhood’ and to achieve the absolute values of Truth, Goodness and Beauty and to give direction to life to preserve our culture and heritage and to develop morality and character and positive behaviour.

Value education can be promoted through different Learning Approaches .

THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD .

There after The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Convention on the Rights of the Child were discussed. The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere have: the right to survival; to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services.

 NCF-2005 AND FOCUS PAPER ON GENDER.

The Gender Focus Paper argues for bringing gender into the core domain of knowledge – of curricula and pedagogy and suggests that it should be integrated into the subject that a teacher transacts because Education is a project of possibility, which expands the notion of what it is to be human to make the realization of new forms possible- both for the learner and the teacher. The fundamental starting point for thinking about gender-responsive education programming is the fact that education is a basic human right for everyone

During the session Difference between Gender and sex, gender equality,gender biases and gender stereotyping in textbooks, Case studies were also highlighted. Video clippings in between the session created an impact.

 Copies of the Justice Verma committee Report were distributed amongst participants also.

 Role of Teacher in gender sensitization.

It was discussed that teacher must understand different components of gender concepts such as difference between “sex” and “gender” ,” gender stereotype” ,”gender role”, gender discrimination and “gender socialization”. Since adolescence period is very important the teacher has the responsibility to change the stereotype attitudes what the children from the parents and family. Teacher should use “gender lens” to see the needs and participation of girls through one lens and needs and participation of boys through other. He must use the lens while planning, implementing and executing whole activities of school to promote the gender equality. Teacher must be aware of the rights of child and must not discriminate and deprive any child from his/her right.

DAY 2

Second day began by exploring the manual. Participants were divided in groups in which participants were asked to Review the Trainers manual. Session focused on group discussion.Participants presented the assigned content with enthusiasm and vigor.

Understanding and challenging Sexual abuse:

It started with brain storming questions taking some case studies.Different forms of Violence including abuse and harassment were highlighted.  Activities in training module 6 were dealt with length and breadth by thetrainer. The facilitator discussed that   abuse, is often linked with power, patriarchy and the rules and regulations laid down by society on howpeople should behave, and what types of roles they should conform to.

Under no circumstances can abuse or violence be justified. Learners have to be empowered to find ways to say ‘No’ to abuse and violence, whatever kind it may be At the same time, we have to acknowledge that sometimes, abuse and violations exist in very close relationships and families and that it may be very difficult to actually find ways to end or stop it from happening.

The teachers were empowered with law THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN FROM SEXUAL OFFENCES ACT, 2012‎Chapter 2 (SEXUAL OFFENCES AGAINST CHILDREN)‎and different skills attitude to cope with peer pressure and human right. Child help line number 1098 was given.

Before lunch break a session where gender was explored from the curriculum point of view. 

The aim of the session was to examine critically the existing gender bias in curriculum, school programmes, text-books and learning materials and understand his/her role in gender sensitive transaction of the content and process of education _ textbooks and curricular areas.Prof .Krishna Kumar claims that. "It is the biased nature of the present curriculum against girls and marginalized groups that's partly responsible for making present-day education an alienating experience in such circumstances, textbooks – which are a valuable source of information and skills – can be a genuinely efficient variable in terms ofEducation for All

Understanding and challenging Domestic Violence. 

Different kinds of violence were discussed and how it has harmful effects on the society as well as on our children. The Domestic Violence Act, 2005, was also highlighted and discussed to empower the children to challenge domestic violence. E4SD (Education,Employment,Economic Status, Self-confidence and decision making skills )empowering model was discussed to make female self-confident.Violence in any form is bad we all need to reduce violence as it hurts the body, mind and the soul of the victim. Video clippings in between the session created an impact. Help line number 1091 was given.

A quiz on “Gender equity and equality” was conducted.

During the question answer session participants were informed the need to take the programme within a week into their classrooms.Different related activities to be conducted with the students were discussed.

To sum up the training programme focused on knowledge building through modules.