GENDER SCHOOL AND SOCIETY

1. GENDER AND
SCHOOL

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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).

5.  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.

6. 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).

7. 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.

8.  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.

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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.

12.  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.

13. 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.

14.  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.

15. 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.

16.  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.

17. 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.

18.  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.

19.  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.

20.  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.

21. 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.

22.  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.

23.  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.

24.  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.