Gender role stereotypes and education

The following article is an excerpt from a paper titled Gender Role Stereotypes and Education written by Evelyn Suleeman, a researcher and lecturer based in Jakarta.

JAKARTA (JP): Women and men are assumed to have different traits. For example, women are said to be weak, incompetent, dependent, irrational, emotional, and sneaky, whereas men are considered strong, independent, rational, logical, and direct.

Women and men are also assumed to be equipped for different occupations. Firefighter, politician and doctor are known as male professions, while nurse, kindergarten teacher, and secretary are seen as female jobs. These stereotypes are transmitted from generation to generation.

Educational institutions have become more and more responsible for socializing children, for which parents were mainly responsible before mass education was introduced. Moreover, children are entering the formal school system at ever decreasing age. Thus, socialization through education has become increasingly important, including socialization of gender roles and values.

Studies have found that school textbooks consist of rigid gender role stereotypes (Jollnick, Sadker and Sadker, 1982; Lindsday 1990; Sitepu, 1994; Wullur, 1995). The effect of these rigid gender role stereotypes prevents children from developing a sense of shared human identity and potential (Oakley, 1972). The teacher as a part of the school system is also an agent of socialization, including on gender roles (Guttentag and Bray 1977).

When rigid gender roles are consistently socialized through school textbooks and teachers, the achievement patterns of boys and girls in high school are different. Another impact of socialization of gender role stereotypes is reflected in the choice students make regarding their fields of study in high school and tertiary education.

In this study the three issues -- gender role stereotypes in school textbooks, the role of the teacher in gender role socialization, and gender differentials in choice of study field -- will be discussed.

There are many different kinds of materials available for classroom use. Instructional materials are the base of most classroom teaching. The American National Education Association lists 24 different kinds of instructional materials, i.e. textbooks, workbooks, pamphlets, anthologies, encyclopedias, tests, supplementary books, paperbacks, program instructional systems, dictionaries, kits of realia, learning games, filmstrips, audio and video tapes, slides, globes, manipulative objects, and graphic items such as cards, posters, maps, and photographs. Compared to other instructional materials, the textbook is the most important instructional material used in classroom teaching (Gollnic, Sadker, and Sadker, 1982).

Lindsey's study in 1972 found that women are underrepresented in textbooks for elementary schools. Fifteen years later, in another study she came to the conclusion that the content of instructional materials regarding gender roles had not changed much.

These materials continue to present traditional gender roles. Women and girls are still portrayed as dependent, cooperative, passive, submissive, and nurturing, while boys are presented as independent, creative, explorative, aggressive and active (Lindsey 1990:209).

In Indonesia, two studies about gender roles in elementary school textbooks mentioned by Supolo (1996) and Wullur (1995) found a similar bias. It is assumed that the Indonesian textbooks following the 1994 curriculum, still display a considerable measure of gender bias. Since young children are most susceptible to receive the rigid portrayal of gender roles in school textbooks (Oakley, 1992), the following is primarily based on an evaluation of textbooks used in the first grade of primary school.

There are six different kind of textbooks available for first grade primary school pupils, i.e. civics, Indonesian language, handicraft and music, health and sports, religion, and mathematics. The books are printed by various publishers, but those published by the Department of Education and Culture are required textbooks.

For the examinations held every three to four months, the so- called Evaluasi Hasil Belajar, a summative text is used, which is based on the contents of the required textbooks. Therefore, discussion below is limited to these textbooks only.

In textbooks, women and men figure in different roles and activities. Overwhelmingly, women are portrayed as mothers. In her role as a mother, her activities described are cooking, washing dishes, cleaning the house, sewing. In contrast, men read newspapers and go to work. Mothers neither go to work nor read newspapers, while the fathers never do the cooking nor wash dishes.

How such images are transmitted can be seen in the following examples. The first is taken from the Indonesian language textbook (Thachir 1996a:44) and the second from the maths textbook (Seputra and Amin 1996:89):

Please fill in the blanks for the words to become complete: mother coo.. cook; father e.ts Father eats Father went fishing. He brought 30 fishes. Mother fried 10 fishes. How many fishes are left?

Unlike boys, girls are always described as helping their mother. They do household chores and go to the market. Boys follow adult men to the river or go fishing. In an exercise about hobbies in the 1B Indonesian language textbook, pupils are asked to choose between 17 pictures and point out the picture(s) that reflect their hobby or hobbies. Of the 17 children in the pictures, only six are girls. They read a book, sing, do the garden, cook, dance and go sight-seeing.

The boys in the other 11 pictures fish, draw, swim, play chess, play football, play guitar, ride a bicycle, play badminton, watch TV and play with a kite (Thachir 1996b: 100- 103). The message communicated to girls is that they have a more limited range of hobbies than boys and have less freedom to express their hobbies.

If women and men are portrayed in the workplace, they appear in different jobs. Again looking at the Indonesian language textbook (Thatcher 1996b:4-5) we see 11 pictures of people at work, only 3 of them presenting a female worker. Their jobs are typical "female jobs": modiste, nurse and teacher. The men pictured are a carpenter, a taxi driver, a fisherman, a policeman, a postman, a doctor, a soldier, and a farmer. The implicit message is that men have access to a greater range of occupations than women. Another example of this is found in the following exercise (Thachir 1996b:6):

Please form a sentence with the following words: Goes-to office-father; Aunt-cake-makes

Today, in real life, some men enter "female" jobs such as nursing or pre-school teaching and many wash dishes, cook meals, and go to the market. But textbooks do not depict them. On the other hand, women become policewomen and doctors. Thus, textbooks tend to picture women and men in gender role stereotypes instead of presenting them as multidimensional human beings.

Such stereotyping denies the reality of individual differences and hampers children's understanding of the complexity and diversity the exists within society at large and within groups. Obviously, textbooks fail to reflect accurately the contemporary and changing nature of men and women's roles. Gollnick, Sadker, and Sadker (1992) call this an unreality bias.

Studies cited by these same authors show that when children hear or read words such as father, mother, man, woman, they may not form images of all people. Rather, they take the terms literally, when they read he and man, they think "male". This also applies to occupation terms. When children read father goes to office and aunty makes cake, they may think that women never go to office, or, vice versa, men never make cakes. As a result, they may consider a wide range of occupations and activities as inappropriate for women.

Sports, games

Sports and games are also gender biased. Young girls and boys are organized to play different games and sports. In most textbooks girls are absent in pictures of physical exercise and games. If they are pictured, they play games that are relatively simple and have rules, like skipping, which does not require any team effort and is minimally competitive.

A sport considered appropriate for girls is kasti (a ball game similar to baseball). Meanwhile, a popular sport for boys is football. It emphasizes a strong need for intrateam cooperation, strategy development, and interteam competition.

The effects of male participation in team sports is described by Chafetz (1994) as follows: "... in team activities a boy Iearns group procedures and practices which he can later apply to role performance. Thus ... team activities develop social initiative in males" (Chafetz 1974:80). This statement is supported by a study conducted by Hennig and Jardin (1979) who found that differences in girls and boys' childhood games and activities may prevent girls from developing certain skills, attitudes, and work styles that are so important for achievement in the business world.

Gollnick, Sadker, and Sadker report that several studies concluded that multicultural and nonsexist reading materials have a positive effect on children's attitudes toward minority group members, and on girls and boys who demonstrate nonstereotyped behavior.

Another study they mention conveyed that girls and boys in grades one to five developed less stereotyped attitudes about jobs and activities after reading about people who successfully fought gender discrimination in the workplace and entered jobs not traditionally associated with their gender.

Teacher as mediator

There is a trend for girls' IQ scores to decline in late adolescence and early adulthood. The achievements of girls who were generally excellent students in elementary school drop. Maccoby found that the scholastic accomplishments of girls in high school begin to decline in areas such as reading and writing, but especially in mathematics, while boys begin to excel (Lindsey, 1990).

Based on the findings that boys and girls enter kindergarten with similar levels of intelligence, motoric skills, perceptual performance, and patters of reasoning as measured by tests, researchers started to look at the influence of teachers on boys and girls abilities (Guttentag and Bray, 1977; Sitepu 1994).

Teachers perceive boys and girls differently and think they want to be treated differently. Scanzoni and Scanzoni (1981) called the messages the attitudes and expectations of teachers transmit to boys and girls that reinforce traditional gender role stereotypes, "the hidden curriculum".

For example, Guttentag and Bray observed that teachers in fourth and sixth grade classrooms interacted more with boys: boys were more often approved and disapproved of, instructed and listened to than girls. Scanzoni and Scanzoni (1981) made a similar observation: teachers tend to praise boys more than girls for similar achievements.

Teachers talked more with boys about the subject matter, listened better to their complaints and questions, and praised them the most for intellectual competence, while girls were praised less for intellectual achievements and more for qualities such as neatness, completeness, and turning in assignments on time (Lindsey 1990). A study of bright children cited by Popenoe (1983) found that the more intelligent a boy was, the better he expected to perform a given task.

In contrast, the more intelligent a girl was, the less well she expected to do. Since teachers assume that girls love reading and hate mathematics and sciences, they discourage girls from taking science and math. Teachers expect the opposite of boys and therefore encourage them to take these subjects (Chafetz, 1974).

Gender biased attitudes of teaching personnel seem to start at the very moment children enter kindergarten. Teachers encourage the children to play with the toys that are considered appropriate for their gender. Girls play with beauty kits, the minikitchen is reserved for them as well as miniature household implements. Boys play with trucks, tractors, building materials, toy soldiers, and guns. Playing with toys prepares children for adult roles, so girls are being trained to be mothers, helpmates, and homemakers.

They are also encouraged to take care of their appearance. On the other hand, boys are encouraged to explore a myriad of occupational possibilities, and to develop their bodily strength and coordination.

The head of a playgroup in Jakarta said that she never forbade her playgroup children from playing with "reverse" toys, but claimed that the parents demanded that the teachers push the children to play with the toys considered appropriate for their gender.

Teachers also force students to "behave" according to their sex as is illustrated by Parker (1993). Three teachers reported to her on separate occasions that her daughter climbed trees. After the second report she realized the problem was that the child's private parts were above the heads of the onlookers. Girls are also discouraged from using foul language and saying "bad words". A female primary school teacher in Jakarta said that she would reprimand girls if they did so, while she would allow her male students say anything they liked.

"Because they are boys", she explained during an interview (28 July, 1996). Not only children's behavior is controlled by teachers, but also the way they dress. A playgroup teacher told us that a girl who liked to wear pants rather than a skirt was reminded every day of the fact that she was a girl, implying she should were a skirt or dress.

The girl finally complied and came "properly" dressed to the playgroup. Meanwhile, a study cited by Scanzoni and Scanzoni (1981) showed that recent changes in dress codes which allow girls to wear slacks are the most decisive factor in encouraging girls to engage in boys' activities such as climbing trees and running.

The article has appeared in a book titled Benih Bertumbuh Kumpulan Karangan untuk Prof. T.O. Ihromi.