Gender role stereotypes and education

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.