The Gender Equation In Schools

This compelling book takes you inside a teacher’s journey to explore the question of gender in education. Jason Ablin uses his background in math teaching, school leadership, and neuroscience to present expert interviews, research, and anecdotes about gender bias in schools and how it impacts our best efforts to educate children. He provides practical takeaways on how teachers and leaders can do better for students. There is also a handy Appendix with step-by-step guides for facilitating faculty-wide conversations around gender; writing learning reports without gender bias; using student assessments to check gendered attitudes about learning; evaluating learning spaces; and creating an inquiry map of your classroom. As a teacher, administrator, DEI director, or homeschooling parent, with the strategies and stories in this book, you’ll be ready to embark upon your own journey to balance the gender equation and create greater equity for all of your students.

This compelling book takes you inside a teacher’s journey to explore the question of gender in education. Jason Ablin uses his background in math teaching, school leadership, and neuroscience to present expert interviews, research, and anecdotes about gender bias in schools and how it impacts our best efforts to educate children. He provides practical takeaways on how teachers and leaders can do better for students. There is also a handy Appendix with step-by-step guides for facilitating faculty-wide conversations around gender; writing learning reports without gender bias; using student assessments to check gendered attitudes about learning; evaluating learning spaces; and creating an inquiry map of your classroom. As a teacher, administrator, DEI director, or homeschooling parent, with the strategies and stories in this book, you’ll be ready to embark upon your own journey to balance the gender equation and create greater equity for all of your students.

Laura Zapfe’s aim is to explain how education system and school characteristics affect the gender gap in mathematics and reading competencies. She adapts the macro-meso-micro model. At the micro level, she uses theories, e.g., gender-specific socialization, highlighting how gender-specific expectations and stereotypes cause gendered interest and skills and therefore gender differences in mathematics and reading. Deriving a macro-meso-micro link, she explains how education system characteristics such as competition, differentiation, and standardization, and school characteristics could increase or decrease the gender-specific socialization effects, leading to larger or smaller gender gaps in mathematics and reading competencies. On this basis, she performs a cross-national comparison of 78 countries participating in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018, combined with further researched macro data with three-level mixed-effects models. The results show that boys have an advantage in mathematics, girls have an advantage in reading, the gender effects are slightly higher for reading, and the gender effects at the school level are more pronounced than those at the country level.

Gender bias in school textbooks takes many forms and is often subtle and difficult to detect. It creates and sustains a view of the world in which male activity and male persons are of primary importance and of greatest value, while female activity and female persons are marginalised, made invisible or downgraded.This book has been produced in response to the lack of information on gender bias in existing textbooks in the countries of the Commonwealth. Section I presents three major studies of primary school textbooks, one in the Caribbean, one in Asia and one in Africa. Section II describes inclusive language and provides guidelines for textbook writers and producers. Section III assists teachers and teacher educators to develop strategies. Section IV provides a guide to evaluating gender bias in specific textbooks and other materials used in primary school classrooms.

This report examines the effects of both student and school characteristics on mathematics and science achievement levels in the third, seventh, and eleventh grades using data from the 1985-86 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Analyses feature hierarchical linear models (HLM), a regression-like statistical technique that addresses the problem of students nested within schools by directly modeling within- and between-schools variation in achievement. Additionally, HLM allows examination of the impact of school characteristics on the relationship between student characteristics and achievement within schools. Following an executive summary, this report contains: (1) an introduction including information on the background and purpose of the study, a description of data sources and variables used in the analyses, and an outline of the methodological approach utilized; (2) a summary of the effects of school characteristics on mathematics achievement for each of the three grades with respect to the within-school model and the five between-school models; (3) a summary of the effects of school characteristics on science achievement for each of the three grades with respect to the within-school model and the five between-school models, enlarged with a comparison of mathematics and science results; (4) an extensive discussion of the findings in relation to methodological goals, grade level differences, school size, disassociation of socio-economic influences from race-ethnicity, tracking, gender differences, and teacher characteristics; and (5) appendices that include technical notes for the variables and the HLM methodology, descriptive statistics for selected characteristics, and supporting tables for the HLM results. In general, the school characteristics examined in the analyses provided better explanations for average achievement between schools than they did for the effects of gender, race-ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on achievement. (JJK)

A book of "real world" cases, this text introduces "flashpoint" issues related to gender equity in the schools. It immerses readers in the human dilemmas teachers face when they set out to provide equal opportunities for -- and to develop the abilities of -- all of their students. Each case, a true but disguised situation, presents the pedagogical concerns, ethical questions, competing values, and complexity of social change teachers face on a daily basis in their classrooms. These cases help readers to identify and understand ideas and issues by relating them to both their own and others' real-life experiences. The book includes activities and discussion questions to involve readers in critical thinking about the issues raised in the cases and in applying this knowledge to their own current or future classroom practice. Using a casebook approach, the text is organized in five sections. Designed to help readers explore the issues raised by contextualizing them in stories that are authentic and engaging, it emphasizes the teacher's role as a skilled professional who thinks critically and makes decisions, and creates lively and involved class discussion by making room for students with diverse perspectives.

This fascinating compilation of the recent data on gender differences in education presents a wealth of data, analysed from a multitude of angles in a clear and lively way.

Gender bias is well established in children by age 6, so creating environments where all children can learn without bias requires an understanding of the components of gender bias and the related challenges. This book supports educators by giving them the language to talk about gender equity, the tools to assess issues of inequity in their schools, and methods to create healthier and better-balanced school culture and curriculum. This book will help educators develop ways to identify implicit bias, address imbalances, and direct more positive and balanced messages for all students. The book provides very useful information on reflective practice, action plan development, and changing the visual culture of schools. It also includes practical and engaging ways to integrate gender equity lessons within content area classes and creating a school-wide initiative. The book shares positive work in the field of gender equity and serves as a guide for educators and school districts in advancing their goals. It explores what gender equity looks and sounds like in a school setting. It also includes professional development ideas for teaching staff as well as activities and common core lesson integration plans across elementary grades and content areas.