Girls are destined to lag behind boys in math and science because of the female brain structure.” “Boys thrive on didactic instruction, strict discipline, and high-stakes competition.”
There is no shortage of advice on how best to teach girls and boys. No shortage, that is, unless you happen to be looking in teacher education textbooks. Reading these texts you will rarely, if ever, learn that boys face special problems in reading, or that girls encounter challenges in physics and technology. But turn on a television talk show, browse through popular books, or flip through your local newspaper, and you will find such lists of gender-related teaching ideas. In fact, the teaching suggestions that open this article are examples of problematic ideas generously sprinkled with conventional wisdom.
From brain research to theories about raging adolescent hormones, educators are deluged with recommendations on how best to teach girls and boys. The Bush administration has authorized millions of dollars for the creation of single-sex schools and classes, even as it cuts back on research funds to determine what strategies actually work.
We recently completed a content analysis of 23 leading teacher education texts to determine what they had to say about gender and education. All the texts were published between 1998 and 2001, and included introductory/foundations in education texts and methods texts in reading, social studies, science, and math. The line-by-line analysis (co-rater reliability was at 90 percent or higher) evaluated the inclusion and treatment of gender issues ranging from the experiences and contributions of women (even mentioning a woman's name) to exploring strategies to eliminate sex-role stereotyping. What did we find? Despite decades of research documenting gender bias in education and the creation of resources to respond to such bias, these 23 teacher education texts devote only about 3 percent of their space to gender. In some texts, gender is not even on the radar screen (see fig. 1 on page 62).
Figure 1. Coverage of Gender as Percentage of Text Content
Foundations of Education Texts
Twenty years ago, teacher education texts devoted less than 1 percent of their content to the contributions and experiences of women, and discussions of Title IX and gender were rare (Sadker & Sadker, 1980). Today, in the seven introductory/foundations books we analyzed, gender issues constitute 7.4 percent of content, a marked improvement. Unfortunately, many current texts provide limited, fragmented, and even inaccurate information on gender in education.
As we mark the 30th anniversary of Title IX, it is time to look more critically at gender, schools, and teacher preparation. Although today's teacher education texts describe Title IX, they fail to capture its breadth. The texts discuss athletics, but fail to mention that the law applies to recruitment, admissions, education programs and activities, course offerings and access, counseling, financial aid, employment assistance, facilities and housing, health and insurance benefits, marital and parental status, scholarships, and sexual harassment.
Introductory texts chronicle key events and figures in education. For example, Becoming a Teacher, published in 2001, includes a chapter entitled “Ideas and Events That Shaped Education in the United States.” Although the chapter mentions female educators Emma Willard, Margarethe Schurz, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Susan Blow, Ella Flagg Young, Catherine Goggin, Margaret Haley, and Jane Addams, it manages to discuss their work in all of three sentences. Such cursory treatment is in stark contrast to the rest of this chapter, taking 26 pages to detail the contributions of male educators.
Are attempts to level the educational playing field for girls harmful to boys? This polarizing political ideology—known as the Backlash—blames the academic problems of boys on efforts to ensure equal educational opportunities for girls, and several recent textbooks now include this argument. Make no mistake: boys merit our attention. Boys lag behind females in reading and writing, account for two-thirds of all students served in special education, have a higher dropout rate, are less likely to attend college, and receive lower report card grades (U.S. Department of Education, 1999, 2002). Yet, these Backlash arguments create a false opposition between girls and boys, suggesting that helping one must come at the expense of the other. The need to confront gender stereotypes is as important to a boy who wants to become an elementary school teacher as it is to a girl who wants to be an engineer.
Methods Texts
Reading
Failing at Fairness (Sadker & Sadker, 1995) describes gender bias as “a syntax of sexism so elusive that most teachers and students were completely unaware of its influence” (p. 2). Unfortunately, current methods textbooks are unlikely to prepare teachers for subtle, and not-so-subtle, gender bias challenges. The 16 methods texts we analyzed devote just 1.3 percent of their content to gender issues. One math and two reading texts offer no gender coverage at all.
Although gender has been a central reading issue for both girls and boys, the four reading texts analyzed devote only 0.3 percent of content space to gender, the lowest percentage of any category in our study. Whereas significant research documents gender bias in basal readers and children's literature, you would not learn it from these reading methods texts. In current basal readers, male characters outnumber females two to one (Witt, 1996), and Caldecott books tell more male-centered stories (61 percent) than female (39 percent) (Davis & McDaniel, 1999). Although female characters do appear in such newer roles as doctors, lawyers, and scientists, stereotypes persist. Females are often focused on domestic life and are the passive observers, watching their active brothers at work and at play (Davis & McDaniel, 1999; Witt, 1996). Boys remain in a traditional role as well, unlikely to nurture others or stray from typical male careers (Evans & Davies, 2000). Not one reading methods text offers a strategy for confronting such stereotypes.
For decades, males have consistently lagged behind females in reading and writing performance (Gates, 1961; U.S. Department of Education, 2002). Why do boys perform poorly in reading? What can teachers do to close this gender gap? These texts do not raise, much less answer, these questions.
Social Studies
The six social studies texts provide more space on the topic of gender than any other methods texts (2.5 percent of their content space). But future teachers are given few solid strategies to “rediscover” women in history. For example, Elementary and Middle School Social Studies: An Interdisciplinary Instruction Approach, published in 2001, suggests 10 group-project ideas for a unit on the Civil War. Only one includes females, and linguistic bias and stereotypes compromise even that suggestion:Have a Civil War reenactor come to class in uniform and discuss the segment of the Civil War with which he [italics added] is most familiar. Women often followed the troops. (p. 337)
In this excerpt, he sends the message that the period was about men, and the second sentence confirms a second-class role for women. This era in U.S. history involved serious social and economic reforms, and important female voices were heard on and beyond the battlefield. Such one-gendered accounts help explain why high school students have no problem naming important men in U.S. history, but find it difficult to name even five important women (Sadker & Sadker, 1995, p. 71).
Science and Math
Back in 1978, Mary Budd Rowe's Teaching Science as Continuous Inquiry announced that just being female was “A Special Handicap” in science. The text informed readers that girls “know less, do less, explore less, and are prone to be more superstitious than boys” (p. 68). Today, science and math methods texts avoid such overt and harmful stereotypes, yet give minimal coverage to gender issues (1.1 percent in science, and 0.6 percent in math). None of the science texts mention female scientists. Only one math text—Teaching Secondary Mathematics: Techniques and Enrichment Units, published in 1999—gives passing mention to the contribution of a female pioneer:Incidentally, [italics added] the first woman mathematician we hear of in ancient time is Hypatia (ca. 410), who wrote commentaries on the work of Diophantus. (p. 201)
This one-line acknowledgment is prefaced by a detailed analysis of the work of 17 male mathematicians.
What Educators Can Do
Although teacher education textbooks offer few specific resources to promote gender fairness, teachers and teacher educators can take steps to make learning more equitable and effective. Teaching students to recognize common forms of bias in a curriculum can pay rich learning dividends. The following is a framework for assessing curriculum bias. Because these forms of bias exist from picture books to college texts and apply not only to gender, but also to many groups, mastering this framework offers a useful lesson to students of all ages.
Forms of Bias in Curriculum Materials
- Invisibility: What you don't see makes a lasting impression. Textbooks published before the 1960s largely omitted African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans, and many of today's textbooks continue to give minimal treatment to women, people with disabilities, and gays and lesbians.
- Stereotyping: Glib shortcuts. The most familiar form of bias is the stereotype, assigning a rigid set of characteristics to all members of a group, denying individual attributes and differences. Stereotypes cast males as active, assertive, and curious while portraying females as dependable, conforming, and obedient.
- Imbalance and selectivity: A tale half told. Curriculum sometimes presents only one interpretation of an issue, situation, or group of people, simplifying and distorting complex issues by omitting different perspectives. A description of women being given the vote omits the work, sacrifices, and physical abuse suffered by women who won the vote.
- Unreality: Rose-colored glasses. Textbooks often gloss over unpleasant facts and controversial events. For example, when textbooks dismiss racial discrimination or sexual harassment as remnants of a bygone day, students are being treated to unreality.
- Fragmentation and isolation: An interesting sideshow. Many of today's texts include special inserts or chapters highlighting subtopics. “What If He Has Two Mommies?” or “Ten Women Achievers in Science” are examples of fragmentation. Such isolation presents these groups and topics as peripheral, less important than the main narrative.
- Linguistic bias: Words count. Language can powerfully convey bias, both blatantly and subtly. The exclusive use of masculine terms and pronouns, ranging from forefathers, mankind, and businessman to the generic he, denies the full participation and recognition of women.
- Cosmetic bias: Shiny covers. Cosmetic bias offers an “illusion of equity” to teachers and students who may casually flip the pages of a textbook. Beyond the attractive covers, photos, or posters that prominently feature all members of diverse groups, bias persists. For example, a science textbook may feature a glossy pullout of female scientists but precious little narrative of the scientific contributions of women.
Strategies for Countering Bias
- Ask students to review school textbooks and identify each of the forms of bias. Ask them to suggest ways to remove the bias and create more equitable textbooks.
- Ask students to identify bias in magazines, in television programming, and on the Internet.
- Find examples of bias that negatively affect males, people of color, or the poor. Suggest ways to overcome the bias.
- Ask students to identify how these forms emerge in instructional inter-actions. For example, teachers stereotype when they ask only males to help with physical classroom tasks, and fragment by studying women only during “Women's History Month.”
These strategies offer only one approach to countering the gender bias still so prevalent in teacher education texts. Until publishers and authors discuss relevant gender issues and the strategies needed to eliminate gender bias, teachers must rely on creativity and commitment to fill in the missing pages.
Teacher Education Textbooks Used in the Study
Foundations of Education Texts
Introduction to the Foundations of American Education (11th edition). James A. Johnson, Victor L. Dupuis, & colleagues. Allyn and Bacon: 1999.
Teaching in America (2nd edition). George S. Morrison. Allyn and Bacon: 2000.
Foundations of Education: The Challenge of Professional Practice (3rd edition). Robert F. McNergney & Joanne M. Herbert. Allyn and Bacon: 2001.
Foundations of Education (7th edition). Allan C. Ornstein & Daniel U. Levine. Houghton Mifflin: 2000.
Becoming a Teacher (5th edition). Forrest W. Parkay & Beverly Hardcastle Stanford. Allyn and Bacon: 2001.
Those Who Can, Teach (9th edition). Kevin Ryan & James C. Cooper. Houghton Mifflin: 2000.
Teachers, Schools, and Society (5th Edition). Myra Sadker & David Sadker. McGraw-Hill: 2000.
Reading Methods Texts
Teaching Reading in Today's Elementary Schools (7th edition). Paul Burns, Betty Roe, & colleagues. Houghton Mifflin: 1999.
Reading and Writing in Elementary Classrooms: Strategies and Observations (4th edition). Patricia M. Cunningham, Sharon Arthur Moore, & colleagues. Addison Wesley Longman: 2000.
Principles and Practices of Teaching Reading (9th edition). Arthur W. Heilman, Timothy R. Blair, & colleagues. Prentice-Hall: 1998.
Teaching Children to Read: Putting the Pieces Together (3rd edition). D. Ray Reutzel & Robert Cooter, Jr. Prentice-Hall: 2000.
Science Methods Texts
Teaching Children Science: A Discovery Approach (5th edition). Joseph Abruscato. Allyn and Bacon: 2000.
Teaching Science as Inquiry (9th edition). Arthur A. Carin & Joel E. Bass. Merrill/Prentice-Hall: 2001.
Teaching Science for All Children (3rd edition). Ralph Martin, Colleen Sexton, & colleagues. Allyn and Bacon: 2001.
Social Studies Methods Texts
Elementary and Middle School Social Studies: An Interdisciplinary Instruction Approach (3rd edition). Pamela J. Farris. McGraw-Hill: 2001.
Social Studies for Children: A Guide to Basic Instruction (12th edition). Jesus Garcia & John Michaelis. Allyn and Bacon: 2001.
Teaching Social Studies in Middle and Secondary Schools (3rd edition). Peter H. Martorella. Prentice-Hall: 2001.
Self in the World: Elementary and Middle School Social Studies (1st edition). Gail A. McEchron. McGraw-Hill: 2001.
Social Studies in Elementary Education (11th edition). Water C. Parker. Merrill/Prentice-Hall: 2001.
Effective Teaching in Elementary Social Studies (4th edition). Tom V. Savage & David G. Armstrong. Prentice-Hall: 2000.
Math Methods Texts
Teaching Secondary Mathematics: Techniques and Enrichment Units (5th edition). Alfred S. Posamentier & Jay Stepelman. Merrill/Prentice-Hall: 1999.
Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally (4th edition). John A. Van De Walle. Addison Wesley Longman: 2001.
