Gender Roles Research Paper

1106 Words3 Pages

Gender roles are widely accepted societal expectations about how males and females should behave (Rathus, 2010, pg. 447). Gender roles create a difference in the way that masculine and feminine behaviors are accepted among society. Gender roles are often depicted as just a part of who a person is and help better define the difference between male and female. When society begins to use these gender roles as norms we often see those who don’t fit into the correct role become ostracized by society. When these gender roles become rigid they can become gender stereotypes. These stereotypes are fixed and oversimplified beliefs about the way in which men and women ought to behave (Rathus, 2010, pg. 447). One of the most common gender stereotypes is …show more content…

Boys are seen to excel at math and sciences while girls excel at language and verbal classes. These gender stereotypes are often made into the idea that if one excels in the opposite subject is because of hard work rather than natural talent (Scantlebury, 2009). It can also be seen that the idea of boys being more outgoing and talkative comes across a lot in the classroom. There for boys are called on more by teachers and dominate more of the classroom discussions (Scantlebury, 2009). Taking on another gender stereotype girls are often expected to take on that motherly role and help those who have fallen behind or don’t understand the material (Scantlebury, 2009). Teachers also often discipline boys and girls differently. With boys teachers are more likely to accept the “boys will be boys” mantra, while girls are supposed to be more quiet and level headed. There fore boys can get away with more before being disciplined by the teacher. These stereotypes make school tough for the kids that don’t fit into their gender stereotypes. These kids are often ridiculed by students and are pushed by teachers to achieve the standard the stereotype puts upon them (Scantlebury, …show more content…

A South Florida school district studied the discipline referral rates from August 1997 to April 1998. From the 4,391 referrals from grades K-12 they found that males represented 80.5 percent of all rule violations (McFadden, A. C., Marsh, G. E., Price, B. J., & Hwang, Y.. 1992). Another study done in 92 departments at the University of Wisconsin-Madison looked at how educating teachers in gender bias had an effect on their teaching. The school offered 2.5 hour gender bias intervention workshops to departments and when following up models showed that there were greater changes after attending the workshop. An important increase came with teachers having a self-efficiency to be conscious of creating gender equality in the classroom (Carnes, M., Devine, P. G., Manwell, L. B., Byars-Winston, A., Fine, E., Ford, C. E., ... & Sheridan, J.

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