Title: Studying Gender Roles in Literature and Life

Source/Author/Date:  Teaching Tolerance, by Jeremy Knoll on September 28th, 2016

URL Link:  http://www.tolerance.org/blog/studying-gender-roles-literature-and-life 

Relevance: While American culture today does not view women as property, classic literature and today's media portraits women as objects to be admired by men. The amount of media propaganda through advertisements and shaming cause...

New Autism Research Outlines Gender Differences in Social Interactions

By Christina Samuels on May 15, 2015 4:49 PM

Boys and girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder  demonstrate their difficulties in  communicating  in different ways. New research presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research recently held in Salt Lake City found that in general education classrooms, girls remain more connected to peers when they are in classroom of 21 students or more.  Boys, however, tend to have better social connections in classrooms with 20 or fewer students.

While much of Autism research is male oriented, this study focused on both boys and girls .

This article is geared towards parents, educators and researchers

link to full article

Gender Bias in Special Education

This article is from the AAUW, American Association of University Women, Breaking Barriers for Women and Girls, Educating Girls withDisabilities.

Seventy percent of special ed diagnosis goes to boys. Why? There are three theories presented here, including biological difference between boys and girls, behavioral differences between boys and girls, and bias in special education referral and assessment procedures. What they do know is that boys are more likely than girls to exhibit problematic behavior characteristics, and that girls are often 

diagnosed only after they exhibit behavior typical of males students who have been diagnosed.

It makes you wonder how much we don't know about how a girl with learning disabilities acts. Does she just dream her way through class and quietly underachieve because of an attention disorder? How many girls are we missing who we could be helping?

What is the impact of under diagnosis of girls with learning disabilities? According to the article, they include high rates of academic failure, teen pregnancy, and unemployment. If we can help these girls we need to do better.

High School Girls in STEM

MindShift, Want to Get More Girls Into STEM? Give Them Real-World Work

Katrina Schwartz | March 13, 2015

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/want-to-get-more-girls-into-stem-give-them-real-world-work/

This article describes a group of girls who have taken on the job of help desk at their high school - no experience necessary and learning on the job. Attracting girls to try STEM fields is an ongoing challenge. DIrect encouragement, role models, and sometimes taking the boys out of the room help. Check out these techie ladies’  youtube video.

Gender identities in the ECE classroom

"Playing with Gender" by Ann Pelo

Rethinking Schools, Fall 2005

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/20_01/gend201.shtml

accessed 3/5/2011

Summary: Teachers at a Seattle preschool work on understanding their own identities, and how those shape their ongoing work into understanding the backgrounds of their students. Pelo talks a lot about incidences of play in which the very young children are clearly exploring gender roles and identities, and it is interesting to note (especially after today's conference) that the students are doing it in the context of an environment in which they haven't yet been exposed enough to think of what they are doing as wrong, whether because it isn't "manly" or "womanly" enough, or because it is somehow otherwise inappropriate. It is an exciting opportunity to take advantage of "teaching moments" that the children are themselves creating.

Key Points:

• the school takes a positive view of physically involved play, and this seems to help create a freer environment in which the kids can dress each other up or otherwise explore their identities through interaction
• Pelo lists a handful of incredible utterances from her young students, including words that indicate a playful contemplation of how society determines that a boy is a boy, and a girl a girl
• the teachers at the school all work hard, cooperatively, to better understand themselves and their students, and how to help guide and educate these very young children
• given even very "simple" play activities among students, a discerning educator can draw out a wealth of material to prompt discussion and contemplation among her colleagues

Audience: general public, ECE educators interested in ideas in this area

Relevance: This is a big one! The article touches on all sorts of things that have come up in our class discussions, particularly in School and Society-- but also in Inquiry, and even in today's conference! The teachers at Pelo's school are tackling the same sorts of issues that Anita is asking us to think about: how does my culture shape the lens through which I view and teach my students? How might their own backgrounds shape their lenses? How can I work to educate everyone to our best abilities not in spite of, but while embracing these differences? The team she put together is working on what I think could be called an action research project, and as is the nature of action research (at least in my still-forming understanding of it), their conclusions are continuously updated; it is an ongoing assessment of their own practices and environment. Although the article ostensibly focuses on the forming gender identity roles of their preschoolers (and how fascinatingly fluid those are), she tackles much more than that. I'm going to stop writing because this is already too long, but I highly recommend this article.