Blog 6: Gender Stereotypes in English Education

Women vs Men

Girls vs Boys

Females vs Males

You have probably realized that I have written masculine names with pink and feminine names with blue. If the case were the opposite you would not even realize it. Most of the peoples' brains are wired to stereotyping genders. In schools stereotyping is hidden in lessons. It is possible to see many things such as "Tom likes to play with cars, Margaret likes to play with girls", "Tom's dad fixes the washing machine while Margaret's mother washes the dishes" these two are just examples from gender stereotyping. But it has a big effect on students' lives. For instance, mathematics and physics are seen to have negative relations with female gender, in addition to the science they all are seen as a male work area (Makarova & Herzog, 2015). This affects students when they choose their profession, girls tend  not to prefer being an engineer since it is a male dominated and masculine profession. When the case is STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) interdisciplinary work provides a gender neutral nature because of the integration between masculine and feminine perceived work areas(Makarova & Aeschilimann, 2019).

Tansanguanwong, P. (2015).Gender in Thai schools: Do we grow up to be what we are taught?, retrieved from https://blogs.worldbank.org/eastasiapacific/gender-in-thai-schools-do-we-grow-up-to-be-what-we-are-taught

Makarova, E., & Herzog, W. (2015). Trapped in the gender stereotype? The image of science among secondary school students and teachers. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal.

Makarova, E., Aeschlimann, B., & Herzog, W. (2019, July). The gender gap in STEM fields: The impact of the gender stereotype of math and science on secondary students' career aspirations. In Frontiers in Education (Vol. 4, p. 60). Frontiers.