You Guys are Overreacting: Teaching Prospective Teachers about Subtle Gender Bias

Abstract

It's hard to change something you don't know is there.... It's like CO, a silent killer. (Preservice teacher's reflection on subtle gender bias) Subtle gender bias is often present in classrooms, but teachers and preservice teachers may not notice it, at least on a conscious level. During classroom interaction, men may dominate discussions, interrupt women, ignore women's contributions, or attribute a woman's idea to a male. These subtle sexist behaviors accumulate, eventually creating what Sandler (1984) calls a chilly climate for women students (p. 1). Crawford and MacLeod (1990) found that biased classroom interaction decreases women's confidence in their intellectual abilities. How can teacher educators ensure discussions are equitable? How can they increase preservice teachers' awareness of subtle gender bias in school settings? Many observational studies demonstrate that male students participate more in class than do female students and that teacher behaviors contribute to this pattern (Bailey, 1988; Biklen & Pollard, 1993; Sadker & Sadker, 1986; Sadker, Sadker, & Steindam, 1989). Male students receive more attention and more specific feedback from teachers; they are more likely to receive praise or correction for the intellectual content of their answers than are females (Bailey, 1988; Sadker & Sadker, 1986; Sadker et al., 1989). Teachers rarely wait more than 5 seconds for a response and rarely call on student nonvolunteers; both behaviors tend to create classroom inequities by favoring aggressive male students. Recent reports that schools are shortchanging girls (American Association of University Women, 1992) and failing in fairness by cheating girls (Sadker & Sadker, 1994) highlight this inequity in classroom interaction. Intervention studies such as Sadker and Sadker's (1986) provide evidence that teachers can alter discriminatory classroom behaviors. Presenting research on discriminatory classroom interaction and teaching teachers to examine classroom interaction for discriminatory practices can promote more equitable classroom practices (Biklen & Pollard, 1993). Many teachers are unaware of their own discriminatory behaviors until someone calls it to their attention (Bailey, 1988). Yet gender equity is rarely a component of teacher education (Klein & Ortman, 1994). How can teacher educators prepare prospective teachers to promote equity in classrooms? In my research, I find that although students generally recognize blatant forms of sexism including sexual harassment or disparities in athletic funds, they may disregard subtle forms of sexism such as classroom interaction patterns or noninclusive language. Many female and male students resist research on gender equity in classroom interaction that I present in lectures and through readings. The exceptions include (usually divorced) non-traditional-age women students. After such lectures, male students dismiss me as a man-hater or one of those feminists. Many female students insist that the research is wrong because they have never experienced inequitable treatment in schools or college classrooms. A number of Euro-American, middle-class students refuse to believe schools treat people unfairly on the basis of gender because they have never experienced it or are unaware of such experience. A common misconception of preservice teachers is their belief that all will be well if teachers intend to be fair to female and male students and reflect periodically about whether or not they treat students equitably. However, because males typically dominate discussions at a ratio of 3 to 1 (Sadker & Sadker, 1994), prospective teachers may be accustomed to listening to male voices and not recognize bias in classroom interaction. A second misconception of preservice teachers is that students, not teachers, are responsible for bias in classroom interactions. Their reasoning typically goes something like this: How can a teacher help it if only male students want to speak? …