Welcome!

Welcome Folks!

I'm finishing up my MAT project about gender roles in elementary education. I have observed for many years the tendency of young children to group together along gendered lines; boys play with boys and girls play with girls. As a teacher who has a goal of equalizing gender roles within school and society at large, it has been my goal to research the following ideas:


1. Reasons why gender integration is so eagerly sought after inside of the classroom.
2. Why gender separation occurs once students are left to their own devices.
3. How can teachers foster lasting gender integration routines that the students will follow both inside and outside of class; when directed and left to their own decisions.

In researching these ideas, I have utilized both qualitiative and quantitative research methods. I am an anthropologist by nature, so the bulk of my work has centered on qualitative observation. To be honest, if I could complete this project simply based on my observation, I would feel much more comfortable. Yet, I am a slave to SPSS as are most researchers who must provide statistical/factual data to support the observational truths that are so apparently obvious.

Throughout my research I have fallen in love with a few of the authors who have so awesomely inspired my work: Barrie Thorne and Thomas Newkirk. They are wonderful authors who have much to say on the effect of gender in the classroom. While they take a more focused approach to looking at gender's involvement in curricular matters, I use their work as a basis from which to generalize my theory about gender roles at large in an elementary educational setting.

My results as yet have concluded that while teachers do their best work to inform gender integration (by way of grouping methods, formal and social instruction, and gender education activities--sports and social/home roles), their attempts ultimately fail when the students are left to their own devices to engage in groups for free play (on the playground or elsewhere). The main problem here, is that the students only engage in gender integration when they are encouraged to do so within the classroom setting; they do not wholly choose to play with members of the other gender unless urged to do so from an outside, authoritarian source.

Thus comes my task to develop a program of study for all elementary students that encourages gender integration and appreciation for members of the opposite gender. Yet, while younger students innately judge members of the other gender, it is my goal to allow both boys and girls to get along on equal footing. I'd like to see boys understand that girls can play physically (sports, PE), while I'd like girls to understand that boys are capable of accepting and enacting all social roles otherwise thought to be "womanly" (talking, drawing, etc.).

As I work to complete my project, I will update this blog as to my successes and pitfalls. Hopefully there will be more of the former than the latter! Wish me luck, and comment on anything you'd like!