Student Gender, Reputation, Self-Esteem

This week’s article summary is Teacher View Playful Boys More Negatively Than Playful Girls.

I think that most teachers, even though we try to be fair and equitable, would admit to treating girls and boys differently in class.

As you will see in the article below, for those boys who are deemed ‘class clowns’ in early elementary school, the way teachers talk to them may have long-term negative effects in terms of social standing and self-esteem as early as third grade.

While this is one limited study, it did give me pause about how much influence teachers have over students in our words and actions.

We all try to be fair in our treatment of our students but as I discussed in a previous article summary on helping girls resist the urge to be perfectionists, we as teachers fall prey to societal stereotypes.

And one stereotype is the overly rambunctious boy who fights against class rules and negatively influences the rest of the class.

In our teaching careers, we all most likely have had a few kids--most likely boys—who were the bane of our school year. We tried all sorts of strategies, yet we just couldn’t seem to reach them and perhaps eventually had to resort to stricter discipline, which more than likely had the reverse effect, resulting in a vicious circle power struggle to the benefit of no one.

After reading the article, I wonder if in the interest of short-term expedience (a calmer class), I may have done longer-term harm to some boys’ self-confidence and social standing.

The article doesn’t pose any solutions to this classroom problem. Perhaps trying  the various tools/strategies of Positive Discipline or the Intervention Model we discussed at our last in-service day might help.

Regardless the article definitely raised my awareness of being more attuned to my tendency to be shorter and get frustrated more quickly with boy class clowns than girl class clowns.

Joe

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Teachers are less tolerant of playful boys than playful girls, according to a new study, and this may result in boys ending up with lower self-esteem. The findings suggest that male class clowns are set up to be sad clowns by adolescence, whereas girls who just want to have fun are more or less tolerated.

Children regularly observe playful boys, or ‘class clowns’, being treated negatively by their teachers, and over time come to change their view of them as desirable playmates in first and second grades to being seen as boys who should be avoided or spurned in third grade.

Researchers have wondered for some time why boys underperform in elementary school. Some experts suspect it’s because the classroom environment rewards those who can sit patiently and express themselves efficiently—two areas in which the average young girl puts the average young boy to shame. Other studies indicate that boys weather a disproportionate amount of discipline and blame in the classroom, perhaps exacerbated by the fact that elementary school teachers are predominantly women.

To get more information about potential biases against boys, the recent followed kindergarten-aged children for three years. At the end of each academic year, the kids were assessed by their teachers, peers, and themselves about how playful, disruptive, and socially competent they were. Their social status was ranked and, if they were considered class clowns, this was noted. The results suggest that teachers draw sharp distinctions between playful and studious boys, but did not isolate playful girls in the same way. This impacted the social standing of the more playful boys. First grade teachers considered male class clowns “rebellious, intrusive, and socially inept”, but their peers loved them. By the time kids got to the third grade, however, teachers’ verbal reprimands had struck home—their peers now considered them undesirable playmates. No similar effect existed among girls.

Teachers view class clowns as problematic and strive to stifle or extinguish their playfulness. And it works. Male class clowns had lower self-perceptions by third grade.

The findings are not meant to imply that young girls don’t face unique challenges related to gender and cultural perceptions but, when it comes to having fun in the classroom, the deck appears to be stacked against boys. This may explain why boys struggle more than girls in school and could also explain why boys often have more serious behavioral problems even as they mature into men.