Running head: GENDER Hailey Anderson 1

We have a Problem, but there’s a Solution

In our world there are gender roles that each gender is expected to fulfill. These roles

aren’t written in stone, but they are what’s most common in the world that we live in. They often

can have control over the decisions that we make daily, our careers, and the subjects that we are

interested in. These strong, but unspoken gender roles usually include women working with

others at jobs like teachers or receptionists, while men become engineers and mechanics.

Researchers have noticed these patterns and have been trying to figure out the reason of this

gender bias. Some of the biggest reasons that researchers have linked these gender specific

careers to is when these people were in elementary school.

Researchers have discovered that toy makers and parents are discouraging females from

getting interested in science and math. Most toys that involve math and science are targeted

towards boys which allows them to have more interaction with math and science outside of the

classroom. Parents also want their children to grow up into specific roles that society has set for

them. Parents set an example that can have an effect on these students, as well as future students.

Toy makers and parents aren’t the only people that are creating these biases.

Other biases are also largely happening in the classroom. Students spend a lot of time in

the classroom with their teachers and can be impacted by them. Most of elementary school

teachers are females and children usually look up to adults that are their own gender. As a result,

these teachers were taught throughout elementary school to fear math and science and these

feelings are portrayed in their teaching. Since the girls are looking up to their female teachers

more than the boys they also pick up on the anxieties tied to math and science. There has been

multiple studies about this theory and here’s one: “The researchers assessed math anxiety in 17
Running head: GENDER Hailey Anderson 2

female first- and second-grade teachers, as well as math achievement and gender stereotypes

among 52 boys and 65 girls from their classes” (Azar, 2010). The article continues to explain

that at the beginning of the school year there was no correlation between the feelings the teacher

had towards math and the attitude of the students. However, at the end of the year, the girls, not

the boys had this mindset that girls were good at reading while boys were good at math. This fear

of math and science is becoming a never-ending cycle in schools.

Teaching isn’t the only source where math anxieties come from. There was a study done

on a group of students in Israel that were in 6th grade through high school. The students took two

tests and one test was graded by someone who knew who they were and the other test was

graded by someone who didn’t know who they were at all. “In math, the girls outscored the boys

in the exam graded anonymously, but the boys outscored the girls when graded by teachers who

knew their names. The effect was not the same for tests on other subjects, like English and

Hebrew” (Miller, 2015). This same bias has been seen in studies all over the world. Even the

grading that is happening in schools is setting girls up to fail in subjects like math and science.

I guess I was blessed with teachers that had a passion for math or my parents didn’t

persuade me against doing math and science, because throughout my life those have been my

favorite subjects. I love discovering and solving problems and those subjects click in my head

the fastest. My love for these subjects will pay off when I teach these subjects to my future

students with excitement. I hope to maintain this excitement for learning in all subjects and help

my students find the same joy. It is definitely important to be aware of so I can make sure that

every student feel like they are able to do math and keep up with other students. They may just

have to work a little harder.

Running head: GENDER Hailey Anderson 3

References

Azar, B. (2010, July/August). Math culture = gender gap? Retrieved from

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/07-08/gender-gap

Miller, C. C. (2015, February 06). How Elementary School Teachers' Biases Can Discourage

Girls From Math and Science. Retrieved from

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/upshot/how-elementary-school-teachers-biases-can

-discourage-girls-from-math-and-science.html?_r=0