Investigating Gender and Gender Stereotyped Behaviors and Traits in Educational Settings from Multiple Perspectives

Abstract

Gender has proven to be a relevant factor in schools, particularly given the finding that girls tend to outperform boys. Empirical findings relating to not just gender but also constructs associated with gender, such as gender stereotypes and gender role self-concepts, can offer insight into academic, social, and personal functioning of children and adolescents. In regarding not academic achievement but rather a variety of variables associated with the educational system, such as perceived likability and competence, attributions of success, and self-esteem and achievement motivation, the present works expands upon the existing literature. Past work has examined gender in relation to these constructs, but research on how gender stereotypes and gender role self-concept relate to perceived likability and competence, attributions of success, and self-esteem constructs and achievement motivation is less common. As the school environment features a variety of unique roles, the perspectives of educators, peers, and students themselves are taken into account in the present works. In manuscript 1, we gathered gender stereotypes about young children held by German adults in a first study consisting of N = 397 participants. This information allowed the construction of vignettes in which gender stereotypical and nonstereotypical three-year-old boys and girls were portrayed. In our main study, pre-service pedagogical educators (N = 414) indicated their liking, perceived competence, creativity, self-esteem, prosocial behavior, internalizing and externalizing problems of hypothetical children using a 2 x 2 between participants design (target gender: boy, girl; target stereotyped behavior: masculine, feminine). We hypothesized that counterstereotypical children, particularly feminine boys, would receive the lowest ratings in likability. Further, we hypothesized that ratings of competence would differ between stereotypical and nonstereotypical children and expected the latter children to receive positive ratings in terms of creativity and self-esteem. The analyses revealed no significant difference in liking but showed that masculine girls received better ratings in terms of competence, creativity, and self-esteem compared to feminine girls. This stands in contrast with past literature, which shows adults displaying negative biases towards feminine boys (Coyle et al., 2016; Sullivan et al., 2018; Thomas & Blakemore, 2013). The backlash for feminine boys, seen in the past literature, and our findings, showing benefits for masculine girls, highlight the social standing of masculinity (Feinman, 1981). In manuscript 2, we investigated a peer perspective on how gender stereotyped classroom behavior could impact causal attributions of achievements, based on work by Kessels and Heyder (2020) and the paradox of praise (Meyer et al., 1979; Möller, 2005). Study 2 was an experimental vignette study in which high-achieving students displaying prosocial or nondescript behavior were described. N = 324 9th grade students participated in the 2 x 2 mixed design study, where target gender (girl, boy) was varied between participants and vignette (prosocial, nondescript) was varied within participants. Participants were asked to indicate (1) whether the hypothetical students would receive positive reactions from the teacher, as well as (2) how the students’ high achievements could be attributed, and (3) how they would rate targets on social and gender-related outcomes, such as perceived intelligence, masculinity, and femininity. We hypothesized that prosocial students would be perceived as receiving more positive teacher reactions. We further expected prosocial students to receive attributions of greater effort and lower ability, which should be mediated by the expected teacher reaction (Möller, 2005; Weiner & Kukla, 1970). Prosocial students were perceived as more effortful and less able than nondescript students, but the hypothesized teacher reactions did not mediate this association. The findings highlight that social classroom behavior, here feminine stereotyped prosocial behavior, can impact how academic achievements are attributed by peers. The belief that prosocial students are less able than nondescript peers is particularly relevant for female students. Manuscript 3, a cross-sectional study, established the relation between self-esteem constructs and achievement motivation with gender role self-concept. N = 355 9th grade students provided information on their gender role self-concept, global self-esteem, academic contingent self-esteem, hope for success, and fear of failure. We hypothesized positive relations between instrumentality and global self-esteem and hope for success, while expecting a negative relation with instrumentality and academic contingent self-esteem and fear of failure. Importantly, gender differential relations were hypothesized, as past work has shown that the association between a masculine gender role self-concept and self-esteem measures can be stronger in female individuals (Cate & Sugawara, 1986; Hirokawa & Dohi, 2007; Whitley, 1988). Structural equation modeling showed a benefit of an instrumental orientation, which was associated with greater self-esteem and hope for success, and lower academic contingent self-esteem and fear of failure. The association between instrumentality and global self-esteem was stronger for girls, for whom this association also indirectly related to lower fear of failure, highlighting how an instrumental gender role self-concept can particularly benefit girls. Our findings that instrumentality can benefit students expand the literature on the feminization of school, which has presented masculinity in school as mostly negative (Lyng, 2009). The results of all three empirical works highlight a pattern of benefits of masculinity and the disadvantages of femininity from the perspective of educators, peers, and students themselves. The discussion of the present dissertation thus outlines how gender can be understood as a status characteristic (J. Berger et al., 1972; Gerber, 2009), with maleness and masculinity perceived as holding more status than femaleness and femininity. This is seemingly in conflict with past work on the feminization of school, presenting the better fit between femininity and school (Heyder & Kessels, 2013). We discuss some practical and theoretical limitations of the present work and outline future research directions. The implications of the work focus on the feminization of school and on the question of whether reducing gender salience in schools could be advantageous, ultimately highlighting current trends in society regarding focus on gender.