Race, Culture, & Gender in the

ClassroomMatt Hoyler, Meredyth Marcey, Hannah

McShea, Shannon Nealon, & Emma Stitt

Introduction… ❏ Discuss the following personal experiences at your table

(if you have any)❏ Gender bias in the classroom❏ Culture bias in the classroom❏ Racial bias in the classroom❏ Any instances where you felt a teacher used gender,

culture, or race to out someone or stereotype

Class Discussion

Issue at HandThere are teachers with implicit biases throughout the country, as well as the world. At times, certain genders, races, or cultures are favored in a classroom. This affects the way the students learn in the classroom and morphs their vision of education as a whole.

❏ Stereotype: A; : something conforming to a fixed or general pattern❏ especially : a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group

and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment

Gender - Introduction❏ Gender: A; a subclass within a grammatical class (such as noun, pronoun,

adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (such as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms

❏ Sex: N; the sum of the structural, functional, and behavioral characteristics of organisms that are involved in reproduction marked by the union of gametes and that distinguish males and females

❏ Identity: A; the distinguishing character or personality of an individual

Gender and their roles are changing in our society, but some people are stuck in the past about it. It is critical to allow students to express their gender as well as allow equal opportunities for each gender.

Gender Issues in the Classroom❏ Gender Stereotyping❏ “Boys and Girls” as attention grabbers❏ Hall passes- boys pass, girls pass❏ Bias with boys in the STEM field (Chemaly, 2015)

❏ “Researchers found that girls often score higher than boys on name-blind math tests, but once presented with recognizable boy and girl names on the same tests, teachers award higher scores to boys,” (Chemaly, 2015).

❏ “Teachers spend up to two thirds of their time talking to male students… They spend more time prompting boys to seek deeper answers… Boys are also more frequently called to the front of the class for demonstrations” (Chemaly, 2015).

❏ “National data in recent years show a 57-43 percent split favoring women, both in enrollments and graduation rates" (Sloan, 2019).

How can we as teachers allow gender fluency in our classrooms?

Gender - What can teachers do?Teachers can do many things in the classroom to create a safe, inclusive environment.

● Stop any homophobic remarks from/about students● Encourage students to research about LGBT+ in the higher grades● Read and provide books involving students/families with LGBT+

members● Talk and teach about it, so students are informed, not ignorant. Do

not avoid conversations about gender identity.

Race - Introduction❏ Race: A social construct that stands to label people based on the outside

characteristics of their skin color.❏ Differences in things like skin and hair color have not been deemed socially significant, but

skin color has been.

❏ Racism: prejudice based on socially significant physical features (skin color)❏ The importance of color consciousness rather than color evasiveness:

❏ By taking a color conscious stance one is acknowledging and appreciating the experiences that a person of color has had due to the way the world sees them and how they are treated based on their skin color.

Race Issues in the Classroom❏ Teachers are avoiding the appropriate racial terminology for fear of

offending or making students uncomfortable❏ For example, instead of discussing how the white europeans treated African American slaves

in Colonial America they will say the “settlers” and “slaves”

❏ Teachers that try to talk about race only talk about past racial inequality and don’t make mention of the inequalities that persist today

❏ Concept of racial tolerance comes from a “color-blind” ideology❏ Still implicit bias today

❏ Ex: student expectations, white students may be expected to more academic and black students may be expected to be better at sports.

Race - What can teachers do?❏ Talk about race in their classroom and employ a racially diverse curriculum❏ Have an inclusive classroom library that not only shows racial differences,

but celebrates them. ❏ Allows students of different races to see themselves in the books.

❏ Encourage students of different races to speak and not be silenced❏ Acknowledge the experiences that students of different races have had

because of their race❏ Employing these strategies in the classroom will…

❏ Improve students’ self-confidence❏ Lessen prejudice in the classroom❏ Create students that are more culturally aware and learn about other cultures

Culture - Introduction❏ Culture: Intangible aspects of social life including values, beliefs, systems of

language and communication, practices that people share in common and that can be used to define them as a collective. A culture includes: the customs, arts, social institutions, and achievements of a particular nation/people/other social group.❏ Ex. Dress, food, dance, music, etc.

❏ A look into Harrisonburg :❏ Fifty-three languages and 49 countries are represented by students currently attending

Harrisonburg City Public Schools

Culture Issues in the Classroom❏ Students might eat foods that taste and smell different than what others

students are used to ❏ Students may celebrate holidays other that other students do not know

anything about ❏ Students may practice different religions ❏ Overcoming stereotypes of different cultures❏ Different types of clothing ❏ Something that may be a compliment in one culture may be disrespectful or

rude in another culture (social norms)

Culture - What can teachers do?● Incorporate literature and posters in the classroom with varied

cultures○ Lets the children identify with that one thing

● Have a lesson about culture altogether● Incorporate different field trips and guest speakers from

different cultures● Allow their cultural identity to be shown● Tie in cultures into different lessons ● Show and tell- allows students to share about their culture

VIDEOhttp://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/504-video.aspx

Dr. Kara Kavanagh Dr. Kara Kavanagh is an Assistant Professor here at JMU. She has her doctorate’s degree in Early Childhood and Elementary Education, Cognate: Teacher Development and Urban/ Multicultural Education from Georgia State University. One of the classes she teaches Diversity in Elementary Education. She is President of Virginia Chapter of the National Association for Multicultural Education and is the co-founder of The CARE (Creativity and Reading Education) Program.

Dr. Kavanagh’s Insight - Children’s literature - Home visits- Be aware of representations- who are the guest speakers? Who are the

characters in the books you read? What parents do you have a strong relationship with?

- Create a safe environment that all students can see themselves in- Inclusive language- Show and tell - Be mindful of the representation that you chose to use

Closing ActivityGroup Posters- 7 minutesEach table will make a poster they would hang in their classroom incorporating gender, race, or culture.

○ All three can be included in one poster if chosen. ○ After creating a poster, each table will then have 30

seconds to present their poster to the class.

Resources: Carter, R. (2017). Teachers’ Expectations of Girls’ Classroom Performance and Behavior: Effects of Girls’ Race and Pubertal Timing. Sagepub Journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0272431617699947

Chemaly, S. (2015). All Teachers Should Be Trained To Overcome Their Hidden Biases. TIME. http://time.com/3705454/teachers-biases-girls-education/

Cole, L. (2018). What Is Culture, Exactly? Definition, Discussion, and Examples. ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/culture-definition-4135409

Hollingworth, L. (2009). Exploring Race and Ideology in an Elementary Classroom. Sagepub Journals. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0042085907312496

Martell, C. (2016). Approaches to teaching race in elementary social studies: A case study of preservice teachers. The Journal of Social Studies Research. https://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=120741874&S=R&D=ehh&EbscoContent=dGJyMMvl7ESeprY4v%2BbwOLCmr1Gep7BSs6%2B4SrOWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGutk6xp7FPuePfgeyx43zx

Resources (continued):McGlip, E. (2014). Article 3 - From Picturebox to Multilingual Collage. CLELE Journal. http://clelejournal.org/from-picturebook-to-multilingual-collage/

Merriam-Webster. (2019) Gender Definition. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

Merriam-Webster. (2019) Identity Definition. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/identity

Merriam-Webster. (2019) Sex Definition. Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sex

Polite, L. (2003). A Pernicious Silence:Confronting Race in the Elementary Classroom. EBSCOHost. https://content.ebscohost.com/ContentServer.asp?T=P&P=AN&K=503896191&S=R&D=ofm&EbscoContent=dGJyMMvl7ESeprY4v%2BbwOLCmr1Gep7BSs6y4SbGWxWXS&ContentCustomer=dGJyMPGutk6xp7FPuePfgeyx43zx

Resources (continued):Renn, K. (2010). Including All Voices in the Classroom: Teaching Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Students.College Teaching. 48:4, 129-135. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/87567550009595829

Sasser, M. (2019). Harrisonburg City Public Schools Embrace Diverse Population. The Breeze. https://www.breezejmu.org/news/harrisonburg-city-public-schools-embrace-diverse-population/article_aba48c34-2a61-11e9-9207-6f0735eb283c.html

Sloan, W. (2019). Gender in the Classroom. ASCD. http://www.ascd.org/ascd-express/vol5/512-sloan.aspx

Teaching Tolerance. (2019). What are Gender Stereotypes? Teaching Tolerance.orghttps://www.tolerance.org/classroom-resources/tolerance-lessons/what-are-gender-stereotypes

Whitmire, R. (2010). Gender Gap. Education Next. https://www.educationnext.org/gender-gap/