25th March 2016 1:00
By Blue Tutors
The UN education and cultural agency UNESCO has recently raised concerns that educational materials narrow women’s horizons by promoting gender stereotypes. The agency cited text books which depict women as mothers and carers and men as holding positions in law and medicine, pointing out that girls will grow up with a limited view of the options available to them. Whilst the agency pointed to text books from Asian and African countries, gender stereotyping is a problem that also persists at schools in England. What can tutors do to combat this?
One of the difficulties is that, teaching individual students at home, tutors may not immediately see if there is a problem. They will not necessarily be aware if their students’ teachers have made comments discouraging girls from taking science and maths subjects, or if they have implied that boys shouldn’t take courses such as sociology or health and social care. Students’ peers may also perpetuate gender stereotyping; girls are geeks for excelling at science, boys are weak for being interested in poetry. The fact is that these things happen every day in schools in England, but detecting problems can be difficult.
One thing that all tutors should do is to try to ascertain their students’ experiences of studying their subject at school. Do they enjoy it? How do their teachers approach the subject and do they have friends on their course? All these questions can help give a picture of how a student is relating to a subject and can be very helping in determining the best way to approach teaching. After such conversations tutors often report becoming aware of problems, which is the first step towards addressing them. For example, male students have reported being embarrassed about studying literature and hiding the fact that they are receiving private tuition in the subject, whilst female students may be predisposed to think that they are no good at science or maths because of a teacher-reinforced stereotype. Private tuition can help boost student’s confidence and appreciation for a subject, but tutors should make sure they are aware of any underlying issues.