We need to address the gender expectations placed on students based on male/female stereotypes, and how the perpetuation of gender roles influences their attitudes, behaviours and wellbeing. 

The following set of statistics indicate concerns of young Australians and experiences affecting their wellbeing. See below!

An excellent resource that we can utilise to enhance our classroom practice is the peer-reviewed journal article: “Dealing with Gender in the Classroom…” (Giraldo & Colyar, 2012). It is attached below. As indicated by its title, the article offers four teachers’ reflective accounts of their attempts to minimise the impact of gender stereotypes within their classrooms. More specifically, one teacher-recount covers how educators can eliminate gender stereotypes by encouraging students to participate in behaviours that have been traditionally considered as male/female attributes and/or performances. For example, the teacher notes that other educators can do so through practical means, such as incorporating images and videos that challenge gender-expectations by displaying women as fire-fighters and men as stay-at-home dads. While the article itself tends to be situated towards an early childhood context, high school teachers can incorporate this within various learning areas, such as Humanities and English, where role-plays are common activities. Providing students with various opportunities to self-actualise as human beings and explore other forms of masculinity/ femininity will undoubtedly promote gender equity. 

 

“Sex” refers to biological differences between male and female as what is assigned at birth (Anius, 2013). 
For instance, external or internal genitals, hormones, or chromosomes. Further, there are also people who can be identified as “intersex”. These people do not fit into the usual definitions of male or female, that may be expressed as having hormone make up of both genders, or ambiguous biological indicators (Kraus, 2015). 

 

On the other hand, gender is a social construct that denotes how masculine and feminine characteristics are expressed (Anius, 2013). That is, the society can determine the certain occupations, appearances, or personality traits that are expected of masculine or feminine people. For instance, masculinity may be associated with working in trades, being physically strong or having short hair. Alternatively, being neat, sensitive or working in nursing may have connotations with femininity. Gender expectations and roles are inconsistent across societies and cultures (Alesina, Giuliano, & Nunn, 2013). Hence, when we use these gender roles to define people it can lead to feelings of being misunderstood or de-individualised. 

 

In addition to this, many individuals have unique expressions of their gender. When someone is “transgender” it means that they identify with the gender roles opposite to what they were assigned at birth (Conron, Lombardi, Reisner, 2014). That is, a person of the male sex who associates themselves with feminine gender roles. Alternatively, others may consider themselves “gender non-conforming” where they do not situate or identify with either masculine or feminine social roles (American Psychological Association, 2015). As a result, there is a range of expressions of gender, and it’s important for all individuals to feel that they are acknowledged and accepted by others. 

 

A student may express their gender diversity in the early stages of development. Individuals as young as three may feel an affinity to expressing a gender different from their sex (Cohen-Kettenis, 2010). Often puberty can become a distressing time as their body changes to become more aligned to traditional masculine or feminine appearances (Vance, Ehrensaft, & Rosenthal, 2014). In turn, we will outline the importance and impact that gender and expectations around gender have on teenagers and the resources that we can use to support our students. 

 

Traditional gender expectation within schools force students to  conform to the binary genders of male and female. Our school can provide various support services for gender diverse students, however embedded practices and ideals stemming from traditional school structures are in fact exclusive. Schools as an institution, have entrenched powers which subtly mandate the appropriate behaviours of students, forcing self-identity along binary gender norms (Foucault, 1982). This influences the attitudes and beliefs that students build regarding gender, and the stereotypes around being male, female or other. 

As teachers, the language we use and the way we teach, can contribute to the overall class environment, either supporting students' gender identity or indirectly excluding transsexual or intersex pupils. 

The purpose of this resource kit is to help evaluate schools structure, environment and culture, and determine how we as teachers, can address gender expectations and effectively implement gender inclusive practices.

Although there has been progress with the decreasing historical expectations of gender in Australian culture, such as more women playing professional sport, it is important for this to filter down into schools. As important institutions in the lives of young people, schools have a role to promote inclusion by modelling our society’s diverse and inclusive values and beliefs (Watkins & Noble, 2013). Thus, it is important that our schools implement practises and policies that reflect inclusive practice, that break down the tradition expectations of gender. 

To ensure inclusivity, a school’s culture must support improvement whilst being positive and professional, which will help to improve student achievement (MacNeil et al., 2009). Therefore, it is crucial that every student is supported by staff and their peers in relation to choices of subjects and extra-curricular activities, as well as zero tolerance towards victimisation and harassment. As teachers, we should also be responsive and theoretically explicit, whilst providing ongoing support in the school environment and using reflexive approaches to collaboration in the classroom (Zozakiewicz & Rodriguez, 2007). 

Additional measures could include the use of gender neutral pronouns (further discussed in sections below), the implementation of gender awareness days and the equal representation of gender in classrooms (see resources below). These inclusive measures can help to change a school’s culture by reducing the prevalence of gender expectations. 

If schools fail to provide an inclusive environment and students decide to choose what is socially desirable, rather than what they do best, “…society might very well be missing out” (van der Vleuten et al., 2016, pg. 194).

The BRR document was developed to address the issue of violence against women and schools were selected as an area of focus, “on the basis that schools may be sites of violence perpetration and victimisation, and states that schools are high-risk locations for gender-based violence because of peer influence and a climate and culture of acceptability” (Victorian Department of Education and Training [VDET], 2016, p.6). The BRR document seeks to provide a holistic approach to preventing gender-based violence by incorporating: professional learning, support for staff and students, school culture and environment and community partnerships. Meanwhile the RRRR provides more specific class strategies to be utilised by educational bodies across the age span of early childhood to senior VCE years that focus on promoting positive social and emotional skills such as: coping strategies, help-seeking behaviour, stress management and of course, positive gender relationships (VDET, 2016). The benefits of linking social issues like gender-based discrimination has academic support as noted by the examination of masculinity through the lens of the subject English (Kagan, 2012). 

The documents provide activities that we can use in our own classes including learning objectives, materials and wider resources. These are separated into year levels in the RRRR and seek to accommodate for experiences typical of a student in that period of development. An example of this can be observed in the Level 7&8 section that provides detailed instruction on how students can create apologies to peers in response to a range of contemporary issues surrounding gender-based discrimination. The activity outlines approximate time duration, provides materials, instructions, method and review that enables us to confidently teach the content (VDET, 2016, p.89). The range of topics provide an all-encompassing guide for teachers that support us in teaching material that would otherwise result in unease. Embedded within the guidelines are instructions from the VDET that indicate how these activities could manifest themselves within a lesson sequence or unit plan. Flexibility is at the crux of this design and, “schools may integrate the activities into existing developmental health and sexuality education programs, in other learning areas or in less curriculum-specific areas…” (VDET, 2016, p.9). 

This poses a potential limitation to the application of this program across Victorian schools as the degree of detail each school engages with it is not measured.There exists a temptation for educational bodies to refrain from managing such concerns due to its complex nature and therefore a disservice to student demographics is observed. This can potentially fail to meet the needs of many diverse communities where this learning would most benefit, exacerbating the situation entirely. Ultimately, however, we believe that this is a highly comprehensive resource that will lead to stronger representations and respect for gender rights on a grand scale. 

A detailed resource that can be implemented as a school-wide based practice is the ‘Framework for Gender Inclusive Schools’ (Gender Spectrum, 2015). This framework encourages schools to disrupt any socially constructed views of gender, normalise gender diversity, and teach students empathy and respect for one another. It further explains that to develop gender-inclusive settings, schools need to focus on four entry points: internal, institutional, interpersonal, and instructional.

 In 2016, research (Bartholomaeus, Riggs, & Andrew, 2016) showed that 53% of current teachers and 73% of pre-service teachers requested training to feel equipped to teach and support gender diverse students. This further supports the need for a school-wide based approach which this framework provides.

The internal entry points lay the foundation for staff and teachers to understand ‘gender’ and reflect on how our own experiences and/or beliefs influence the way we work with students. The institutional entry points are structured steps that the school takes to honour gender diversity. 

For example, our school should provide staff training programs to help better understand gender diverse students, allow parents to specify on school information portals their child’s gender with preferred pronouns, identify department or staff members that are in charge of gender diversity work or issues, gender neutral bathroom facilities, posters celebrating gender diversity around the school, etc. 

The interpersonal entry points are the day-to-day interactions and communication strategies employed by everyone at our school to reinforce gender-inclusive practices. These strategies include the normalisation of gender diversity (raise ideas about modern-day gender changes), teaching empathy and respect, as well as educate students and staff about understanding the difference between patterns of behaviour and rules for behaviour. Lastly, the instructional entry points are integrated at a classroom-level and probably the most easily accomplished. We have a great deal of autonomy as teachers, and therefore can adapt gender-inclusive strategies that suit our classroom needs. For example, we can insert gender diversity issues throughout our lessons, use art to explore gender, or highlight how media/pop culture influences gender issues with our students. This will be further discussed in the sections to follow.

 

        Teaching for diversity means we as educators should use theoretical frameworks that emerge from social theories of learning (Zozakiewicz, & Rodriguez, 2007). The ‘Framework for Gender Inclusive Schools’ aligns with the well supported theory of social constructivism. Although time would be a limitation to this framework as it would continuously be a work in progress, it allows us to develop and implement gender-inclusive practices in collaboration with leadership teams, teaching staff, and most importantly with our students.