Hi Everyone,
Several developmental psychologists spoke on NPR's "Science Friday"
in a panel discussion on topics including if classrooms should be
segregated by gender. Among the panelists were Lynn Liben (outgoing
editor of "Child Development" who does very interesting research
connecting Piagetian stage to gender stereotyping, as well as her
primary research on geography and understanding of spatial
representations) and Nora Newcomb (well known for her research on
spatial cognition in infancy and early childhood). Here is the link
for the podcast:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5036084
There may be many consequences of segregating children and the
particular way things change may depend on many intertwined
circumstances. What are the particular teachers like in their
classrooms now? Are teachers already conscientious about avoiding
common patterns of calling on boys disproportionately and giving boys
more detailed feedback (e.g., Saxon's educational psychology
research)? What beliefs do the teachers have about gender and how
might that influence how they teach the same course to each group?
For example, will teachers stop pushing as hard in girls' math
classes, or in boys' english classes, even though the actual sex
differences on standardized tests is very small? Will gender become
more salient to students and will that create a stereotype threat
(which has a far greater effect size on standardized tests)? Will
assigning teachers segregated classrooms lead to more stereotyping
(e.g., my 4th period scored 3 points higher on the exam than my 5th
period so maybe it's because of gender)? What is the classroom
management situation of the school and teacher and what are the
accepted gender norms among the students (e.g., will a quiet boy
suffer in a classroom overwhelmed by rowdy boys who echo each other;
will a mechanically-minded girl become less self-assured when other
girls echo each others' attitudes toward science)? When we measure
success, what is our comparison? Will we just care how gender-
segregated classrooms differ from gender-mixed classrooms, or should
we compare gender-segregation with segregation by other factors like
introversion, standardized test scores, or doing homework regularly?
Overall, my personal feeling is that we should not segregate based on
gender. There are too many plausible reasons to expect it to cause
harm either by negatively influencing children's self concepts,
learning experiences, or by exacerbating gender stereotypes. I'm
personally happy to see a school trying to apply developmental
psychology research to do something to change a bad status quo. With
so many intertwined factors, it's likely to be an incredibly big
challenge that no one action can fix. I hope school administrators
will draw upon an enormous body of research by developmental and
educational psychologists about how to enhance students' learning
(e.g., mental models, problem solving strategies, emotion regulation,
task analysis like buggy subtraction, phonemic awareness, informal
learning opportunities, scaffolding, inquiry learning, jig-saw
classrooms, teacher attitudes, parenting styles, mass media, ...).
Kevin
http://www.DevPsy.org/
On Feb 18, 2008, at 6:17 PM, Christopher D. Green wrote:
Here's a more interesting question than whether a one-time junior
psychophysicist can produce better theories of child development
than full-time senior developmental psychologists (or whether she
can just make more money at it than they do).
Greene Country, Georgia is about to separate boys from girls in all
of its schools, primary and secondary. They apparently have a
terrible track record with their education system. The promoters
say there is evidence that each sex learns better when not
distracted by the other (funny, that was the justification for
keeping girls out of college in the 19th century). The detractors
call it a reintroduction of segregation (presumably the most
inflammatory term they could come up with on short notice).
My questions are: (1) Do you think it will "work" (improve
students' grades)? (2) Are there important reasons to object to it
even if it does "work" (in this narrowly defined way)?
For my own part, I expect that it will "work," at least in the
short run, but more due to the Hawthorne effect than anything
pedagogically substantive. Essentially, however, it is a "stunt"
that serves as cover for the more significant problems/ The only
way to improve education systems in the long run is to provide
better schools, teachers and resources, which cost more money than
most US states are willing to pay, and then wait a generation or
two for the adult society surrounding the school system (which was
itself educated in the "bad" system) to begin to learn to value
real education (rather than just the emission of graduation
certificates). Unfortunately, politicians must budget things
according to the election cycle, and no one is going to be able to
wait a generation while taking fire from the people who are the
products of the system one is trying to replace.
Regards,
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-2100 ex. 66164
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
"Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise
his or her views."
- Melissa Lane, in a Guardian obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton
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