Girls are increasingly being told they can be anything they want to be. There are more role models in football, industry and research than ever before. Yet, in the primary schoolyard, the gender attitudes of a new generation are remarkably traditional.
The latest results from a landmark longitudinal study, Children’s School Lives, undertaken by UCD’s School of Education, which is following 4,000 children across almost 200 primary schools, suggest that not much has changed.
Interviews with pupils found most children associated being a “good” girl with niceness, kindness, caring and politeness.
A “good” boy, meanwhile, was associated with intelligence, ability in maths and being physically strong with an expectation to be good at sport.
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There’s a similar pattern with extracurricular activities: girls are more likely to participate in music, dance and swimming activities, while boys are much more likely than girls to participate in team sports outside of school.
So, why – despite so many efforts to combat gender stereotyping and broaden horizons for young people – are traditional attitudes so difficult to shift?
Clinical psychologist Dr Maureen Gaffney says that despite progress over the years, gender stereotyping remains “alive and well” in families, schools and society in general.
“If a girl is a bit of a tomboy, that’s accepted now as being part of the zeitgeist and is even encouraged,” she says. “But if a boy exhibits what his father, in particular, might see as effeminate behaviour, alarm bells start ringing ... parents, despite their best intentions, keep an eye on convention. They don’t want their boys to stand out too much.”
Pupils themselves, Gaffney says, do an “even more effective” job at self-policing each other’s gender-appropriate behaviour.
“The worst thing a girl can be called is ‘bossy’ or ‘thinks too much of herself’. Girls insist on others being modest and monitor each other all the time. Anyone who doesn’t play by the rules is no longer the best friend or even the number two or number three best friend.”
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Boys, too, keep each other “in lane”: “They [boys] accept you have earn your place into the hierarchy ... for girls, it’s about popularity and closeness; for boys it’s more about status.”
Does any of this really matter at the end of the day? Yes, say experts, who say rigid expectations based on gender stifle potential, restrict self-expression and fuels workplace discrimination.
The Children’s School Lives report, for example, found a higher expectation by teachers for girls to attend higher education. Children also seem to have internalised this: girls themselves, for example, were more likely than boys to aspire to go to college or university.
Dympna Devine, professor of education at UCD and lead investigator in the report, says there are hopeful signs: girls, as they grow older, are less likely to feel constrained by gender boundaries, the report found.
To make progress, she says, it is important to give children the right language to express themselves and debate these topics.
She recalls one case study school in the research – an all-boys school in a more disadvantaged area – where a teacher talked about the “emotionality” of boys.
“The teacher said they are every bit as connected to their feelings as girls, but they don’t have the language to express it. It underlines the need to work with boys and girls so they are more self-aware and understanding of gender stereotypes.”
For Gaffney, meanwhile, progress requires “plugging away” at it.
“You have to keep at it and to stop thinking of it as a moral failure. This is a reality that has many influences; you just have to unpick each one see how far you can take it in the right direction – and be prepared for the fact that, just when you hope you’ll be proven right, there will be setbacks.”
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