Investigating Gender Stereotypes in Elementary Education

Abstract

Education is home to one of America’s most pervasive gender stereotypes. A disproportionately low frequency of male elementary school teachers has reinforced such stereotypes. This study was designed to investigate gender stereotypes further. Forty-three undergraduate students answered questions assessing their attitudes and views towards four different fictitious teachers. The teacher descriptions were varied by gender and competency (incompetent versus competent). Competent teachers were rated significantly higher across all measures including emotional supportiveness and subject-area competency, while teacher gender produced no significant differences on any of the measures. However, participant gender interacted with teacher competency significantly for leadership ratings. The findings do not support the bulk of previous findings on stereotypes in education. Implications and future research ideas are discussed. Stereotypes are a common occurrence in American life. People often use stereotypes to make quick judgments, despite the fact that the stereotypes themselves and the judgments concluded from them are commonly wrong. Stereotypes pervade all avenues of life including gender, occupations, races and ethnicities, and sexual orientations. Of all the stereotypes, gender stereotypes are

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