Gender, teaching style, classroom composition and alienation from learning: an exploratory study

in Educational Research (2022)

Gender stereotypes and gendered vocational aspirations among Swiss secondary school students

in Educational Research (2015), 57(1), 22-42

Background: Horizontal gender inequalities appear to be rather stable, with girls more often choosing ‘female’ service professions, and boys choosing career paths related to science, technology ... [more ▼]

Background: Horizontal gender inequalities appear to be rather stable, with girls more often choosing ‘female’ service professions, and boys choosing career paths related to science, technology, engineering or Mathematics. Purpose: Non-egalitarian patriarchal gender-role orientations and gender associations (perceived femininity) of the school subjects German Language Arts and Mathematics are theorised – triangulating different theoretical backgrounds – and empirically analysed as a major predictor of gender-typical vocational aspirations, considering interest in these school subjects as a mediating factor. Furthermore, we focus on a patriarchal relation of father’s and mother’s workforce participation as a root of gender-role orientations, and teacher gender in regard to its impact on gendered images of subjects. Sample: Empirical analyses are based on survey data from eighth-graders (around the ages of 14 and 15 at the time of data gathering) in the Swiss canton of Bern. The sample only encompasses children from two-parent families, as patriarchality in terms of differences in workforce participation between father and mother is taken into account. Design and methods: The research issues are analysed employing structural equation models. The statistical package Mplus allows for an analysis of the two dependent dichotomous variables ‘gender-typical vocational aspiration’ and ‘gender-atypical vocational aspiration’. The hierarchic structure of the sample (school class clusters) is taken into account. Results: Findings reveal different patterns for boys and girls; for boys, gender-typical (male) vocational aspiration could be explained to a small extent via gender-role orientations, interest in Mathematics and gender associations of school subjects; for girls, the factors under consideration could be empirically linked to ‘atypical vocational aspiration’. Teacher gender only has an impact among girls: if girls are taught by a female Mathematics teacher, they perceive the subject as a bit more female and show a higher interest in this subject. Their likelihood of having a gender-atypical vocational aspiration is a bit higher than among girls with a male Mathematics teacher who perceive the subject as a bit less female and, thus, show somewhat lower interest in this subject. Conclusions: There are still links – although weak – between gender stereotypes and vocational aspirations. Gender-role orientations are rooted in the family. A sensitisation towards gender stereotypes and their impact on aspirations and career would appear to be meaningful in broadening the vocational perspectives of men and women. [less ▲]

The construction of ‘female citizens’: a socio-historical analysis of girls’ education in Luxembourg

in Educational Research (2014)

The Gendered Interplay between Success and Well-Being during Transitions

in Educational Research (2014), 56(2), 202--219

Background: Young females have been found to out-perform males in terms of grades and university degrees in many studies. At the same time, young women seem to exhibit lower levels of well-being compared ... [more ▼]

Background: Young females have been found to out-perform males in terms of grades and university degrees in many studies. At the same time, young women seem to exhibit lower levels of well-being compared with men. Interestingly, little work has evaluated the interplay between educational success and well-being. However, antecedents and consequences of educational success will likely affect life chances and further educational and occupational trajectories. Purpose: This paper contributes to this important, but as of yet, underdeveloped topic. The interplay between educational success—conceptualised as successful intergenerational educational mobility—and well-being is analysed as a dynamic, reciprocal, and gendered process. Sample: Panel data from the Transition from Education to Employment Project (TREE) is used to study the gendered interplay between educational success and well-being. TREE focuses on post-compulsory educational and labour market pathways of the PISA 2000 cohort in Switzerland. It is based on a sample of 6343 young people who left compulsory schooling in 2000. Data were collected annually from 2001 to 2007. At the time of the first interview, the age range of the middle fifty percent of the youths was between 16.5 and 17.3 years. Design and methods: As previous research shows, episodes of educational mobility will not be evenly distributed over the observed period (e.g., Mare 1980). Thus, an autoregressive cross-lagged mixture model framework is employed to account for the expected unequal distribution of the variables over time and the multilevel structure of the data (Samuel, Bergman, and Hupka-Brunner 2013). Within this framework, two modelling approaches are combined to test the implied reciprocal relationship between educational success and well-being. In the Latent Transition Analysis part of the model, success is measured as latent classes with fixed outcome categories. In the Autoregressive Structural Equation part of the model, well-being is specified to correlate over time. Models were estimated separately for males and females so as to allow for different error variances. Results: The models reveal that mechanisms of social comparison are gendered and operate differently at various stages of the observed period. Young females seem to be more likely to succeed and to experience positive effects in terms of well-being during successful episodes when compared to males. On the downside, females’ well-being seems to be more strongly affected by failure. Conclusions: This paper shows that well-being is a gendered personal resource during the transition to adulthood. These findings contribute to the literature on gender differences in educational success as they show how gender, as a social process, operates to create different success and well-being outcomes. [less ▲]

Measuring school climate: An Overview of measurement scales

in Educational Research (2013), 55(4), 411-426

Background: School climate is a heterogeneous concept with a multitude of standardised and validated instruments available to measure it.Purpose: This overview of measurement scales aims to provide ... [more ▼]

Background: School climate is a heterogeneous concept with a multitude of standardised and validated instruments available to measure it.Purpose: This overview of measurement scales aims to provide researchers with short summaries of some of the self-report instruments in existence, especially in relation to the link between school climate and aggression, within the context of Bronfenbrenner’s model. A secondary aim of this article is to show how the same instrument can sometimes be adapted to fit different theoretical approaches or to focus on different dimensions of school climate.Design and methods: After database consultation and literature hand searching, the resulting literature was screened for a statistical analysis of school climate and aggression. Those studies that had unclear operationalisations of the main variables or used qualitative methods were excluded. The resulting selection of studies were further scanned for common instruments used to evaluate school climate.Conclusions: This article will show how the California School Climate Survey (CSCS), the Psychological Sense of School Membership Scale (PSSM), the School Climate Survey (SCS) and the Effective School Battery (ESB) as well as different versions of self-created scales on school connectedness, school climate and school culture have been adapted by different researchers in different contexts. Finally, the necessity of adapting a pre-existing instrument or creating a new one will be discussed. [less ▲]