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scrolling through my Twitter timeline this week， one particular tweet， with an image attached， immediately jumped out at me. A parent had shared a snapshot of her six-year-old child’s homework—a worksheet asking pupils to research a scientist or inventor. So far， so normal. But the question， in 1）jaunty Comic Sans， read： “Who was he？ Who was the person you have chosen to look at？ How old were they when they began inventing？ Did they have a wife and family？”
The frustration of the parent， who appealed to other Twitter users for suggestions of female inventors， would be dismissed by many as an overreaction to a carelessly worded question. But she is far from alone. Parents share similar homework woes with the Everyday Sexism website and Twitter account with startling regularity.
One referenced their son’s physics homework， which used examples of men pushing vans， lifting weights， climbing trees and shooting arrows. The sole female example was a woman pushing a pram. Another parent described an assignment where children were directed to use a particular biographical research website， only to find that， of the 21 historical personalities listed， just two were women. One person’s son had even been asked to compare the qualities of a “good wife” from biblical to modern times （with no similar exercise discussing the merits of husbands）. Numerous questions involved men doing active， strong tasks such as driving or playing sports， while women cooked， cleaned or， in one particularly bizarre example， simply “sat on a rug”.
To those who cry “overreaction”， a new study published this month by the U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that gender bias at primary school may in fact have long-term implications for pupils. The study saw several groups of students take two exams， one marked blind by outside examiners， the other marked by teachers who knew the students’names. In maths， girls outperformed boys on the anonymously marked exam， but boys outperformed girls when assessed by teachers who knew their names， suggesting that they may have overestimated the boys’ abilities and underestimated the girls’.
Tracking the pupils to the end of high school， the researchers found that boys who were given encouragement as youngsters not only performed better later on， but were also more likely to take advanced courses involving maths， compared with girls who had been discouraged. They concluded： “Teachers’ overassessment of boys in a specific subject has a positive and significant effect on boys’ overall future achievements in that subject， while having a significant negative effect on girls.”
The frustration of the parent， who appealed to other Twitter users for suggestions of female inventors， would be dismissed by many as an overreaction to a carelessly worded question. But she is far from alone. Parents share similar homework woes with the Everyday Sexism website and Twitter account with startling regularity.
One referenced their son’s physics homework， which used examples of men pushing vans， lifting weights， climbing trees and shooting arrows. The sole female example was a woman pushing a pram. Another parent described an assignment where children were directed to use a particular biographical research website， only to find that， of the 21 historical personalities listed， just two were women. One person’s son had even been asked to compare the qualities of a “good wife” from biblical to modern times （with no similar exercise discussing the merits of husbands）. Numerous questions involved men doing active， strong tasks such as driving or playing sports， while women cooked， cleaned or， in one particularly bizarre example， simply “sat on a rug”.
To those who cry “overreaction”， a new study published this month by the U.S.-based National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that gender bias at primary school may in fact have long-term implications for pupils. The study saw several groups of students take two exams， one marked blind by outside examiners， the other marked by teachers who knew the students’names. In maths， girls outperformed boys on the anonymously marked exam， but boys outperformed girls when assessed by teachers who knew their names， suggesting that they may have overestimated the boys’ abilities and underestimated the girls’.
Tracking the pupils to the end of high school， the researchers found that boys who were given encouragement as youngsters not only performed better later on， but were also more likely to take advanced courses involving maths， compared with girls who had been discouraged. They concluded： “Teachers’ overassessment of boys in a specific subject has a positive and significant effect on boys’ overall future achievements in that subject， while having a significant negative effect on girls.”