Developing a Teachers’ Gender Stereotype Scale toward

Mathematics

Introduction
A gender stereotype is a generalized view or preconception about attributes or characteristics, or
the roles that are or ought to be possessed by, or performed by, women and men. This stereotype
can be positive or negative. A gender stereotype is harmful when it limits women’s and men’s
capacity to develop their personal abilities, pursue their professional careers and/or make choices
about their lives. Most of the time stereotypes function as schemas, which are cognitive
frameworks, for interpreting, organizing and recollecting information with no trouble (Whitley &
Kite, 2016). One of the core reason people hold stereotypes is that, by doing so they can
minimize the cognitive efforts

Stereotypes can serve an adaptive function allowing people to categorize and simplify what they
observe and to make predictions about others (e.g., Devine and Sharp, 2009; Fiske and Taylor,
2013). However, stereotypes also can induce faulty assessments of people – i.e., assessments
based on generalization from beliefs about a group that do not correspond to a person’s unique
qualities. These faulty assessments can negatively or positively affect expectations about
performance, and bias consequent decisions that impact opportunities and work outcomes for
both men and women (e.g., Hellman, 2012; Heilman et al., 2015; Hentschel et al., 2018).
Stereotypes about gender are especially influential because gender is an aspect of a person that is
readily noticed and remembered (Fiske et al., 1991). In other words, gender is a commonly
occurring cue for stereotypic thinking (Blair and Banaji, 1996).

Gender stereotypes are used not only to characterize others but also to characterize oneself (Bem,
1974). The process of self-stereotyping can influence people’s identities in stereotype-congruent
directions. Stereotyped characteristics can thereby be internalized and become part of a person’s
gender identity – a critical aspect of the self-concept (Ruble and Martin, 1998; Wood and Eagly,
2015). Young boys and girls learn about gender stereotypes from their immediate environment
and the media, and they learn how to behave in gender-appropriate ways (Deaux and LaFrance,
1998). These socialization experiences no doubt continue to exert influence later in life and,
indeed, research has shown that men’s and women’s self-characterizations differ in ways that are
stereotype-consistent (Bem, 1974;Spence and Buckner, 2000

Education is a vitally important institution in our society. It can act as an equalizer for people
from many different geographic areas, races, genders, classes, etc. Ideally a person from a very
wealthy family and a person from a very poor family will receive an equal education, affording
each the opportunity to go on to whichever careers they desire.

Math and science are two subject areas that are proven to be imperative for our society in terms
of progress and success. These two subjects are important in order for the United States to
continue to be a leader in this continually changing technological world. It is important for
students to have a deep understanding of the concepts of both of these subjects from the
beginning of their education. As society continues to become more reliant on technology, jobs
are going to require a higher level of understanding of these concepts. It is important that
everyone receives an equal educational experience in these subjects because of all of these
realities.

Gender remains a dividing status between members of society today. In institutions such as
education, this is especially evident.

Literature

Terman and Miles (1936) were the first to construct a scale to describe psychological femininity
and masculinity. It was a product of years of investigation about the psychological differences
between sexes. This scale consists of 445 items and 7 supplementary exercises which best
discriminate women from men. Later, various researchers developed various scales related to
concept gender with the same logic of Terman and Miles. Later, in 1973 Constantinople came
with a different idea which totally changed the idea in the gender identity scale. According to
Constantinople, the masculinity and femininity are not different entities, but co-exist. Her
concept of uni-dimensionality in gender identity carried a crucial role to rethink about the
existing gender construct. In the 1970s, the concept of androgyny has emerged in masculinity
and femininity. Bem (1974) constructed a scale (BSRI) to identify sex role based on the
psychological androgyny. Spence and Hlmreich (1972) constructed a scale to measure attitude
towards women which is followed by the concept of androgyny. Bem and Spence perceive
masculinity and femininity as two orthogonal constructs. Some other subsequent scales were,
The structure of male role norms (Thompson & Pleck, 1986), Attitude towards sex roles:
traditional or egalitarian (Larsen & Long1988), Gender role belief scale (Kerr & Holden, 1996),
Gender Stereotype Scale (Noorjahan & Shahataj, 2003), gender stererotype in pakhtun society of
Pakistan(Muhammad Hussain, Arab Naz, waseem khan and more), employees perception about
gender stereotyping (Kashmala khan, Waseem Jamal, Muhammad Naeem), the gender role
stereotype scale (Mills, Culbertson, Huffman & Connell, 2012) and Teachers gender stereotype
scale towards mathematics (Nurlu, 2017).

Gender issues have become a focus of mathematics education research. Although some research shows
that there are no differences between girls and boys (Hyde, Lindberg, Linn, Ellis, & Williams, 2008; Kazu,
& Ersözlü, 2008; Dede & Dursun, 2008; Yücel & Koç, 2011), a significant amount of research indicates
that boys are more competent than girls in terms of cognitive variables such as problem solving and
mathematical thinking abilities (Geary, Saults, Liu, & Hoard, 2000; Gallagher, De Lisi, Holst, McGillicuddy-
De Lisi, Morely, M., & Cahalan, 2000; Altunçekiç, Yaman, & Koray, 2005) and affective variables such as
mathematics anxiety, mathematical attitudes and self-efficacy (Köğce, Yıldız, Aydın, & Altındağ, 2009;
Frenzel, & Pekrun, 2007; Kargar, Tarmizi, & Bayat, 2010; Çakıroğlu & Işıksal, 2009). In addition, some
research investigated the mathematical achievement differences of girls and boys. Most of them find
that boys are more successful than girls in mathematics (Van de Gaer, Pustjens, Van Damme, & De
Munter, 2008; Tate, 1997). Considering the results of research that attempted to find the relationship
between gender and mathematical achievement, it is possible to wonder what kind of reasons could be
effective. According to Weissglass (2002), several factors can affect students’ mathematical achievement
such as ethnicity, socio-economic status, language, sexual orientation, gender, the role of school, and
culture as well. Researchers have conducted studies to investigate gender stereotypes in mathematics
education as a part of culture (Spencer, Steele, & Quinn, 1999; Schmader, 2002; Brown, & Josephs,
1999; Schmader, Johns, & Barquissau, 2004). These gender stereotypes are the kind of beliefs that boys
are more competent than girls in mathematics and science, and girls are more competent than boys in
literature and arts (Beilock, Gunderson, Ramirez, & Levine, 2010). Studies find that these gender
stereotypes are transmitted from one generation to the next generation via children’s books (Taylor,
2003), language (Wigboldus, Sermin, & Spears, 2000), parents (Eccles & Jacob, 1986) and teachers (Esen,
2013; Keller, 2001).
Past researches indicate that teachers have different behaviors towards male and female students and it
is due to teacher’s perceptions and attitude toward their students’ gender role which leads to the
existence of societal stereotyping.

Expectation effects occur ". . . because of the actions which teachers take in response to their own
expectations" Good (1987). Fung and Ma (2000) stated that stereotype is a biased perception, which
may be a sixth sense, discrimination, a mind's eye, or past impression of what a person has been.
According to Martin and Halverson (1981) gender stereotype is one type of “subjective perception of
what a man or woman should be or how people should behave”. Young and Hurlic (2007) stated that
gender, can be viewed as “an interaction between men and women within contexts of power and
status”.

Sometimes stereotype usually communicate that men as intellectually, capable, Knowledgeable, brawny
and bold, while women are as homely, humid and expressiveness, unskilled and inactive. According to
Fiske (1993) and Stangor & Lange (1994) the boys are the sturdy, foremost person with headship trait,
one who works should outside the home in often-prestigious occupations, while girls are usually
represented as being subordinate and detained in the home. There are various types of gender
stereotypes: self-stereotyping, school stereotyping and family/cultural stereotyping by gender.
However, most of these researches are conducted in developed countries and has been preoccupied
with gender-stereotyped and school system, gender-stereotyped and career or in workplace, gender-
stereotyped in textbooks and gender-stereotype and students’ achievement and performance Leder
(1992); Watt & Bornholt (1994);

According to Tiedemann (2002) studied effect of teachers' gender stereotypes on their impressions of
their students' talent and attempt in mathematics. He reported that teacher perceptions were reliable
with stereotypes of gender discrimination. Sadker (1994) stated that while taking lecture in the same
class different students receive different response from teachers due to gender discrimination and due
to which boys and girls receive very different educations. This effect of biasness should be eliminated by
teachers because deserving and intelligent students suffers a lot, and in return their performance
became low and if this problem is not eliminated then they become unable to contribute their gifts to
society.

Identification of need
Teachers’ beliefs about mathematics have an effect on students’ beliefs and even achievements (Beilock
et al., 2010). Similarly, teachers’ beliefs about mathematics as a male domain influence their students’
beliefs and achievement in mathematics (Keller, 2001). Therefore, measuring teachers’ gender
stereotype beliefs toward mathematics is important to preventing the reproduction of gender
stereotypes in mathematics in the classroom and providing a more balanced mathematics education
environment for both genders. Even though there are various gender stereotype scale studies
developed by different researchers in the literature (Leder & Forgasz, 2002; Keller, 2001; Yee & Eccles,
1988; Tiedemann, 2000; Räty, Vänskä, Kasanen, & Kärkkäinen, 2002), these scales about gender
stereotypes in mathematics are generally developed toward students and parents. Nevertheless, there
are some research focus on measuring teachers’ gender stereotypes in mathematics. . We selected this
scale because there are not many scales present on measuring teacher’s gender stereotype toward
mathematic. Teacher’s gender stereotype toward mathematics has not been investigated in
Pakistan before so our study is with the purpose to empirically get an insight to Pakistan. As
teacher gender role stereotyping is the most considerable factor in educational differences of
gender but there are few studies focusing on it. It is agreed that teachers have the greatest
influence on educational stereotype so; our study is part of the minority effort to deal with this
problem