Pupils show gender bias in identifying authors
Fourth-class pupils show strong evidence of gender bias in their answers to reading tests, research has found.
Even where a woman’s name is given as author of a science article, children are more likely to identify the writer as male. It is one issue identified in Irish pupils’ answers on reading tests in 2016 as part of the long-running Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).
The main findings published last December show Irish pupils to be among the best performers out of 50 countries taking part. More than 4,600 fourth-class pupils took the 80-minute test at 148 primary schools here, and reading scores have improved in the five years since the same tests were last done.
But deeper analysis at the Educational Research Centre (ERC) in Dublin shows that a significant number of pupils make incorrect assumptions of maleness in particular contexts.
When asked how the writer of one item in the test shows they are in favour or Mars exploration, most did not specify a gender in their answers. But even though she was clearly tagged in the article byline as Maria Green, nearly one-in-four pupils identified the writer as male — which was more than identified her as female.
It is somewhat depressing that young children still seem to fall back on gender stereotypes, such as assuming that a science writer is male, even when she is clearly flagged as a woman in the article,” said the report’s lead author, ERC research fellow Eemer Eivers.
In another text on the test, the main protagonist was a young girl determined to be a sherpa, a male-dominated role in the Himalayan mountains. But despite her gender being a key element of the plot, pupils’ answers frequently referred to a male character.
"It seems that there is more work to be done in identifying and addressing the unconscious gender biases that permeate everyday lives, including those of young children in school,” Ms Eivers said.
Meanwhile, State Examinations Commission (SEC) data released today shows the breakdown of male and female Leaving Certificate students’ performance in this year’s exams, after more than 57,000 people got their results on Wednesday.
Despite a low number of women in Irish politics 100 years after the extension of female suffrage in the 1918 general election, it is evident that young women are very much interested in the subject. The new Leaving Certificate politics and society course was examined for the first time in June and was taken by 443 females and 424 males, with girls taking it at higher-level more likely than boys to get a top grade.
Girls are also the ones moving in greater numbers to higher-level maths, although boys are still more likely to do the harder papers. A record 31.5% of all Leaving Certificate students doing maths took higher level in June.
The SEC data shows, however, that female students are still more likely to pick higher level in the majority of subjects.
And in the most popular subjects, female students doing higher level are also more likely than boys to get the top H1 grade (higher level 80% to 90%) or to get a grade between H1 and H4, in other words at least 60%.
The SEC also said yesterday that up to 43 students have had not been given a result in at least one exam because of cheating discovered either during the exam or in the correcting process. Another 37 have provisionally had a result in a subject withheld, pending further contact with the students or their schools.
‘Gender stereotyping embedded in children’
Gender stereotyping may be embedded in Irish children as young as 10, evidence from reading tests suggests.
More fourth-class pupils who assigned a gender to the writer of a science article — whose name was given as Maria Green — referred in their answers to a male than a female.
In another item on the international tests two years ago, a new study reveals that pupils frequently assigned male gender to the main character in a story centred on a young girl’s ambition to pursue a male-dominated job.
Research author Eemer Eivers of the Educational Research Centre said it was somewhat depressing to see gender stereotyping in such young children.
It seems that there is more work to be done in identifying and addressing the unconscious gender biases that permeate everyday lives, including those of young children in school,” she said.
More than 4,600 fourth-class pupils took the 80-minute test at 148 primary schools here.
The main results, published in December, showed Irish reading scores had improved in the five years since the same tests were last done.
