I never really experienced a great deal of gender role stereotyping when I was at school, or at least I like to think I didn’t. But a recent input from Jill has led me to think otherwise.

Looking back, I remember small things, like being told to line up separately or sit boy-girl. In the playground, most of the boys played football while the girls played hop-scotch or made up games of their own.  At the time, this didn’t feel wrong, but it’s only now that I realise the potentially negative implications of such behaviour in terms of gender stereotyping.

This led me to think about the way in which gender is constructed within the classroom and just how big of an impact it has on the learning environment. That’s why I think it’s so important to be aware of this as a teacher, because these stereotyped ideas about what’s suitable for boys and girls can limit children’s opportunities to learn and develop.

Take being lined up separately for example. It’s thought by some that boys get up to too much mischief if they’re left to their own devices and that the presence of girls have a positive, calming effect on their behaviour. While perhaps true on a certain level (although I’m not entirely sure I agree), it affirms this idea that boys and girls should be treated differently, which I think is wrong.

And I think this is one of the major challenges that teachers face – establishing environments both inside and outside of the classroom that don’t favour one group of students to the detriment of another group – and is definitely something that we need to tackle on a bigger scale.