Gender Bias in Student Teacher Interaction: A Case Study from Turkey

This book attempts to examine gender bias in student-teacher interaction and classroom interactions –as a component of schooling- in development and reproduction of gender roles. This issue is studied in the case of a high school in Turkey. Teachers and students have been the subjects for this study. They have been interviewed with questions prepared depending upon the conceptual framework to see if teachers treat differently to students on the basis of gender. They have also been observed in the classroom, which is their natural setting. Student-teacher interactions have been investigated in terms of gender distribution of positive comments, the distribution of negative attention, the distribution of total attention given to students and students’ participation to class discussions. The results indicate that gender stereotypical ideas and beliefs play an important role in student-teacher interaction and both students and teachers are not aware of it.