Gender Differences in Elementary School Discipline

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Gender Differences in Elementary School Discipline

• Jenny Drake Sarah Kamplain

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Past Research

• A good deal of anecdotal evidence suggests that
  boys and girls have different experiences in the
  classroom (Sadker Sadker, 1995).

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Past Research

• The empirical evidence suggests that gender
  differences may be small (Eccles, 1992) and that
  both teachers and students contribute to these
  differences (Altermatt et al., 1998).

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Research Questions

• Do boys and girls engage in different amounts and
  types of misbehavior?
• Will teachers use different strategies when
  disciplining boys and girls?

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• We examined inductive and correcting discipline
  strategies.
• Inductive discipline explaining why misbehaviors
  are inappropriate
• Correcting discipline telling the student to
  behave correctly, inflicting a punishment, etc.
• We predict that teachers will use inductive
  discipline more with girls and correcting more
  with boys.

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Research Questions

• Do boys and girls engage in different amounts and
  types of misbehavior?
• Will teachers use different strategies when
  disciplining boys and girls?
• Do boys and girls respond differently to
  discipline?
• We predict that boys are more likely to cease
  their misbehavior after receiving correcting
  discipline, and girls after receiving inductive
  discipline.

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Procedure

• We videotaped 8 hours of classroom interaction.
• Videotapes were made in two 5th grade classrooms
  at a private Catholic school.
• Girls N13, Boys N21
• We coded instances of student misbehavior,
  teacher discipline, and the result of the
  discipline (N58).

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Coding Sheet
sequence gender misbehavior BAbeing away DISdisruptive AGGaggressive SIside involvement discipline C Correcting I inductive Result Rrecurrence Ccessation
1        
2        
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Reliability

• We coded 2 hours of data together, then coded 3
  hours separately in order to calculate and
  establish inter-rater reliability.
• After inter-rater reliability was achieved, we
  coded the remainder of the data together.

Misbehavior 75
Discipline strategy 83
Result 100
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Questionnaires

• BDIC Beliefs on Discipline Inventory for
  Children (Wolfgang Glickman, 1997).
• Assessed type of discipline preferred by
  students inductive or correcting.

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Example Question

• If I interrupt my teacher by talking to a
  neighbor
• A. I should be moved away from others so that I
  dont waste any more class time.
• B. I would like the teacher to tell me when I
  become disruptive and remind me of how it would
  make me feel if someone interrupted me.

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Instances of Misbehavior
Girls N13 z .873, ns Boys N21
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Types of Misbehavior
BA Being Away (X2 .42, p .52)
DIS Disruptive (X2 .07, p .79)
SI Side Involvement (X2 .83, p .36)
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Type of Discipline
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Effectiveness of Discipline
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Questionnaire Results
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Discussion

• The current studys results support a growing
  literature suggesting that boys and girls behave
  and are treated much more similarly than
  differently.
• Although there was little inductive discipline
  implemented, it seems that it would be a more
  effective means of disciplining students. In
  fact, students prefer inductive discipline.

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Implications for Future Research

• Do students perceive themselves as being treated
  differently than one another based on gender?
• Has the anecdotal evidence hypersensitized
  teachers to treating boys and girls similarly?

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Implications for Future Research

• Why do teachers tend to choose the correcting
  approach to discipline when students may, in
  fact, prefer inductive discipline?
• Suggestion Teachers use correcting discipline to
  maintain order and flow of classroom environment.
• Are there differences in short versus long-term
  effectiveness when using one type of discipline
  or another?