Exploring the Contribution of Teaching and Learning Processes: Constructing Students’ Gender Identity in an Early Years Classroom of a Government Girls Primary School in Pakistan

Introduction and Background Gender is a complex phenomenon comprised of a dynamic set of ideas, actions and feelings about what it means to be a boy or a girl in a specific place, culture and time (MacNaughton, 2001). At a very early age, children do not know how the particular culture expects them to behave as a boy or as a girl. Therefore, they merely do whatever they are experiencing and told through the messages around them (Yelland, 1998). These gender identities develop at schools as a result of socially nurturing spaces which prepare students to behave in a specific, socially acceptable manner. Hence, schools play an important role in this process particularly with reference to students' understanding of gender relationship around them. Particular gendered messages are thus conveyed within a particular classroom environment through verbal and non-verbal teacher-student and student-student interactions taking place within classrooms. Gender bias as explained by Datnow and Hubbard (2002) is seen as affecting both girls and boys because neither group is protected to societal pressures and expectations. The classroom environment that children are exposed to is critical in forming their personalities and preparing them for future gender related roles. The socialization at schools, home and peer relationships lead children to determine, to a large extent, to take up the gender roles as a boy or as a girl. According to Blaise (2005) in the multicultural societies of the developed world, the involvement in ideas about the complex processes involved in young children's gender identity development through their schooling experiences is obvious in the growing body of work. The Early Childhood Development (ECD) programs and initiatives in developing countries can enhance the efforts of gender sensitization and can contribute to minimizing gender inequalities. The investment in early childhood education and gender in Pakistan are key policy initiatives; however, global monitoring reports highlight slow and uneven progress (UNESCO, 2009). In Pakistan, most of the population is living in such areas where early years' development programs have not yet reached and children are exposed to the same traditional environment. Teachers are less aware of problems that emerge with gender stereotypes. According to the statistical data provided by the UNESCO (2007), there are 64,309 schools in total for boys and 46,270 schools in total for girls in Pakistan and 36,112 mixed schools, which show that the majority of the schools are single sex schools. Park, Behrman & Choi (2012) argue that single-sex schools enhance girls' academic achievement escalating their confidence in academic learning by reducing the influence and competition with the other sex. Jackson (2009) argues that: "In the absence of the opposite sex, the gendered nature of subjects is no longer salient therefore removing the stigma associated with particular subjects". Experimental evidence shows that girls from single-sex schools are more likely to enter competitions than coeducational girls even when they are allocated to mixed-classes (Booth & Nolen, 2011). However, Halpern et al. (2011) go further and argue that there currently exist no well-designed studies showing that single-sex education improves students' academic performance, but that there is evidence showing that sex segregation may increase gender stereotyping. In Pakistani context few studies (for example, Taj, 2008; Pardhan, 2011) have been conducted on the exploration of the role of teacher-student interaction contributing in gender identity development in early years. However, during my search for literature I could not find a research study in Pakistan specifically focused on how gender identity development takes place in single sex schools in the early years. Therefore, as a pioneering study in Pakistan, this research is focused on gender identity construction in single sex schools in early year's girls' classroom of a public school in the context of Karachi, Pakistan. …