The Midwest Equity Assistance Center is strongly committed to and working towards helping provide students with an equal educational opportunity regardless of race, gender, or national origin. The Center has developed this brochure to assist educators in helping students become aware of the nature and significance of sex bias and to create an environment that will help students develop to their fullest. The need for gender equity awareness becomes apparent when one looks at the research findings and notes the toll differences in sex-role socialization take on girls and boys.
Girls enter school at an academic level above or equal to that of boys.
They are open to thinking about a variety of occupations and do not yet harbor negative feelings about their sex. However, by the age of twelve, girls fall behind boys in language arts, math, and science. Children learn sex roles through interactions with adults and their peers, and through books, television and other media. Research has shown that the depiction of males and females in the media are frequently stereotyped and limiting. The following set of activities were designed to correct some false assumptions or dispel myths about the sexes while providing opportunities for stimulating discussions and opinions about equity.