Educational Psychology

4. Student diversity

teacher

Praises Correct knowledge “Good” or compliant behavior

Overlooks or ignores “Good” or compliant behavior;

incorrect knowledge

Misbehavior; correct knowledge

Criticizes Misbehavior Incorrect knowledge

Source: Golobuk & Fivush, 1994

Gender differences also occur in the realm of classroom behavior. Teachers tend to praise girls for “good”
behavior, regardless of its relevance to content or to the lesson at hand, and tend to criticize boys for “bad” or
inappropriate behavior (Golombok & Fivush, 1994). This difference can also be stated in terms of what teachers
overlook: with girls, they tend to overlook behavior that is not appropriate, but with boys they tend to overlook
behavior that is appropriate. The net result in this case is to make girls’ seem more good than they may really be,
and also to make their “goodness” seem more important than their academic competence. By the same token, the
teacher’s patterns of response imply that boys are more “bad” than they may really be.

At first glance, the gender differences in interaction can seem discouraging and critical of teachers because they
imply that teachers as a group are biased about gender. But this conclusion is too simplistic for a couple of reasons.
One is that like all differences between groups, interaction patterns are trends, and as such they hide a lot of
variation within them. The other is that the trends suggest what often tends in fact to happen, not what can in fact
happen if a teacher consciously sets about to avoid interaction patterns like the ones I have described. Fortunately
for us all, teaching does not need to be unthinking; we have choices that we can make, even during a busy class!

Differences in cultural expectations and styles..............................................................................................

A culture is the system of attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors that constitute the distinctive way of life of a people.
Although sometimes the term is also used to refer specifically to the artistic, intellectual and other “high-brow”
aspects of life, I use it here more broadly to refer to everything that characterizes a way of life—baseball games as
well as symphony concerts, and McDonald’s as well as expensive restaurants. In this broad sense culture is nearly
synonymous with ethnicity, which refers to the common language, history, and future experienced by a group
within society. Culture has elements that are obvious, like unique holidays or customs, but also features that are
subtle or easy for outsiders to overlook, like beliefs about the nature of intelligence or about the proper way to tell a
story. When a classroom draws students from many cultures or ethnic groups, therefore, the students bring to it
considerable diversity. Teachers need to understand that diversity—understand how students’ habitual attitudes,
beliefs, and behaviors differ from each other, and especially how they differ from the teacher’s.

But this kind of understanding can get complicated. To organize the topic, therefore, I will discuss aspects of
cultural diversity according to how directly they relate to language differences compared to differences in other
social and psychological features of culture. The distinction is convenient, but it is also a bit arbitrary because, as
you will see, the features of a culture overlap and influence each other.

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