Lesson 7 – Equal Opportunities for the sexes

BATS• Explain how psychological research relates to

equal opportunities for the sexes (B/C)• Use the internet to research sex discrimination in

education, at work and at leisure• Apply what you have learnt about equal

opportunities to design a range of activities for a children’s fun day. (C/B)

Diamond & Sigmundson’s case study

1. Why was Bruce’s gender re-assigned?Because he lost his penis in an accident.

2. At what age was gender re-assigned and Bruce given the name Brenda?20 months

3. What was Brenda’s sex?Male

4. What was Brenda’s gender at puberty?Masculine

5. Does the case support the role of nature or nurture in gender development?Nature

Revision – how many can you get right?

Applications of research into sex & gender: equal opportunities

Think about how the following statements have been questioned or disproved…

“Women are not born with the capacity to understand the complexities of politics and therefore should not be allowed to vote.”

“Women are ‘naturals’ with babies and so men should not be staying at home to look after children.”

“Males are innately more superior to females in any measure of intelligence.”

“Boys have a sporting instinct that girls cannot match.”

“Males will never communicate with each other as well as females do – it is just not a key part of their biological make-up.”

What do you think about each statement? Jot down if you agree or disagree and why!

Applying Knowledge of Sex and Gender

• Research into sex and gender is important to help us with real life situations

• You need to know how psychology has had a hand in helping bring about equal opportunities in ..

• Education

• Work

• Leisure and play

Equal Opportunities in Education

• Still a lot of debate about how different males and females are.

• Are the differences natural or socialised?

• If males and females are more or less the same then they only need the same opportunities to succeed.

• BUT

Equal Opportunities in Education

• It appears that boys naturally struggle with reading and writing more than girls

• So school may need to put more resources into helping boys read and write

• In the same way – Girls struggle more with maths tasks, so more resources need to be provided for girls in this area of study.

Read p 9 to find out what the ‘Gender Gap’ means – write the answer in your

book

Equal Opportunities in Education

• How do Psychologists explain the gender gap in education?

• Socialisation• Have girls always performed better than

boys?• No, other way round up till the ’80s• How does the biological approach help to

explain differences between educational ability in girls and boys

Read p 9-10 to help you answer these questions

Equal Opportunities in Education

• How do you think these differences may have an effect on Options girls and boys pick in Year 9 and Y11?

• The equal opportunities Commission (2007) found the following…

• Boys typically chose technical and science subjects and girls picked caring, arts and humanities in Y9

• At A level it was even more obvious. More boys chose maths, physics, PE, geography

• Most girls chose art/design, media, psychology

Equal Opportunities in Work

• Even though females perform better than males in education men still seem to do better in the workplace in terms of promotion and pay.

• List 2 possible reasons for this.

• Pregnancy and child care put careers on hold, lose confidence in their job

• Juggling caring and work means they can only do part time/low paid work

Equal Opportunities in Work

• Activity 1.8 p10

• Use the website

• search for information on ‘sex discrimination’

• Read the laws about sex discrimination

• Answer questions 1 and 2 for activity 1.8

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/ResolvingWorkplaceDisputes/DiscriminationAtWork/DG_10026665 sex discrimination at work

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_Discrimination_Act_1975 sex discrimination act 1975

Equal Opportunities in Leisure and Play

• Using what you have learnt about gender, can you predict which leisure activities each gender opts for?

Research has shown that …• Girls tend to choose more passive or domestic

activities e.g reading, shopping and organised activities

• Boys tend to be involved in more active and aggressive activities e.g. sport, computer games, unorganised activities

• The Office for National Statistics have found that these gender differences carry on into adulthood. See next page

Selected sports games and physical activities among adults

4 8 16 2012

Keep fit, aerobics, dance

gym

Jogging, running

golf

snooker

Indoor swimming

cycling

Outdoor football

men women Office of National Statistics 2006/7

Equal Opportunities in Leisure and Play

• Activity 1.9 p10

• Make a plan of activities for the day then print it off and stick in your book

Lesson 8 – Design a Questionnaire

BATs

• Design a questionnaire (D)

• Carry out an investigation into gender differences between the sexes. (D-B)

• Consider ethical issues such as confidentiality (C )

Do gender differences exist?

• The aim of your research will be to answer the question above.

1. What would your hypothesis be?

• Do you predict there will be a difference or not?

• What are hypotheses?

Hypotheses

• A statement predicting the outcome of research – 2 types

• Alternative hypothesis (H1) – predicts a difference or correlation

• E.g Boys will report more aggressive traits than girls

• Null Hypothesis (H0) – is the opposite to the alternative hypothesis – it predicts NO difference or correlation

• E.g. There will be no difference between boys and girls on aggressive traits

Variables

• Hypotheses that predict a difference have 2 key variables ..

• Independent Variable (IV) – something the researcher changes or manipulates

• Dependent Variable (DV) – Something that is measured to see if it has changed after an IV has been manipulated.

IV

DV

Depends onaffects

What would the IV and DV be for the hypothesis

on the last page?

IV = genderDV = number of aggressive traits

reported

Questionnaires• Self Report Method -

useful to Psychologists because they show a Psychologist how participants are feeling or what they are thinking.

• They assess aspects of a person they cannot see

• Contain closed and open questions

Questionnaires• Design your own questionnaire ..• How many gender traits will you ask about?• Some suggestions ..

• Ask respondents to rate themselves on a list of traits using a scale e.g.1-10 (so 1 might be ‘least like me’ and 10 would be ‘very like me’.)

• Write statements e.g ‘I often get into fights’ and ask them to say whether they ‘strongly agree’, ‘agree’ e.t.c (Strongly agree scores higher than agree) - LIKERT SCALE

Tips – see p 161

Questionnaires

• Give respondents a scenario and ask them what they would do in that situation e.g. they witness a fight – they may get marks for every behaviour that suggests aggression. (example of an open question)

• Give multi-choice answers – each answer has a different score – thus it can be rated.

Tips – see p 161

Ethical Issues

• You need to be sure you are ..

• Not breeching Confidentiality or invading their Privacy

• Not harming the participants Psychologically e.g embarrassing them, making them feel uneasy/upset

• Giving them the Right To Withdraw from the research

How will you ensure all these have been

achieved?

Questionnaires should not be given to small

childrenSee p 158

Collecting and Analysing Data

• You will need to give your questionnaire to a good SAMPLE of people ..

• Even numbers of males and females

• As many as possible

• Why?

See p167-169

Collecting and Analysing Data

• You will need to find a way of collecting data from the questionnaires so you can measure comparisons between the boys and girls

• Homework – Use your questionnaires to collect data from as many people as possible.

• Bring data/questionnaires into school next lesson so we can analyse the results – calculate means, graphs e.t.c

Off you go!!!

Good Luck!!