GENDER BIASED WORD PROBLEMS
By: Kathleen C. Chadwick

STANDARD: All students will be able to recognize gender bias, stereotyping and discrimination in school materials, activities, and classroom instruction.

GRADE LEVEL: 5-12, Mathematics

OBJECTIVE(S): Students will be able to recognize gender bias and stereotyping by:

1. Using reading and listening skills.
2. Identifying word problems that show stereotyping and gender bias.
3. Specifying important defining characteristics of word problems that show stereotyping and gender bias.
4. Demonstrating the ability to calculate percents.
5. Working cooperatively in a small group selling.

TIME: One to two class periods

MATERIALS: Math text books with a variety of copyright dates. Guidelines for recognizing gender bias and stereotyping in school materials: Suggestions:

1. Certain groups that are underrepresented in curricular materials. (Tokenism)
2. Assignment of traditional roles or attributes to a group.
3. Are minorities depicted as genuine individuals with distinctive features or are they all shown as alike?
4. Do illustrations depict minorities in passive roles or in leadership and action roles.

PROCEDURES:

1. Students should review and discuss guidelines for recognizing gender bias and stereotyping in school materials.
2. In small groups, students identify important characteristics that would indicate stereotyping and gender bias. Characteristics are then shared with the whole class, and agreement is reached on those characteristics that students will use as a rubric to review textbooks.
3. Provide math textbooks, with range of copyright dates. Students examine word problems that show gender bias and stereotyping using the list of characteristics generated by the class.
4. Each group will select two to three word problems that they believe have the characteristics of gender bias and stereotyping. Students will have to defend their reasoning behind selecting each problem.
5. Each group will compare math textbooks with recent copyright dates to textbooks with copyright dates that are older than 10 years. Groups will report their findings orally and/or in a written report.
6. Students can calculate percent of word problems in a chapter or book that have male characters and compare their findings with the percent of word problems that have female characters.
7. Students can compare their findings with other groups who are calculating percentages using textbooks with different copyright dates. Discussion should take place on reasons why percentages in more recent textbooks are different than for older textbooks.
8. Have students re-write biased problems so that they are gender neutral, and avoid any stereotyping.

HINTS:

College, university and high school math departments and libraries may be good sources for finding older textbooks.

I have used Dolciani, Wooton Beckenback, & Markert, Modern School Mathematics: Structure and Method 8, Houghton Mifflin:1967, and Buswell, Brownell & Sauble, Teaching Arithmetic We Need 7, Ginn and Company:1959 for this lesson.

Be aware of copyright laws if you decide to Xerox problems from textbooks.