Comparison of teacher talk directed to boys and girls and its relationship to their behaviour in secondary and primary schools |
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| Authors: | Alex Harrop Jeremy Swinson |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Natural Sciences and Psychology, Liverpool John Moores University , Liverpool, UK;2. Witherslack Group of Schools , Lancashire, UK |
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| Abstract: | There have been a number of earlier investigations, using differing methodologies, into the extent to which teachers in the secondary school interact with boys and girls and the results have suggested an imbalance in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders that is quite similar to the imbalance found in teachers’ behaviour in the primary school. The main aim of this study was to devise an investigation using the same methodology as that used in a recent primary school investigation in order to be able to make a fair comparison between the two levels. The results showed considerable differences in the teachers’ verbal behaviour towards the genders in the secondary school from that of teachers in the primary school. Where the primary school data showed teachers interacting more with the boys than the girls and the boys being less on‐task than the girls, the secondary school data showed no such differences. |
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| Keywords: | teacher talk gender pupil behaviour secondary primary school |
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