Gender (In)Equality in School, de Marta Conceiçao (Universidad de Atenas; Grecia)
Gender stereotypes are characterized as a set of beliefs and expectations about personal attributes associated with each gender. These are transmitted to children from a very early age by parents, teachers, peers, media and other socialization agents. Since school is a crucial space of socialization, it can also be a perpetuator of these types of stereotypes, mainly through two ways: 1) teachers' and students' beliefs; 2) teaching materials. Regarding teachers’ and student’s beliefs, it has been showed that teachers encouraged boys and girls to follow different study paths – while girls were suggested careers in education, medicine, or languages, boys were suggested careers in mathematics, engineering, or technology (Heller et al., 2010). It is important to note that these incentives, clearly influenced by gender roles, were not associated with teachers' previous experiences – a study conducted with education students who had not yet started teaching showed that for gir...