FöRFATTARE
Vangararai, Tawanda

INSTITUTION
Pedagogik och lärande

SAMMANFATTNING
The purpose of this thesis was to find out how English teachers interact with their students in terms of gender. In order to get a solid picture of how teachers deal with their pupils, I constructed the following questions: Are boys and girls treated equally in the classroom? Do teachers have higher expectations from one sex and not from the other? Do teachers ever think of gender issues when selecting materials and during their classes?

What tone of voice (harsh or soft voice) do teachers use when they speak to boys and girls? To get answers to the above mentioned questions, I used qualitative method in my study in the form of interviews and structured observations. In accordance to the results, I came to the conclusion that there was no gender equality in the manner in which teachers (my informants) dealt with boys and girls. Findings showed that teachers favoured boys mostly when it came to giving students the opportunity to respond to whatever question there was to respond to. Girls were occasionally left out even when their hands were raised. The male teacher revealed he has higher expectations from girls than boys and that girls almost always come out with much better grades as compared to boys. The male teacher used a harsh voice and wore an angry face when he spoke to boys who were whispering and giggling during the lesson. Findings also showed that teachers in my study did not consider gender issues when they selected teaching materials, but they honestly believed that they treated their pupils equally. I carried out my study in the district of Örnsköldsvik.

ISSN 1652-5299 / ISRN LTU-LÄR-EX--08/042--SE / NR 2008:042