Gender Differences in Classroom Participation

Abstract

This research work seeks to discuss the specific issue related to gender and how it affects students‟ participation rates and patterns in the classroom. Several reasons can be advanced for differential participation of students, and gender can explain and show, even partly, those differences. Hence, this research examines to what extend gender affects students‟ willingness to participate. It also aims to grab teachers‟ attention to the factors that prevent or encourage students to participate so as to allow them to better understand students and suggest strategies to help enhance their students‟ oral participation. A descriptive exploratory study is carried out to investigate gender differences in English classes. For doing so, two main tools were used which allow for the investigation of students‟ participation. On the one hand, a questionnaire, which is used as the main research tool, has been delivered to a sample of 104 secondary school students, of the Foreign Languages stream, and belonging to two different schools added to another questionnaire for the 8 teachers of English at the said schools. On the other hand, a classroom observation, used as a second tool, has also been conducted with the sample of students. The results of the present study show that girls participate more in the classes of English, they are more active, more interested in the material presented and more motivated than boys who were observed to be less active and less cooperative. It is hoped that these results will call teachers attention to this issue, and help them contribute to allow equal turns between males and females in classroom participation.