Continued from the previous message...

praise ("Good answer"), acceptance ("Okay"), remediation ("Give it 
another try...") and criticism ("Wrong"). They determined that fewer 
than 5 percent of teachers' interactions constituted criticism. Praise 
accounted for about 11 percent of interaction; 33 percent was remediation. 
The remainder (approximately 51-56 percent) was balanced acceptance."
The Sadkers allege that boys get a larger share of the categories 
outside of bland acceptance. Sommers: "The exact number is difficult to 
determine from the data. In their many published articles, the Sadkers 
generally do not specify the actual size of the difference, but instead make 
claims about discrepancies without specifying them: 'Girls received 
less than their share in all categories.'" 
Sommers: "As I have noted, the Wellesley Report relies strongly on
research by the Sadkers that purportedly found boys calling out 
eight times more often than girls, with boys being respectfully attended to, 
while the relatively few girls who called out were told to 'please raise 
your hands if you want to speak.' Professor Jere Brophy of Michigan State, 
who is perhaps the most prominent scholar working in the are of 
classroom interaction, is suspicious of the Sadkers' findings on call-outs. 
'It is too extreme,' he says. 'It all depends on the neighborhood, the 
level of the class, and the teacher. Many teachers simply do not allow 
call-outs.' I asked him about the Sadkers' claim that boys get more careful 
and thoughtful teacher comments. According to Brophy, any differences that 
are showing up are negligibly slight. Did he see a link between the 
ways teachers interact with boys and girls and their overall 
achievement?  'No, and that is why I have never tried to make that much 
of the sex difference findings.'"
Sommers: "For details of the Sadkers'
findings, the Wellesley Report refers to research reported in a 
1981 volume of a journal called _The Pointer_. _The Pointer_ is now defunct, 
but when I finally got to read the article I was surprised to see that 
what it said about classroom discipline in particular was not, in my view, at 
all indicative of bias against girls. This portion of _The Pointer_ 
article focuses not on 'call-outs', but on how teachers reprimand boys 
and girls differently, emphasizing that boys are disciplined more than 
girls.  Here is what the Sadkers and their co-author, Dawn Thomas, found:
'Boys, particularly low-achieving boys, receive eight to ten times as many
reprimands as do their female classmates....When both girls and boys are
misbehaving equally, boys still receive more frequent discipline. 
research shows that when teachers are faced with disruptive behavior from 
both boys and girls, they are over three times as likely to reprimand the 
boys than the girls. Also, boys are more likely to get reprimanded in a 
harsh and public manner and to receive heavy penalties; girls are more 
likely to get reprimanded in a softer, private manner and to receive lighter
penalties.'" The article says nothing about 'call-outs' and nothing about
girls being told to raise their hands if they want to speak...."
......... End quotes
 * RM 1.31 3319 * 
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