'Teaching in the bed of Procrustes': results of a 4 year inter-university research project into boys' academic underperformance in secondary education.

Description

The project ‘Teaching in the bed of Procrustes’ departs from the problem of boys’ scholasticunderachievement in Flemish secondary education: e.g. boys repeat a year more often andboys have higher drop-out rates. This interuniversity research project (Ghent University(CuDOS), KULeuven (ECEGO), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (EDWE)) consists of amultidisciplinary team and combines sociology, psychology, pedagogy and educationalsciences to (i) gain insight into the processes and factors which play a part in the observeddrop-out of boys and girls and (ii) to develop effective strategies to turn the tide and makesure that boys and girls can participate more successfully in education. Also, the project has alarge valorization purpose and aims to develop effective gender-sensitive strategies to fosterall students’ learning.In gaining a comprehensive view on gender inequality in secondary education, the projectfocused on a broad range of topics including – but not limited to - gender identity, gender biasin classroom interactions, gender role attitudes, school involvement, school wellbeing selfregulatedlearning and study motivation.Large-scale longitudinal multilevel survey data were collected (57 schools, 662 teachers, and4787 students were measured three times throughout three years). Also small-scale qualitativedata such as such as video-stimulated recall interviews and classroom observations wereconducted (6 schools, 30 teachers, 180 students). Moreover, a large-scale quasi-experimentalintervention study was conducted investigating the effect of a teacher professionaldevelopment program of collaborative teacher learning communities aimed at increasingteacher gender awareness and gender sensitive classroom interactions.The project officially ended in 2015 and resulted in both scientific and popularizingpublications, teacher coaching trajectories and a hands-on toolbox that can be used bypractitioners. The researchers involved in this project give workshops for teachers and teachereducators on a regular basis.The continuation of the research project is guaranteed by means of external funding which isobtained for a duo of new researchers who proceed with analyses on the large databases thatwere collected during the project. Also, coaches and researchers continue to work together inorder to facilitate the integration of research findings and practitioner knowledge.During the presentation more information can be provided on the research projects’ set-upand findings as well as the valorization products. Critical reflections on the project andrecommendations for future research and practitioners will be discussed.More information on the project can be found at http://www.procrustes.be/over-het-project

Period	22 Apr 2016
Event title	ATGender Spring Conference 2016
Event type	Conference
Location	Utrecht , NetherlandsShow on map