Blog 5- Sex, Gender, and Gender Identity

I believe that Mr. Williams, the teacher in Case Study 7.1 in Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education, was wrong in dividing the class into teams of boys and girls. Clearly, this caused the teams to mock each other and was the cause of comments such as "the boys were letting the girls win so that they won't cry." He did stop the teams when he started noticing that they were making rude comments and were distracted from the game, and they finished the trivia game. However, Mr. Mathews heard male and female students afterwards making "disparaging remarks to each other, debating about which gender was most intelligent." Mr. Williams' reason for letting the class divide based on gender was that he likes to give them their choice and that it makes them competitive which leads to their engagement. Not only is this wrong because of the comments the girls and boys were making about each other during and after the game, but also for another very important reason. What if there are students who do not identify with their sex ? These students would feel uncomfortable when getting split up by gender and it is important that our students always feel comfortable in the classroom.

Gorski, P. & Pothini, SC. (2014). Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education: "Case 7.1 Boys Versus Girls Trivia Test". New York: Taylor and Francis

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