Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Vanessa Renauld
PED 3102
January 24 2020
Teaching Toolbox
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Jacob’s New Dress by Sara and Ian Hoffman explores who can and cannot
wear a dress. The answer is anyone can wear a dress. Jacob explores his
imagination during dress up time at school and another boy, Christopher,
gives Jacob some trouble, complaining that the princess dress that Jacob
had decided to wear was only for girls. Jacob enjoys dresses and even his
parents tell him it’s okay - but not at school. Jacob wears a handmade dress
to school and experiences bullying from the boys at school. The book
shows the parents struggling with helping Jacob to express himself, but in
the end his mom and dad both encourage him to be himself. The book also
shows his friend Emily being more interested in playing on the monkey
bars than playing dress up. The teacher explains to the children that Jacob is wearing what he is
comfortable in. When children still give him a hard time, Jacob decides for himself that the dress he
made himself is like a soft shield of armour. This book would be a great resource for teachers to bring
into any primary classroom to talk about how clothing can be worn by both boys and girls. Children at a
young age have already begun to associate clothing with gender so it would be a great story to ask
students what they think and get them thinking in more open minded ways.
Hoffman, Sarah. (2014). Jacob’s New Dress. Illinois, United States: Albert Whiteman & Company.
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Singh, Komal. (2018). Ara the Star Engineer. Vancouver, Canada: Page Two Books.
Girls have always been taught the words they are associated with - nice,
sweet, tidy, etc. but this book challenges these notions and shows girls that
they can be so much more than that. Our little friend shows us that people
often associate her actions with boys, but she always notifies them that she
is a girl! Her actions tend to “defy” what a girl is supposed to do. She is
shown eating messily, riding a bike as fast as she can, reading lots of books,
playing loud music, playing with different toys, and racing others.
Unfortunately, boys are often depicted as the ones who are allowed to do these things. This book can
encourage both boys and girls to do what they feel is right for them, instead of listening to outside
chatter. Our friend meets a boy at the end who also defies the gender stereotypes and they become
good friends. Having this story as a read aloud in the primary classroom would be a great way to have a
discussion about gender stereotypes with the students.
Ismail, Yasmeen. (2016). I’m A Girl. New York, United States: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Nate becomes interested in going to a school ballet despite his older brother Ben’s notions that
coincide with gender stereotypes. Nate loved the ballet - the costumes, the dances, the music. He came
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home wanting to learn how to dance. His little brother is the recurring voice of “you cannot”
throughout the story, but his mom is supportive. Nate practiced dancing
all summer with hopes of going to ballet class after summer. Ben
constantly tells his brother that boys cannot be ballerinas and Nate
begins to believe him. Nate’s dad comforts him after he hears that all
ballerinas must wear pink. This is just not true. They talk about how
girls can play baseball so that means boys can be ballerinas. Nate is the
only boy in the class and gets discouraged, so his mom brings him to a
real ballet and he sees that both boys and girls are in the ballet and he
learns that boys in fact cannot be ballerinas, but ballerinos. Nate’s
journey is one that many children will experience in their lifetime so
this becomes an important read aloud that can be used in the primary
classroom.
Bradley, Kimberley Brubaker. (2016). Ballerino. United States: Dial Books Young Readers.
These fourteen young women who changed the world makeup this
beautifully illustrated children’s book. Shaking Things Up by Susan Hood
is a great resource for teachers to use in their classroom to inspire
children - especially young girls. The book features a timeline of women
who made huge waves in history and goes through fourteen different
poems and facts about these women. Some notable women featured in
this book include Frida Kahlo a famous artist, Mae Jemison the first
African American female astronaut, and Malala Yousafzai, the youngest
winner of the nobel peace prize. These stories of women across cultures
and countries are so important for both boys and girls to know. The book can be used for a read aloud
in primary and as a project inspiration for junior students. Junior students can get into groups and
create poster profile projects about the different women. It is so important to have their stories present
in the classroom. We tend to focus on the success of men, but women need to be represented too.
Students need to be exposed to all success stories so that they do not grow up believing in the rigid
gender stereotypes that society sets out for them.
Hood, Susan. (2018). Shaking Things Up. Toronto, Canada: Harper Collins.
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DIGITAL MEDIA
Honea, Whit. (2018). How Parents Influence Kids’ Gender Roles. Retrieved From:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swSy6pdAS-0&feature=emb_title
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class ways in which we can stand up to these stereotypes or ways in which they do not match up with
reality. Another activity could be an open discussion about initial thoughts upon watching this video.
Teachers could also use the sentiments that arises in the video such as “Girls are only interested in
fashion” and “Boys are always strong” and use them for argumentative essay topics or discussion set-ups.
Mckeon, Tim. (2014). The Odd Squad. PBS Kids. Retrieved From:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAY2heI5sfI
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drawing men - even the girls in the class. They are surprised to meet real life people in these occupations
who all also happen to be female. The video looks to open up a conversation about how gender stereotypes
are defined for children between the ages of five and seven. It is up to educators and parents to help break
through these stereotypes before they become set in stone. This video is a great resource for both parents
and teachers. The activity displayed in the video can easily be adapted to any grade classroom or even at
home. It would also be interesting to have children also draw jobs that are gendered to be predominantly
female.
MullenLowe London. (2016). A Class That Turned Around Kids’ Assumptions of Gender Roles. Retrieved
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Aweo-74kY
This article is a good resource for teachers looking to widen their professional reading on the topic of
gender stereotypes. The European Institute for Gender Equality looks at how education is key for breaking
gender stereotypes, so this article is mostly directed towards educators. Historically we know that what
children are encouraged to focus on in school will have a huge impact on what career paths both boys and
girls will follow throughout their lifetime. These traditional ideas are streamlining children into their
respective “gender stereotype”. As students get older these stereotypes that began at a young age start to
feel natural. The article looks at how breaking these stereotypes and having girls and boys go into careers
at a more equal rate would benefit the economy. EIGE’s goal is to find out why so few men are working in
healthcare and education and why so few women are working in science, technology, engineering and
mathematics. Being armed with this kind of information is important for educators at all grade levels. It is
up to us to encourage students at all stages in their life to pursue what they love, not what they are told
they should love based on their gender.
Salanauskaite, Lina. (2017). Education is Key for Breaking Gender Stereotypes. European Institute for Gender
Equality. Retrieved From: https://eige.europa.eu/news/education-key-breaking-gender-stereotypes
It is known that breaking gender stereotypes can be tackled in preschool by promoting children to learn all
skills equally and find out possibilities for themselves. Children are detectives, so if we let them explore
freely they can grow to understand gender as more flexible and not so rigid. The study done showed us that
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gender stereotypes can start quite young and things like watching television had a huge impact. It was
found that boys who watch tv often grasp a bigger sense that “boys are better” whereas girls who watched
tv found their self-esteem getting lower. The representation of boys and girls in most television shows
perpetuate and reinforce gender stereotypes for these children. Another study showed that girls were
perceived as more caring and helpful than boys, but boys who exhibited the same behaviour were
considered to be strange. The article notes that removing terms like “boys” and “girls” is not the solution,
but instead focusing on each individuals' skills and attributes should be set as a priority. This will promote
the reduction of stereotyping and bias and build more inclusive behaviours in children. This resource
would make great reading material for both educators working in the primary level and parents who have
young children. Parents may perhaps begin to question what they allow their children to watch, play with,
and do in order to break the stereotypes of boys and girls.
King, Tania. (2018). Breaking Gender Stereotypes Early. Child In The City. Retrieved From:
https://www.childinthecity.org/2018/05/29/breaking-gender-stereotypes-early/?gdpr=accept
This article serves as yet another great resource for both educators and parents. It can serve as a
professional development reading or just an interesting informative reading. The Fawcett Society
discusses the research they have done on the effects of gender stereotypes on children. Research shows
that 45% of people said they experienced gender stereotyping and were expected to behave in accordance
with their gender. Being confined to gender stereotypes has been proven to impact children in only
negative ways. Career paths are constrained for both boys and girls and stereotyping has shown to harm
personal relationships as well. Both boys and girls experience a fair share of gender stereotyping that
impacts them negatively. Gender stereotyping has become the root of many problems in our youth such as
low self esteem about body image in girls and not being able to show emotion in boys. By inadvertently
reinforcing gender through a “gendered world” parents are not doing justice for their children. Educators
and Parents can use the ideas in the article and implement them with their students and children.
Richardson, Abby. (2019). Fawcett Research Shows Exposure To Gender Stereotypes as a Child Causes Harm in
Later Life. The Fawcett Society:
https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/news/fawcett-research-exposure-gender-stereotypes-child-causes-har
m-later-life
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This article assesses how reading and talking about stories that do not follow the typical gender
stereotypes can help increase cooperation and decrease conflict in young students of different genders. It
will also help young learners expand their conceptions of themselves and others beyond stereotypes. It
was found that a lot of conflict among young children were rooted in their already growing gender
stereotypes. The study aimed to explore storytelling as a means to diffuse this kind of conflict and break
the stereotypes. The study works with elementary school students for a number of weeks and helps them
to build on possibilities of gender. The primary students seemed more than willing to adapt to ideas they
have about gender in order to be more inclusive. This “gender stereotype intervention” proved successful
as more cooperation was noticed between students and what it means to be a “boy” and “girl” became
more flexible among the students. Educators would benefit from reading such a paper because it was a
successful study in intervening the rigid gender stereotypes in the primary years. Teachers can bring more
literature into the classroom and hold similar discussions to what they had in the study in order to
promote gender inclusion in their own classroom settings.
Frieden, Bonnie J. (2019). Jacob’s New Dress. Minnesota, United States: Saint Catherine University.
Retrieved From: https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1322&context=maed
This small experiment goes to show how ingrained gender stereotypes are in our minds - even when we see
ourselves as open minded people. Several different volunteers - male and female - are asked to play with a
female and male baby. There are a variety of “boy” and “girl” toys available to play with. The only trick is
that the boy and the girl baby have swapped clothes. The volunteers are shown offering the puppets and
doll toys to the perceived baby girl and robots and puzzles to the perceived baby boy. Even when we do not
recognize it in ourselves, we are gendering children's toys. Traditionally considered boy toys promote
spatial awareness and reasoning, but so often girls are not considered to be candidates for playing with
such toys. This means that even at such a young age, the toys that children play with impact which skills
they will learn and how their brains will develop. This article and video is all about trying to overcome our
own prejudices on gender and break the stereotypes. This article would be a good resource for new
parents. It gives them the information they need to raise their child so that they can learn skills based on
what they are interested in playing with, not what they are socially seen as supposed to be playing with.
BBC News. (2017). Gender Specific Toys: Do You Stereotype Children? Retrieved From:
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/magazine-40936719/gender-specific-toys-do-you-stereotype-children
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WEBSITES
This website is full of wonderful ideas for educators on gender equality. The institute’s goal is to fight
against gender discrimination and raise the EU citizens’ awareness of gender equality. The website is full
of articles relating to gender issues across Europe. It also views gender issues through a variety of different
lenses such as culture, digital agenda, economics, education, employment, health, justice, migration,
poverty, regional policy, research, youth, and violence to name a few. These articles - depending on the
grade level of the students - could be used as case studies in social studies classes or for group discussions
about gender equality. The website also has a huge glossary of terms related to gender and gender equality.
This would be a wonderful resource for educators, parents, and students to use to familiarize themselves
with the correct terms.
The Canadian Women’s Foundation was founded in 1991 between two friends who wanted to take down
gender inequality in Canada. The foundation seeks to empower women and is one of the largest women’s
foundations in the world. The key principles are to transform lives, improve services, and change systems.
They offer programs and resources to the women of Canada and seek change through movements and
events. The website notes the barriers that girls face as well. They hope to empower girls with confidence,
a sense of connection, and critical thinking skills. Although the gender issue goes both ways this website is
dedicated to helping women and girls. The website gives tips and facts about helping girls through
adolescence and the pathway through gendered stereotypes. The foundation also runs the “Empowering
Girls” program which allows young women to explore things they are normally taught not to pursue such
as sciences, technology, and sports. With this kind of knowledge both parents and educators can use this
website to help the girls in their lives as well as keep updated with the types of programs available to them.
Gender Creative Kids is an organization and website that is community run and non-profit. They provide
countless resources for supporting and affirming gender creative kids within their families, schools, and
communities. Gender creative kids not only steers away from typical gender stereotypes, but they also
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focus their attention and care to that of transgender children. This website hosts a resource library that is
geared towards parents, service providers, and educators. Notably the curriculum and policy documents
would be useful professional reading for educators who may have transgender children in their class or
their school. The “Guide For Supporting Transgender Students in K-12 Schools” that is provided as a
resource offers educators facts and information, guidelines for working with children, specific issues they
may face as transgender youth, best practices for working with unsupportive parents of transgender
children, and gender support plans templates that teachers can implement in their classroom. Parents can
also find lots of books about transgender children that they can read for themselves or share with their
children as a way of opening up a conversation about gender.
This organization’s main goal is to inspire individuals and communities through media to free the world of
gender stereotypes and social injustices. So far, they have made waves and in 2011 opened up a
conversation about the ways in which gender stereotypes impact girls and women with their “Miss
Representation” film and again in 2015 about the harmful effects of traditional masculinity for boys and
men with “The Mask You Live In” documentary. The representation does screenings in community centers
and school communities upon request in order to spread the movement. The website offers a host of
resources for educators, parents, students, and communities. For educators even a media literacy and
social emotional learning curricula is available for purchase. For senior and intermediate learners I think
these documentaries have the potential to open up important classroom conversations, group projects,
and case studies on gender and gender stereotypes.
Teaching Tolerance
The Teaching Tolerance mission is to help teachers and schools educate their students to be active
participants in a diverse democracy. It provides free resources to educators from primary to highschool
that encourage tolerance, inclusive, and respected communities. Educators could easily use these
resources in their classroom to teach various tolerance topics. Topics included are race and ethnicity,
religion, ability, class, immigration, gender and sexual identity, bullying and bias, and rights and activism.
Not only does the website provide resources for teaching about breaking gender stereotypes but for
everything that requires respect and tolerance. The website allows you to search for a topic and grade level
in order to find an appropriate lesson for your students. Not only are there in class resources, but also
webinars and articles for educators’ professional development. One example of a lesson that could be used
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for grades k-2 is a “free to be you” lesson where children will participate in a read aloud of “Supermom
Saves The Day” by Joi Miner and participate in a think pair share. The lesson plan offers teaching
strategies as well for creating questions to engage students with the text. This resource is truly incredible
to be bookmarked for all educators.
Bradley, Kimberley Brubaker. (2016). Ballerino. United States: Dial Books Young Readers.
Frieden, Bonnie J. (2019). Jacob’s New Dress. Minnesota, United States: Saint Catherine University.
Retrieved From: https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1322&context=maed
Hoffman, Sarah. (2014). Jacob’s New Dress. Illinois, United States: Albert Whiteman & Company.
Honea, Whit. (2018). How Parents Influence Kids’ Gender Roles. Retrieved From:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swSy6pdAS-0&feature=emb_title
Hood, Susan. (2018). Shaking Things Up. Toronto, Canada: Harper Collins.
Ismail, Yasmeen. (2016). I’m A Girl. New York, United States: Bloomsbury Publishing.
King, Tania. (2018). Breaking Gender Stereotypes Early. Child In The City. Retrieved From:
https://www.childinthecity.org/2018/05/29/breaking-gender-stereotypes-early/?gdpr=accept
Mckeon, Tim. (2014). The Odd Squad. PBS Kids. Retrieved From:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAY2heI5sfI
12
MullenLowe London. (2016). A Class That Turned Around Kids’ Assumptions of Gender Roles. Retrieved
From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3Aweo-74kY
Richardson, Abby. (2019). Fawcett Research Shows Exposure To Gender Stereotypes as a Child Causes Harm in
Later Life. The Fawcett Society:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++https://www.fawcettsociety.org.uk/news/fawcett-research-exposure-gende
r-stereotypes-child-causes-harm-later-life
Salanauskaite, Lina. (2017). Education is Key for Breaking Gender Stereotypes. European Institute for Gender
Equality. Retrieved From: https://eige.europa.eu/news/education-key-breaking-gender-stereotypes
Singh, Komal. (2018). Ara the Star Engineer. Vancouver, Canada: Page Two Books.