Classroom practices and gender roles in primary school

Abstract

This article considers the construction of gender identities in Maltese primary schools. It is based on small scale illuminative observation in two classrooms in two schools. The observation sessions, five in each school and each of an hour and a half duration were held over a period of one week, from 29th November till 6th December 1990. The sessions were carried out in two primary state schools in different areas of Malta and are named here as School A and School B. The age group chosen was in both cases six year olds that is Year 2 classes. Classroom A (in school A) had a total of 23 pupils of which fifteen (15) were boys and eight (8) girls. In Classroom B (school B) the pupils numbered 24, with thirteen boys (13) and eleven (11) girls. Both Miss A and Miss B were female and middle-aged. Whilst Miss A was a qualified teacher Miss B was at the time a part-time instructress. Notwithstanding the fact that the research was carried out in two different schools, the findings were very similar. This suggests that there is a certain pattern of behaviour which characterises many (see also Darmanin's article in this volume), if not all, Maltese primary state schools.