TD&T083 D&T teachers' perceptions of gender

Dr Brendan Anglim joins me to talk about his doctoral study exploring D&T teachers' perceptions of gender

Episode transcript

Mentioned in this episode

Brendan's thesis is available online: Design and Technology and STEM: teachers’ perceptions of gender

If you like the podcast, you can always buy me a coffee to say 'thanks!'

Please offer your feedback about the show or ideas for future episodes and topics by connecting with me on Twitter @hardy_alison or by emailing me.

If you listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, please take a moment to rate and/or review the show.

Ciaran Ellis posted a thought-provoking question on LinkedIn recently: Do design decisions involve value judgements?

What do you think? Join the conversation over on LinkedIn and let us know what you think. 

Transcript

Alison Hardy: 0:57

So this week, I'm talking to Brendan Anglim, if I pronounce your surname correctly there, Brendan.

Brendan Anglim: 1:03

Absolutely Anglim. That's right.

Alison Hardy: 1:05

That's I make all sorts of mistakes on surnames and pronunciation. Sounds good. I'm glad that started off. Okay. So with Brendan this afternoon, and I've got Brendan on here to come and talk about his research. I don't know a huge amount about random, we've just met through the design and technology associations research strategy group, which Matt McLain and Kay Stables were talking about people doing research iand said, well, Brendan, who is now a doctor has done some research, which is really interesting. And when they talked about what it was, I thought, yes, thank you very much. That'd be great to have on the podcast. So Brendan's here to come and talk and share some of the things that he's learned and some of the ideas that have come out from it. And just to give an update on where he is with it, and and what you're thinking maybe might happen next. So over to you, Brendan, who are you? Where are you? And what do you do? Let's start with that?

Brendan Anglim: 1:59

Well, so I'm I've been teaching design technology for 25 years. I'm currently a head of department and also an assistant head teaching and learning. I became curious about gender in projects, the approaches that students had to projects, and it didn't ma probably about almost 20 years ago, when I started halfway through the Masters, I didn't change school. And the school that I came to had a really different gender balance, different makeups there being 5050 Boys, girls at GCSE and A level gives closer to the 10% at a level, and it was a real difference. So I became that really, that struck home made me really think hard about gender inequality in design technology. And at the time, my children were growing up with One boy, one girl, and they were treated quite differently at school. My wife is an engineer by training, she was one of four women on a course of 120 at her university, and all of these things started to come together, a down I took over a boarding house with my wife, which girls, and I started to see and be aware of some incredibly difficult and awkward inequities and inequalities in the way that they were treated. And so that's that prompted me to start my research at doctoral level, looking at gender bias and gender inequalities and design andtechnology.

Alison Hardy: 3:36

So it's yeah, it's really interesting that those, those things that happen to you and things that you've experienced. So to give you a context for a study, I was really intrigued about your language about gender inequalities. What did you mean by that, when you were started to explore it?

Brendan Anglim: 3:52

Well, initially, just numerically, just as in the number of girls doing design and technology, just sort of black and white, you know how many girls are doing it. And I think we've seen the numbers in Design and Technology decrease over the last 20 years or so, once it was became, not an optional subject at GCSE. But within those numbers, the number of girls have decreased as well, hugely. We've also had girls, food nutrition, the separation of design technology, and Food Nutrition has made a difference to those numbers and math, we can talk about statistics, as well as the weight and numbers are played with. But then you've got this sort of latest exodus of textiles to art as caused issues as well. There's some really interesting things going on with with girls and design technology just in just in terms of numbers. Never mind the way that girls are potentially treated in the classroom. That's a whole different ballgame altogether.

Alison Hardy: 4:47

Yeah, yeah, I think I think it is, I think what we're almost seeing is a reversion back to sort of pre 1990 with the separation of the food, and the cooking and how that sort of scene. And art and textiles think that whole that whole thing's fascinated and under talked about, and and under dicussed as what the issues are, it's almost seen as well, that's okay, that that that moves off. So, yeah, so you've kind of got a personal context a kind of political, national context for your study. So to total a bit about how you started and what what your question what your research question was and

Brendan Anglim: 5:30

there's sort of three strands to it really was. The key one was quite interesting. I'm an engineer by training as well as my wife and I both engineers, so I was interested in the relationship between design technology and stem. There's an awful lot written about gender in STEM, and the literature reviews I've got here. It's huge. But the amount of stuff that's written about gender and design to design technology like you've just described, there's very little talk to that I think there's two or three papers, Jan Harding's from the 1990s, I think is probably the one that keeps coming up. But that's about it, really. And that whole was quite scary for me that lack of anyone talking about this issue, the fact that we are ignoring it. That that that was really what I wanted to explore. I wanted to help. Really, I wanted to get in there and find out whether there was what was going on in that in that gap. Yeah, I think I think it's really interesting to kind of put a context of what you're talking about when it's being talked about, isn't it supposed to published, those are conversations that happen around gender inequality and gender representation in design and technology, you see a quite a lot on social media. And I've seen that, that people who've responded to the survey about research and design and technology, the issues at looking at gender kind of kept coming up and coming up, throughout. And it's talked about the female, that the high proportion of females teaching design and technology, and that these things are talked about in that context, but they're not researched or written about in a way.

Alison Hardy: 7:04

That that is, that is kind of one of the better phrase structured, and, and presented. So yeah, so I think your work is, is really needed. So so that's what that's where you started. So as I think more about your study and what you did, there was right from the outset, I need to I'm going to make it clear now because we have discussed this already on it. So I'm white, middle class, male, doing study into gender inequalities. And of course, that that's haunted me throughout the whole of the project, as it How have I got, how can I say anything of any value that has any worse. And I found this really tricky to deal with. I was talking before about the need to have a little mantra written up on the wall in front of me that that phrase comes from someone else, this isn't these aren't my words, these are from someone who another man working in, in the area of feminist sort of work, I'm not where they are, this is not about me. But I can make a difference. And I am here to learn. And I've learned an awful lot from my own teaching, if nothing else, from the whole study, my own teaching, I hope has improved just a little bit in the way that I now treat boys and girls and the way that I talk with them. In the classroom, I think that's helped me and my own teaching. I think that's, that's really interesting. I think people forget that parts of the thing that happens when you do research is you go through a change, isn't it, you don't want to fall into the trap, I'm going to use it go on a journey, you know, you it is quite seismic, I think whether it's a small study or like you and I have done a doctoral study over the several years, a long time, a full time job. And I can completely understand your, your feeling of, you know, who am I to be looking at this in terms of I'm a man looking at gender issues, understand trying to understand these inequalities, where they come from. But I think on the other hand, because of the gender inequalities, there is the potential that because you are a white male, that what you say may well be listened to by a greater audience. And that's the awful I really Yeah, copying I said that gave me but that is awful, isn't it. And but there is a Trieste in that. Which is which is such a shame and that that's not a reflection to you, Brendan, at all or so probably many of the people were listening to you but but that is a an unacknowledged bias that we all have over lots of different things around gender, ethnicity, age, disability, that we value some voices over others. But I do really like that quote, and I asked you to send me a the details of where it came from, we could put that in the show notes that people can sort of hold on to that and do what you've done and print it out. I like I like that idea. And I think we all wrestled with that about who are we to do this? Right. So So I think it's great to put that out on the table because you know, I've had people on the podcast before I'll will recur. And Daniela talking about gender and design and technology. So it's, it's good to get that out there. But it's also good to get your perspective and what your work is. So next bit what you want to share next. He's talked about theories. I know. This is the problem because you spent so long sort of involved in in the literature and reading and looking at is knowing what's of any value to others. And cultural capital has been thrown around a bit in the last few years, and misunderstood in a number of ways. But what I quite liked was That Louise Archer has worked in terms of she's looking at the Institute of Physics and science, capital, not cultural capital, but science capital. And I, I really liked where she was coming from this idea that it's not, it's not what you know, it's how, you know, it's who you know, it's how you talk about it. That's, that's what gets you places that that that that has real value. And of course, there's technological capital as well, if you could basically apply it to anything. And I found that so Borges cultural capital, which was has been sort of misinformed, and it's quite often for years, cultural capital often comes as a sort of really stagnant reproductive manner. In other words, schooling is all about just implanting our gender stereotypes onto the next generation. And I think what's what Louise Archer was talking about was making this more transformative. In other words, what can we offer in our lessons in our designs and audio lessons to everyone to provide them with the capital to be able to stand up for themselves have agency and make a difference in the world not just for themselves, but for the group that they represent. And I found that really quite interesting that that was that was a really interesting theoretical, complex journey that I went through trying to understand that there was a couple two or three years and that I greatly admire you listen aboard you I tried because I wasn't sure whether that fitted with where I was coming from and unfortunately, it didn't. But yeah, and Louise archers work around science capital has been absolutely fascinating and quite seismic, in its influence about the way people think and the way people like me as a female, academic, think and perform. So yeah, what I really like about her work is, is the practical application of it, she, it this this is not just theoretical, so it's a there's a lot of feminist responses to budget. And you can Margaret Archer is another feminist writer who talks about sort of produce work and I found I found her writing really, really tricky, but it's very abstract. Whereas Louise arches were absolutely bang on and direct. And, and it was all about practical applications in the classroom, across schools. And that's actually one of the reasons I really wanted to do my this. This research, it was the it's a professional doctorate, not a PhD, and a professional doctorate. The idea is that you're trying to make a difference to what to your professional practice. And so her work was really influential. And another bit of theory that came up that I really enjoyed, that I found really powerful, was Jacqueline Eccles work on expectancy value theory. And she she was writing in the 80s. From from a math perspective, you know, gender in math, which is, which is always quite tricky. But because that was her driving force, for some reason, women don't know that that is the reason it's stuck. So it so almost everyone has done studies into gender and stem. There's always there's always a link back to ECOSYS work. And I don't think she's credited for it. You know, you're talking about hidden voices earlier on. She I think her work is incredibly powerful. She's got this beautiful model allistic model of the way that we as teachers, and society affects the way that our children in the classroom make decisions about the what they're going to study and how they're going to study. It's a beautiful model quite graphically, it's quite interesting as well. Yes, I don't think I don't think she's had much recognition for that or not enough. Well, she got cited in mind. And her diagram appears in my, my thumbs up when you mentioned it, because, like you I love, I love her work. And I love the way it's graphic, you know, it's got that model, it's got a conceptual framework, and then it's been tested over time, her work greatly informed mine around where our values come from in the different types of values and motivation and search. Yeah, I just, yeah, I think she's great. And she's still publishing. Fantastic. So God says Eccles, echoes, expectancy value theory. What else for you? I got I had a bit of a sidetrack. So part of the professional doctorate is that you do the first couple of years you do. Effectively. It's a Talk series of taught modules. And one of the modules was, you know, pick a topic that you are particularly interested in, I looked at neuroscience, and it was neuroscience in terms of gender differences. And our what a what a messy, complicated area that was, but I found it fascinating. I couldn't, I could have spent the whole thesis on that really, I ended up that that particular chapter shrunk bizarrely over the hawk over the course of the of the doctor because effectively it was starting to get too messy. So it shrunken trunk control conseiller became this tiny little nugget sort of sitting in the middle of it but Did did come out when I was talking to my, to my participants about how they viewed and perceived gender to be sort of acted in their classrooms enacted, they will, you often heard these little, these neuro myths, the differences between boys and girls. And this idea that girls think differently to boys and boys think differently and have some really interesting things coming out there. And the idea of that, but neuroscience says that says that this is right, you can see it, that's sort of it. And of course, when you're interviewing in a research mode, it's it's about gaining information. It's about that's the nonce that you denoting that you go along with that, as you're responding to the participant, which is very different, potentially from a coaching or a mentoring type of role. And so, but I found myself I couldn't, I had to bite my lip when I when I was hearing these things. I don't know whether you found the same and you're interested in that sense of you want to say something? Yeah, yeah, there is and kind of having to keep smiling when somebody's saying something that you think I just agree with, at all I want to, I want to challenge it mean, I used a particular type of interviewing, and called active interviews, which sort of gave it permission, for me and my perspective to be in the interview and, and to do some not not shaping, but it was a conversation. And as much as it had a framework to it. But ya know, mine was more when I started to do the data analysis that things came out about what people had said was the value of science and technology. And one kept coming out that just made me Twitch, you know, made me feel physically uncomfortable. And it was all about children learning to cook to sew into do DIY. I don't like this, you know, and I remember sitting at the dining table. At a time when I was candling. My data by bits of paper, I moved on to software very quickly after that, I kind of had to get up and walk away from the dining table because I couldn't bear this idea. My perspective changed over time, which I think I've talked about in a previous episode. But yeah, you do get into that. It's really difficult to researchers, to participant voice is so powerful, and I really wanted to make sure that that came across, so I stuck. I stuck as rigidly as I could to their, to their their quotes, basically, I quoted quite a lot throughout it. But one of the models that I used was the sort of critical theory. So not only was it what what are the participants thinking? But like yourself, what am I thinking about what the participants are thinking about? So another another layer, potentially, of understanding or interpretation of that. And that allowed me to basically put my, my voice quiet voice into the research as well. You talked about a particular type of interview technique I, I really got into and found quite exciting that the use of video stimulated interviews, and the implicit association tests to just stimulate the thinking of the participants and to try to get a little bit deeper inside their perceptions and their belief systems. Boy did I didn't realise quite how powerful those two things were. If not, I genuinely had the implicit association tests are an unusual technique I didn't some of your listeners may have. Yeah. Well, have you had an MRI, you haven't had a go the visit. So Greg Walden Nosek, they've been kicking around for some time now, but it's an idea. The idea is that it's a psychometric test. In other words, things flesh up on a screen, and you press some buttons on the keypad, the quicker that you respond to the words that are flashing up on the screen, the more likely you are to associate the two together. So you'll have pairs, pairs of words, and it will have uncle and male and adults, it's really easy to make that connection. But as we're split up, you'll end up with things like liberal arts, and auntie. And of course, that's quite easy to do. But liberal arts and Uncle might not be quite as easy and it might did slight delay in the way that you respond to these supposedly provides them with a little bit of data, which then can then say that this is your this is your gender science bias, but it's not really bias. It's more about your implicit associations. And I think what what my participants found some of them struggle with this concept actually. One really interestingly. One, a gay one participant basis basically said this mean, this is farcical, the whole process is farcical and other words, uncool. It's, it's, it doesn't have any meaning to me. And I really liked that response, I thought it was really powerful. But one of the other participants was talking about how they actually had, you're not really judging the individual's bias or implicit associations, you're actually talking about the cultural perceptions and actions. And most of the research and on the validity of the implicit association test has come down to identifying this as that really interesting way of looking at cultural differences, but not individuals. But it is a really good starting point. So allowing Protestants to go through this process, gives them the space to then talk about what they really believe. And that's where the interviews got really exciting that the data itself will be the result of the it. I I think I put them in as an appendix right at the back. It didn't mean anything. The interview that followed, he kind of used it as a warming up tool. Yeah, interesting. I, I use the video stimulated interviews, as that I use the implicit association tests later on, I actually did them about sort of 30 minutes into the interview. So not as a warm up, because I because I guess it did really get to the heart of the matter for a lot of them. And also the participants really shared information and belief systems that I that I was very surprised by. We had discussions of faith. And I'll be honest, that some really interesting that there were two characters who were clearly troubled by the voice and potential for women to be and girls to be provided with power. Their misogynist, as simple as that. And that and this, and this is where it came out with it. It came out after having this IoT. So yeah, as a researcher, I can imagine that's quite uncomfortable then to listen to you. And so your participants, they were all design and technology teachers, were they one of the focus groups, I had a couple of scientists, computer science teachers as well. Because just the way that it works at that particular school, but yes, they were all DMT teachers and in various different settings. So we had a single, single sex girls only school, we had a diamond formation school. What's the diamond formation? Oh, so where boys and girls are separated when they get to year nine. For that, and that GCSE, isn't it come back together for six, four? I've seen it in a few. I've seen a couple of times. But the I think the idea, and I'm probably oversimplifying here is the idea that actually, in terms of adolescent development, that particular period is the most problematic. So by separating the genders, you're avoiding all the problems, you're allowing academic progress to be made, which you can then bring them back together afterwards. In sixth form. It's it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because there's an assumption that there about the boys and the girls that are heterosexual if we're taking it down, you know, that's one of the that's one of the ways that these things are classed isn't around, say around gender, or what is it around? But yeah, fascinating. Okay, well, we're going, we're going off on down a rabbit hole of that, it's probably another conversation we could have. So you interviewed these teachers, you're interested in their perceptions of gender, in the context of Design and Technology completely and understand as well. So there are a few questions relating to the relationship between design technology and stem. And with gender as there's the link point, the to. And the analysis you talked about in your own research after that was, I really enjoyed that process. Something that I got to grips with I was I jumped into the software as well, and went through multiple interpretations and models and ideas. And that was quite, it's quite an a creative process, really. And I will admit, that was what I ended up with is definitely a sculpture that if someone else was to take that data, that the whatever it was 120,000 words of transcripts and take that information and analyse it in the US probably using the same software, they probably come up with something completely different. I will accept that. And I think the fact that it took me about, you know, five or six different attempts just to make one feel part of it. So it's not, it's not black and white and ever is. No, it isn't. It isn't. It's, and you're, you're right, your your position and who you are and the theoretical lens, and in all of that has an impact in the way you look at your data. I wish my master students sometimes would would understand that anyway. Because it's really hard to understand and to recognise. And so that does mean that the data, may well be clustered differently by different people, but the analysis, and it's, it's exhausting to do as well, isn't it? I found? And yeah, you can have all sorts of arrangements and connotations or white justifications when we're grouping them like that, or like that. Yeah. And they can change in time, as well. You know, think about what's my data now, I probably group them quite differently. Yes, supervisor was really useful at this point, as in, it's time to stop. You can't, you can't keep going. This is year two of the analysis. It's like, okay, you need to you need to write something down now. Yeah, yeah, it's good enough. That's the other thing. I was told. It's just a qualification. It's the start of your academic life. It's not the end, you know, that was the other. Oh, you're thinking at the moment at the end. Fit? Well, it was that it was that? It was it was good enough. At that point, it's good enough for now handed in. And it was at that point that that K was involved. And I knew I wanted Kate to be part of this somehow. So she ended up being my, I don't know whether I'm sharing too much, actually. But she ended up being my my assessor external assessor. And so she ran the Viva. And, and provided the feedback, and helped me through the corrections and guided me and her involvement at that stage was so powerful. And I know that it was good enough at that point. But Kay's involvement made it so much better. And I'm really, really grateful to her for her role. It's good to have good people like that. Kate, Kate was my one of my externals I had to have to because I was an internal candidate at the University. So I had K and Niall theory, you know, but yeah, it's good. It's good to have those critical people looking at it and, and making it better. Yeah, when you throw in Joe Jackson was mine. She was one of my supervisors, she's an external supervisor. The Insight she gave me over the three and a half hours when she comes through my whole first full draft page by page, but wow, wow, it made such a difference. It was quite rigorous. I found it quite exhausting. And I'm thankful Actually, I'll be honest, in the detail, the level of critique and criticism, not criticism, the level of care that they had put in to reading and and working through my biodh work was fantastic. Yeah, it's you feel? Yeah, it's really, I mean, I've actually done some, I've done some examining myself, I've doctorates, and it's a real privilege to be in that position as well. To work with a candidate and, and explore with them what they've done. Yeah. So come on, let's get to the juicy bit there. What did you find what what happened? We talked around it, it's been really good to hear about the context. I'm hoping people were fascinated to hear about how research at this level can be planted in this way, gone through. So just to clarify from from, from what I'm going to say, from here on in, this is only my interpretation of that data. So and there are recommendations, but they're they're offered. They are they're merely offered. These are not things that have to be done. Get just suggestions, if anything else. One of the things I found particularly fascinating was this was a confusion from my participants about the need for positive action. So we were talking about girls only stem clubs in sort of, you know, Google, Sony computing clubs, and there was some real, it raised some really tricky moments in the in the interviews where the word positive discrimination kept coming up. In the three or four interviews this this came up and think this isn't discrimination, this is positive action, but there was a confusion there and I don't think it's actually our remit as a teacher to provide support for those in need. Whatever their grouping, you know, we would do it for an EAL students or an SES Students, so why would we not do it for girls who were in it, who perhaps haven't had the experiences that necessarily the boys will have had in certain areas? And yet, as soon as we mentioned gender at that point is, oh, no, we can't do that. That's discrimination. And so there was some, this is where the coaching me I had to sit, I couldn't say anything until after the whole process. And I'm saying, by the way, you what you were talking about was positive action, not positive discrimination. That was tricky. And I think there's some there's clearly a weakness somewhere in our initial teacher training, or, or just in terms of schools, pushing this forward. So that was one area that definitely work has to be done, certainly with the participants I was working with. And then there was some, and then this is where the stereotypes started coming out. So conscientious girls, hard working girls, meet girls, girls, put in 40 Page projects, whenever you need to do 20. That was an area that was consistent throughout. And alongside that was then that lack of practical confidence. And this is at this point, this is where the royal association of engineering report that's just been coming out or about to come out, they've been talking about tinkering quite a lot. So there are the risk potential here. And I think this alignment now of some exciting work that could be done to make sure that a primary school level, working through to key stage three, we can actually help develop greater exposure to teaching opportunities really, for all people. And possibly even to compensate for those that haven't had those experiences with those in inequitable. Those inequalities, you know, in other words, we provide some extra support for those that haven't been it been able to tinker. Those are just two of the five things. That's really interesting about tinkering, because Jamie tinny, who I work with, and Sarah Davis, they did some work quite a few years ago now around tinkering. And it was really exciting. It was quite a big movement in the States. And it's hackerspaces, maker spaces, those sorts of things. We're kind of talking around the edge of that. And Sarah designed a whole project projects. She's in quite a lot of work around e textiles. And you know, we had a conversation before we started to record around the you know, Desi textiles work, is it positive discrimination? Can we stereotype and say boys only works in textiles or because of it or girls who want to atronics But Sarah broke it down around the fact that about tinkering about making it okay to play around, to try and get the circuits to work using flexible materials. And, and Jamie did a whole load of stuff up, I'll get Jensen with the details of the books he was using. And Sarah as well, I'll put those in the show notes. Because some people might not be familiar with that idea about about tinkering. This is not a material specialist. And that's the whole point is no exactly playing. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, and it really speaks to the heart of creativity and and failure almost, doesn't it? Yeah. And so there you go. So that's the first two right. I think I've already talked about the sort of the very unusual approaches to stereotypes, even with the small group that I had, and sort of sort of this passive reinforcement of gender stereotypes. In other words, it's, you could see throughout the interview, teachers becoming aware that actually they may well be gender stereotypes in their classroom and yes, they might have been letting it happen or be part of the process. You awareness was actually in the in the one hour interview was actually developing. Then there was the quota that let's say, Can you give an example of, of what that that reinforcement of gender stereotyping they were sort of seeing themselves do or recognise? It was little things like, what we talked about material specialisms, you know, girls, description of girls being a being better at understanding the artistic aspects of brutalist architecture. You know, one of the participants identified with the project and basically said, you can see how the girls really understood this better because they can draw better they can understand this, the artistic aspect much better than the boys can. And then went on when asking them to talk a little bit more about it. You could just see them thinking actually, have I just classified those grills as being more artistic? Or were they really more artistic and you could See that question starting to appear in their faces, as far as, as we're talking, and that sort of, there are a few moments in the interviews, genuinely where you could divert pauses where the interviewer is, you could see this was making them uncomfortable, because actually, they had found something else about themselves in the interview. That picking they weren't expected to be talking about. But then they would go, what if we all do it that way that sort of treating a group as a homogenous group, we are all like that they're not you. This is what this is how we have to as teachers, if you're, if you're faced with 20 to 30 students in a class, you have to be making snap decisions, absolutely time. And so you have to be making judgments about particular groups of people. In short, it's inherent in our job. The problem is that then that then determines everything we think about those particular groups of wood, there has to be an opportunity for us to be able to step back from those snap decisions that we make in the classroom. And the interview was that so perhaps we as as a as a body need more opportunities to be more reflective, and have more coaching type conversations with other design technology teachers talk about this next? Was that another one of your points that came out is about teachers having time to reflect and have those critically reflect critically reflective conversations with colleagues? Yeah, I think I think I've talked about them as coaching conversations, peer to peer sort of work, because we're all capable, we're all we all can do this, we just need time to do it really. Or it needs to be part and parcel of our professional development. Okay, so what's next? Well, that was only, I mean, I've only just talked about the passive reinforcement, because of course, you've got the active reinforcement group, but they were the scary ones. They're the ones where, you know, this is what I believe this is how boys and girls are different. This is why they're different. And therefore, that's why I'm going to treat them differently. Now, coaching conversation with that particular type of teacher is going to be very different from those that suddenly be made aware of something. But there's clearly a need for that. So coaching conversations work with both. And then the third group of people with one set, so you would sort of expect really, at the sort of active engagement, the ones that were willing to tackle gender stereotypes, and bring it forth into the classroom into the lesson, you know, now you can't talk about shopping trolleys and women pushing shopping trolleys. And you can't talk about, you know, parents and mothers in that way, you've got to, they were grappling with these there. And then and they were describing parts of their lessons, where they were getting, and you could see it there, they were getting animated, in the left of the interview in the same way that they would in the classroom. As in, I'm not letting this guy, you were not walking out this classroom. And so we've had an opportunity to discuss this. So yeah, it's really nice. So yeah, that's really awesome that you categorise people into these three groups passive, active, and action, is that kind of active in your activity, as opposed to active reinforcement of stereotypes? Hmm, so yeah, so you've got, you've got these three different groups now. And I really like the way you've started to sort of think beyond what you've done in terms of the study and started to kind of bring this into some coaching and mentoring. And is that kind of where you're seeing yourself at the moment around what you're doing in your workplace and with, with peers and colleagues around? Exactly. So we're to be my own department. We've been doing this for some time now. But now that I've got an opportunity, I'm currently working with the era career framework in in a variety of different guises. But you can see that coaching and mentoring as part of that is a really important part of that development of new teachers. And that in the school, we're also trying to find opportunities for peer to peer coaching, to allow us to tackle some of these problems. We're not starting with eats, we're not starting with gender bias. I didn't think I think this if I if I mentioned it in the staff riff one more time. Just they'll just roll their eyes and walk away from me so I'm not I'm not using that as the topic yet. But it's the the coaching will provide us with the tools to be able to tackle it later. Yeah. Oh, crikey. Really interesting. So so taking on coaching and mentoring then I suppose if you have you looked at Rachel last houses stuff about lead, Matt. Yeah, so she has a group that a centre, they're called. I want to call it collective. I think that's right. But she does a lot of work around coaching and mentoring. She's a professor, and they have a coaching and mentoring journal. I'm aware of it because I was leading a coaching and mentoring module on the Masters last couple of years. And we used it and there's loads of potential within those models aren't there for having those critical conversations and they're not critical as in your role, but they're They're critical all critiquing all way and having a mirror. And such. It's fascinating, isn't it? Just the process of the research interview? Participants think differently. Yeah, exactly. So if it can happen in that when I'm when, as an interviewer, I'm not even offering anything I'm literally just did just recording, asking a couple of questions and recording. And you know, perhaps a nod of a head or a smile here that there's no coaching going on, on the hardly saying anything. And yet, just providing teachers with the space to talk, it's often enough for them to work. We're all professionals. This is this is part of what we're what we're about this is, you know, this is part of professional development. It's obviously been been a significant part of your professional development. So how has it made you think differently about, about this topic about gender stereotyping, and design and technology? What's the key takeaways for your way you think about it, from a personal, my own teaching, finding space in the classroom, to step back, videoing myself, watching on a regular basis, to make sure that those slips, the way that I talk, little things I'm mentioning, aren't coming through in the wrong way. And those are the two things I'm trying to separate, finding space in the classroom to think about the way that students are responding boys and girls differently potentially, in the classroom. But we're also trying, yeah, you're probably going to shake your head at this one. But we're also experimenting with, because it's been an interesting topic, we're looking at single sex groups. Now. At year nine, with, within design technology, computer science and art, actually, what we're finding, it gives us the space to be able to raise gender inequalities in a safe space with the students, so we're being absolutely explicit about it. And with the parents, and with so everyone, the teachers, the parents, and, and the girls and the boys in the class, we are talking about gender inequality, we're not hiding, we're not. We're not just sitting there as teachers reflecting on our own, we're doing something about you. That's fascinating, then that's really exciting, actually, because going back to my somewhat flippant comment potentially around around single sex, I did a similar thing i i am, when I was teaching down in Gloucestershire, that was a long time ago, we did I did the same thing with my year nine. So we did boys and girls as two separate groups. Because I wanted to explore more about them. Whereas actually, what you're talking about this is about us as teachers and how we communicate and talk and, and shape that that space, but I just love that about being open. With the students with parents with each other about this is, this is what we're doing is it's giving us a safe space to do this. And you Castle University, ran a really neat, I think they called it ninja course m i n t. And that was it follows on from the IOP work, the Institute of Physics work on involving the parents in the process, and very powerful way of actually trying to make a difference. So although my research was was very not hands on, it has led me to making more of a change with my own practice and actually trying to do something about it. Yeah, and Eccles, his work around expectancy value that was heavily around parents as well in seeing them as as key. Well, it's been really interesting. It's been really interesting. And I'm hoping to come back and talk about your coaching and mentoring that you're doing in your school when it starts kind of move into that space around gender, because I think, I think DMT teachers listening would be really interested to see how that that model is working and and some of the things that you're thinking about around that. So hopefully the next year come back, because, you know, just because you come on once that's not enough to talk about. And so I'm going to ask, I'm going to put a link in the show notes to where your thesis is. And, you know, lots of people never want to read the whole thing. 40 50,000 words, it's about 55,000. Yeah, so we really want to kind of nip through to the conclusion, I suppose this is the key key part was you say, I've got the advantage to get the findings recommendations onto two sides of a4 so 869 Okay, right. So we'll put that in the in the show notes. And is there anywhere else that people can find you? Can we put a link to your school and people might want to find out more or reach out to you. Is that possible? Yeah, I'll put I'll happily share the my email address afterwards as well. And I think it'd be quite up get a link for the IoT. I think everyone should have a go at that. Yeah, implicit association test is always entertaining. And it just gets you thinking really? Yeah, we just start, it'd be really interesting. If you had some questions that you could give to people to follow on from that they could go well, why don't we in department do this? And then here's some questions that we could use to talk about it. Yeah, fascinating. And I'm gonna say on here, I gather at some point you are being arm twisted into writing something for publication so that people can see. So you, you write a 55,000 word thesis isn't really palatable for most people. So yes, I probably will have to try and summarise at least some part of it at some point somewhere, and they fight it. But I'm also aware that after getting a paper peer reviewed, is quite a scary process. And that's something I'm quite nervous about. Yeah, it is. So I, I would suggest the pack conference is a really nice way. I remember people telling me early on in my career at Nottingham Trent say, the past conferences, it's just friendly. You know, and there's a whole group of us around who could have a look at staff and give feedback and, and chat. I've got to write my abstract for the pack conference as well and, and get my act together. And yeah, the peer review process is, is scary. I shared earlier about my papers being rejected. And now I can't even bear to read feedback from February of this year. Now I have read it, I have my dad just haven't dealt with it. But yeah, so no, I think it'd be really good to get to get something out there. And to share because what you've discovered, you know, just the three different categories of people. And then the recommendations, I think, that would just help people in their schools in their practice, to to help them think differently and do things differently. So thanks so much, friend, and thanks for your time this afternoon. I've really enjoyed listening and hearing about your work in the conversation. Thank you. I hope I didn't ramble too much.