Gender Public Advocacy Coalition : About GenderPAC: WASHINGTON – A new study shows that teachers tend to view the behavior of black girls as not 'ladylike' and therefore focus disciplinary action on encouraging behaviors like passivity, deference, and bodily control at the expense of curiosity, outspokenness, and assertiveness. Based on two years' observation at a Texas middle school, the Ohio University study found that teachers' class- and race-based assumptions of black femininity made them more likely to discourage behaviors and characteristics that lead to class involvement and educational success. The teachers' actions appeared to be less the result of conscious racism or sexism than an unwitting tendency to view the behavior of black girls through a different lens than that of their peers.
