Ina picks flowers, while Klaus rides a motorcycle: a quantitative text analysis of gender stereotypes in German standardized spelling tests

Abstract

While designed to assess spelling, spelling tests often embed specific content within their items. This content could also contain depictions of gender roles or cultural norms. The aim of this study was to investigate whether female and male characters in German-language spelling tests are portrayed in a gender-stereotypical manner. We expected that female characters would be more likely to be portrayed in stereotypically feminine roles, while male characters would be more likely to be depicted in stereotypically masculine roles and conducted two studies with different methodological approaches to test our hypotheses. Study 1 comprised two consecutive quantitative text analyses: First, seven raters assessed the textual content of the five German-language spelling tests recommended by the German Society for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie e.V.; 2015). They categorized all subjects presented in the material as male, female, gender neutral, generically masculine, or non-human. Second, the subjects characterized as female or male were further analyzed to determine the roles and activities they were depicted in. Male subjects were more frequently presented in the test material than female subjects, and female characters were more likely to be depicted in parental or caregiving roles or in other caregiving professions. Male subjects were more likely to be depicted in professional and leadership positions, engaging in heavy (physical) housework or pursuing careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. Study 2 was a quantitative analysis of a subset of the spelling test material from Study 1, with the gender of the subjects masked. Then, 143 participants rated the subjects in the text on a scale of typical masculinity or femininity. The results of Study 2 suggest that the spelling test material contained gender stereotypes. We conclude that standardized spelling tests may contain and elicit gender stereotypes among students and recommend the implementation of our findings in educational materials.