Media Stereotypes and Their Impacts on Youth

A Common Sense survey which investigates how on-screen stereotypes affect kids' development found that many of the movies and TV shows children watch reinforce rigid and stereotypical gender roles, and parents worry about the influence those stories can have on their kids' ideas about what counts as acceptable behavior, how relationships work, and even what jobs they can have.

Some of the key findings include:

-       The media reinforces the idea that masculine traits and behaviors are more valued than feminine traits and behaviors, and boys who consume these media messages are more likely to exhibit masculine behaviors and beliefs.

-       In adolescence, media use is associated with more tolerant views of sexual harassment and more support for the belief that women are at least partially responsible for their own sexual assaults.

-       The television programs and films that children and adolescents watch reinforce traditional gender stereotypes.

-       Heavier viewing of gender-traditional TV and film content is linked to the expression of more rigid beliefs about what men and women do and are and how they behave.

-       As children enter adolescence, media provide lessons on how they are expected to behave in romantic and sexual situations, and these lessons are strongly gendered.

Common Sense Media (2017). Watching gender: How stereotypes in movies and on TV impact kids’ development. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media. https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/research/commonsense_watchinggender-topline_release.pdf

Infusion of Technology in Schools

Education Week releases this special report investigating the impact technology is having in K-12 schools as digital learning tools flood classrooms across the country. The report reveals that technology is failing to reach its full potential in K-12 schools, despite the rapid infusion of new devices and technologies into the classroom. Further, disparities in technology access and adoption, and in the ways new tools are integrated into instruction, may be fueling a new digital divide that threatens to exacerbate long-standing inequities and separate education’s haves and have-nots along new fault lines. An analysis of federal data from the Education Week Research Center examines schools’ access to high-speed internet, passive vs. active uses of technology, and teacher training needs.

Education Week (2017). New report from Education Week shows classroom technology fails to reach full potential in K-12 schools. Bethesda, MD: Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/media/techcounts2017_release.pdf

Refugee Students Effects on Classmates Academic Achievement

A working paper from researchers at Northwestern University and the American Institutes for Research found no evidence that refugee students have a negative effect on the behavior or academic achievement of their schoolmates. In examining the effects of a large refugee influx into Florida public schools following the Haitian earthquake of 2010 using unique matched birth and schooling records, the researchers found precise zero estimated effects of refugees on the educational outcomes of incumbent students in the year of the earthquake or in the two years that follow, regardless of the socioeconomic status, grade level, ethnicity, or birthplace of incumbent students. This study is important because it may help sway the opinions of some parents and faculty oppose reintegration of displaced refugees or minorities into the schools.

Figlio, D. N., & Özek, U. (2017). Unwelcome guests? The effects of refugees on the 

educational outcomes of incumbent students. National Bureau of Economic Research 

Working Paper Series, (23661). https://dx.doi.org/10.3386/w23661