I teach 6th class, mixed school in a rural setting. I think it definitely depends on the class in front of you…but this years class ticked all the boxes for gender stereotypical behaviour ie. the boys played soccer at break times, girls never joined in as they claimed the boys were too rough (this particular group were very rough) girls were doing each others hair, played basketball or volleyball at breaks. All First World problems, I am sure of that. I spent a lot of time choosing the class novel and selected the book “Kick”, about a boy who dreamed of being a footballer in Indonesia and made football bootsin a factory to support his family. this book was a game changer for our class and opened up many discussions for us..the role of women in developing countries, we looked at the rights of the child and compared ours to Budi, the main character.
IN our end of year school production, some of the “big” personalities dressed up as girls in our show, they had the confidence to do this…our show wwas Sleeping Beauty the Ugly Truth, which again highlighted thr importance of inner beauty, reagardless of sex, gender, social position.