How can we make our classroom environment gender equitable?

Small everyday choices, from how teachers phrase an instruction to who sits next to whom, decide whether a classroom feels fair to every student. This short guide sets out what teachers can change today.

This short guide from the Indian human rights organisation Breakthrough sets out practical steps teachers can take to make everyday classroom life more gender equitable. It opens from the premise that children are not born knowing what it means to be a 'boy' or a 'girl' but absorb these expectations from adults and peers, and that teachers, as trusted adults who spend long hours with children, are well placed to shape this evolution.

The guide provides concrete recommendations, such as avoiding language that singles out 'you boys' or 'you girls', dropping gendered praise such as calling girls pretty and boys brave, mixing seating and project groups across genders, and using gender neutral job titles and examples when discussing careers. The guide also covers subtler dynamics, such as encouraging boys to express emotion and girls to take up leadership and sporting roles, and treating household and classroom chores as shared tasks rather than divided by gender.

Beyond individual behaviour, the guide touches on structural choices available to schools, including fair distribution of leadership positions and committee roles among teachers regardless of gender, clear child safeguarding and reporting procedures, and a gender policy built around dignity and equity.

Key messages

• Teachers can make classrooms more gender equitable through everyday choices: language, seating arrangements, praise and task assignments.
• Avoiding gendered group language ('you boys', 'you girls') and gendered compliments helps students see each other as individuals rather than stereotypes.
• Mixed gender seating and project groups, and gender neutral career examples, can broaden students' sense of what is possible for them.
• Boys benefit from encouragement to express emotion; girls benefit from active encouragement into leadership, sport and STEM subjects.
• Household and classroom chores should be distributed by fairness, not by gender, both at school and in messaging to parents.
• Schools should ensure fair access to leadership and administrative roles for teachers of all genders, not just students.
• A written gender policy, alongside a clear code of conduct and safeguarding procedures, gives structure to day to day efforts to challenge gender bias.