The research presented in the article focused on negative prescriptive stereotypes of femininity and masculinity. The aim of the research performed was to identify definitions of non-femininity and non-masculinity of student women. The study was conducted using a diagnostic survey method and a self-completed survey questionnaire on a randomly selected sample of 1152 female students. Statistical processing was performed in the PS IMAGO statistical package. Analysis revealed that female students’ definitions of non-femininity and non-masculinity mainly reflect the traditional model of femininity and masculinity, but attitudes towards the obligatory validity of this model are waning.

The education system and its role in reproducing gender inequality have been discussed in different European countries for over 40 years. The research-based reports from 16 European countries delivered to European Commission within Exchange of Good Practice on Gender Equality forum created a unique opportunity to learn about the main themes, intensity and stages of development of gender and education discourse across Europe. The analysis of the situation in various countries revealed some differences and similarities in the approach to introducing gender in education between post-communist countries and countries with long-time history of gender equality debate. The areas of difference refer to social perception of gender, discrepancy between official legislation and practice, cooperation with educational authorities, textbooks contents and attitude to sexual education. The major similarities concern teachers’ awareness and attitudes, gender gap between boys and girls in scholastic achievements, segregation in vocational choice and feminization of teaching profession. The country overview allows to locate Poland on the map of this European discourse as well as to show inspiring examples coming from the countries far more developed in introducing gender sensitive mechanisms in educational practice.

This paper is devoted to three basic problems: gender stereotypes, styles of sexual education and the relation between these two phenomena. The main question is: do the styles of sexual education experienced in a family determine the tendency to use gender stereotypes? Basing on the literature, a hypothetical model of relation between styles of sexual education and gender stereotypes was constructed. The model was a source of investigations conducted by the author and described in the paper. Young adults’ tendency to use gender stereotypes seems to be determined by their mothers’ stereotypes and by three styles of sexual education experienced in their families.

The ‘Always Mediocre’ Writing of a Nobel Laureate in Literature: The Critical Reception of Grazia Deledda

The reception of the work of Grazia Deledda (1871–1936) is a conspicuous paradox. Although she was a successful author and a Nobel Prize winner (1926), she is little known and little studied, especially when compared with the other Nobel laureates, in particular male ones. My aim is to investigate the origins of Deledda’s ‘misfortune’ by exploring the common issues critics raised with respect to Deledda’s books in her day. One of those was, prominently, Deledda’s alleged imperfect style, a recurring theme in criticism throughout her career. Also, the Sardinian dimension of her works left no critic indifferent and led to her writing often being reduced to ‘regional’ or ‘folkloric.’ Many critics insisted that Deledda’s Sardinia, little known on the ‘Continent’ at the time, enjoyed considerable success precisely because of its ‘exotic’ quality. Finally, Deledda’s status as a woman writer was a salient factor in the reception of her work. Indeed, critics tended to adopt a condescending, or even sexist, tone, whether their assessment of Deledda’s work was favourable or detractive, which was a real commonplace in the reception of women authors back then. My aim is to investigate the role of these issues in the exclusion from the canon of a writer who has remained unique in Italian literature to this day.

Stereotype threat (ST) is a situation in which an individual is apprehensive that he or she may confirm a negative stereotype about the social group to which they belong or that they will be judged through the lens of negative stereotypes (Steele & Aronson, 1995). A large body of research showed that ST affects African Americans in intelligence or verbal tasks, people from families with low economic and social status in intelligence tests and women in math and logic tasks. A common immediate effect of ST is the deterioration of performance in the stereotyped field. However, the long-term effect may be the individual’s withdrawal from such a domain even though he or she is predisposed to achieve success in it. ST appears in children at an early school age and may affect them throughout their lives. Therefore, it is important to combat this phenomenon. There are effective ways to reduce this psychological state and many of them require cooperation from teachers and educators.