Abstract

• This study intends to investigate University of Education student teachers’ gender awareness and attitude towards gender equality and compare postgraduate and undergraduate student teachers’ gender awareness and attitude. Two hundred and twenty postgraduate student teachers and two hundred and forty undergraduate student teachers from Yangon University of Education and Sagaing University of Education were involved as participants. A descriptive research design was adopted for this study. A survey questionnaire was used to investigate student teachers’ gender awareness of personality related behaviors and job related behaviors, and attitudes towards gender equality, and open-ended items oriented to reveal student teachers’ expectations and attitudes in terms of treating the issue of gender equality. The reliability of instrument was calculated through pilot testing with (30) student teachers. The internal consistency (Cronbach’s Alpha) of the questionnaire was (.749). Moreover, the collected quantitative data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage, and inferential statistics of independent samples ‘t’ test. The qualitative data were interpreted by categorizing the common points. Quantitative findings revealed that 70% of postgraduate student teachers and 45% of undergraduate student teachers have gender awareness of personality related behaviors and 56% of postgraduate student teachers and 49% of undergraduate student teachers have gender awareness of job related behaviors. The family or environment of postgraduate student teachers (78%) and undergraduate student teachers (74%) have the attitude towards gender equality. Further, the findings indicated that all student teachers accepted in union that all males and females should have equal right in gender.