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Closing the Salary Gap

 

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Subjects
  • Mathematics
    Arithmetic, Statistics
  • Social Studies
    Current Events, Economics, Sociology
  • Vocational Education
    Business

Grades

  • 6-8
  • 9-12

Brief Description

Students explore careers in their community and calculate the average salaries for men and women working in those careers.

Objectives

Students will

  • learn about a variety of careers available in their community,
  • explore the salaries for both men and women working in those careers,
  • calculate the difference between average salaries for men and for women,
  • calculate the percentage of difference between those averages.

Keywords

careers, salary, averages, women

Materials Needed

Lesson Plan

  • Discuss the information provided in the Median Annual Income of Year-Round, Full-Time Workers 25-34 Years Old, as a percentage of the labor force, by sex, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment: 1995 to 2014 table.
  • Brainstorm with students some types of careers available in your community. Students might mention, for example, education, medicine, politics, manufacturing, retail, farming, and so on.
  • Arrange students into groups, and have each group select a different career category.
  • Ask each student to choose a job within his or her assigned category. Students in the medical group, for example, might choose doctor, nurse, paramedic, home health worker, and hospital administrator.
  • Have each student contact, by mail or e-mail, professional organizations or government offices in your area to learn the salary ranges for both men and women working in that chosen job.
  • Ask each group to create a chart displaying the average salary for both men and women working in all jobs researched by the group.
  • Have each group calculate the dollar difference between the average salaries of men and women working in the same job and add that information to the chart.
  • Have each group calculate the percentage difference between the average salaries of men and women working in the same job and add that information to the chart.
  • Encourage students in each group to present their chart to the class. Discuss the results.

Extension activity:
Invite community members working in some of those jobs to visit the class and discuss the pluses and minuses of their chosen careers.

Assessment

Evaluate students based on the information in their charts and the accuracy of their mathematical calculations.

Lesson Plan Source

Education World

Submitted By

Linda Starr

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Last updated 2/21/2017