Gender equity in education: Helping the boys catch up (original) (raw)
Related papers
Gender Equity in Education: A Review of the Literature
1994
This document reviews literature on gender equity in U.S. schools. The paper reports that there is an unconscious ignorance on the growing achievement gap between male and female students. Young women in the United States today still are not participating equally in the education system. A 1992 report found that girls do not receive equitable amounts of teacher attention and that they are less apt than boys to see themselves reflected in the materials they study. The problem seems archaic, but the idealized family of a working father and homemaking mother is a reality in only 6 percent of U.S. households now. As technological advances allow businesses to reduce the number of hours employees work and the number of employees required to do a job, two incomes will usually be necessary to provide basic necessities. By the year 2000, 88.5 percent of new entrants to the work force will be women and minorities. Equity in education must be achieved for the United States to compete effectively in the global marketplace. Many curriculums, which are seen as the central message-giving instrument of schools, are often guilty of ignoring the importance of gender equality in education. Strong messages are being sent to boys and girls about what is important, valued, and acceptable in terms of sex role stereotypes. A 1984 study concluded that females are less likely to be studied in history and read about in literature, mathematics and science problems are more likely to be framed 'n male stereotypic terms, and illustrations in most texts depict a world populated and shaped mostly by males. A 1982 study suggested that the worst effects of a sex stereotyped curriculum has been to make children, especially boys, feel that sex discrimination is a natural process that everybody follows. Another study reports that girls are the only group who enter school scoring ahead, and 12 years later leave school scoring behind. (DK)
We've Come a Long Way-Maybe: New Challenges for Gender Equity in Education
Teachers College Record, 2003
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between school-wide gender equity efforts and seventh grade girls' and boys' educational outcomes and psychological functioning. In this paper, we detail the components of the study, which included documenting that this school did in fact have a gender equitable environment; measuring students' perceptions of gender equity in their school experience, academic achievement, self-esteem, and gender ideologies; and conducting classroom observations, focus groups, and individual interviews with a subset of this sample. Our findings from these efforts yielded an unexpected and intriguing contradiction. Overwhelmingly, teachers and students reported in surveys that they perceived their school to be gender fair. Yet classroom observations and interviews with students bring into view serious differentials in how boys and girls experienced, behaved and were treated in their classrooms. The students read these differences in classroom behaviors as reflecting inherent or natural differences between boys and girls; thus, these differences were experienced as equitable. The article concludes with a discussion of how these findings raise questions about, and issue challenges for, current conceptions of gender equity in schools.
Education from a Gender Equality Perspective
Over the years, education has focused on access and parity—that is, closing the enrollment gap between girls and boys—while insufficient attention has been paid to retention and achievement or the quality and relevance of education. Providing a quality, relevant education leads to improved enrollment and retention, but also helps to ensure that boys and girls are able to fully realize the benefits of education. The primary focus on girls’ access to education may overlook boys’ educational needs. This approach also fails to confront the norms and behaviors that perpetuate inequality.
Achieving gender equality in education: don’t forget the boys
Achieving gender equality in and through education is central to meeting the targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. While the emphasis tends to be on the effects of gender norms on girls, this paper puts the spotlight on the less recognized effects of these norms on boys' schooling, particularly at the secondary level and amongst those from the poorest families. It argues that addressing boys' disadvantage and disengagement in education is an essential part of a response to the challenge of gender inequality, in education and beyond.
Gender Equity and Schooling: Linking Research and Policy
Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation, 1996
In Canada over the last 25 years, a variety of approaches to gender equity and schooling has developed. The history of educational research and policy making on this topic reveals how the two activities have been linked, primarily through the work of teachers and their organizations. Although sex-role socialization theory has been most influential in shaping government policies and pedagogical practices, teachers also have drawn on a wider body of research to inform their work in schools.
Gender and learning: equity, equality and pedagogy
Support for Learning, 2001
In this article on gender and learning Harry Daniels and colleagues suggest that boys experience a contradiction between the cultural messages and practices associated with masculinity (competition and individuality) and the teaching practices typical of successful primary schooling (collaboration and codependency). They consider the impact of this contradiction on the question of boys' underachievement, and their account of the views of children as to whether boys and girls learn the same or differently makes salutary reading. ‘Which pedagogy,’ they ask, ‘suits who best?’
Gender Equity: Educational Problems and Possibilities for Female Students
1991
Although most women are now working outside the home, gender equity in the labor force has not been achieved. Women are still concentrated in low-paying, traditionally female-dominated occupations (such as clerical and retail sales), while most jobs in the higher paying, more prestigious professions are held by men. Despite attempts to reduce discrimination in the workforce, the occupational structure seems unlikely to undergo any substantial change. The continued segregation and underutilization of women in the workforce can have serious consequences in terms of women's psychological and physical well-being; it also has direct economic and income-related implications for women. A large wage gap between men and women still exists, and female-headed households are among the poorest in the country. Cultural expectaticns and gender-role stereotypes, self-esteem and self-confidence, family and life planning, parental influence and fear of success, and problems and solutions are considered. It is the responsibility of teachers, parents, counselors, and school administrators to address gender stereotypes and occupational inequities that negatively influence female students. The following are possible strategies for providing an equitable, gender-fair education to all females: (1) mentor programs; (2) non-traditional role models; (3) curriculum revision; (4) curriculum innovation; (5) teacher/counselor training; (6) parental-male peer awareness; and (7) mathematics and science emphasis. (RLC)
2008
This review paper draws on recent data to map the access and participation rates of girls relative to boys. This paper offers a critical assessment of findings of different recent researches on school education in India identifying the areas that need further research. The paper reveals that while enrolment of girls has increased rapidly since the 1990s, there is still a substantial gap in upper primary and secondary schooling and gender inequalities interlock with other forms of social inequality, notably caste, ethnicity and religion. The paper concludes with recommendation for implementation of enabling policy to meet the challenges for improving the quality of schools ensuring better opportunities for girls at higher levels of education, notably upper primary and secondary schools.