Feminism Flashcards
Feminist theory on the role of education and how is this done??
Role of education = to maintain patriarchy + gender inequality for benefit of men and at the disadvantage of women. Does so thorough a variety of ways: Textbooks Teacher interactions with students Student interactions with each other Curriculum Subject choice
Textbooks
Language used – textbooks tend to use gendered language (he, him, his, man) when referring to a person. This downgrades women and makes them seem invisible thus being a part of gender socialisation of girls into being passive.
Images used – tend to present men and women in traditional gender roles, e.g. doctor = male, nurse = female.
Textbook sociologists
Lobban - claims early reading schemes reinforce gender stereotypes found in wider society. From a study of 179, she found only 35 stories had heroines compared to 71 heroes.
Kelly -argues there’s a masculine bias in science texts, women are either passive/invisible. Examples used in these texts tend to utilise male images and ignore famous female scientists.
Culley argues computing textbooks tend to show men in decision making positions and females carrying out deskilled tasks such as inputting data.
Teachers Interactions w/ Students
Research has shown teachers show more interest in boys than girls during lessons, asking them more questions + giving them more help.
Teachers have higher expectation of boys’ achievement +future careers than of girls.
Teachers Interactions w/ Students sociologists
Spender argues that girls get less attention than boys in the classroom + this is a reflection of the domination men have in society as whole. Those w/out power are always most vulnerable and tend to play a submissive role.
Spender argues that girls have to wait longer for what attention they do receive in the classroom.
Stanworth- found that attitudes displayed by teachers impede the educational achievements of girls. Teachers found it more difficult to remember girls’ names than boys. Teachers held stereotypical views about what girls would be doing in the future.
Wolpe- argues that the examples that are used by teachers in an effort to make subjects relevant to everyday life all too often relate mathematical as well as scientific technique to activities which boys can more readily identify than girls.
Students interactions w/ each other
Students can perpetrate gender stereotypes through interaction with each other. For example, a girl who likes sport can be called a tomboy, while boys who show ‘feminine’ characteristics such as crying or caring about someone may be teased and called names.
Students interactions w/ each other sociologists
Kelly argues that boys take control of science and technology lessons, for example by monopolising equipment for experiments. This limits the female students’ abilities to participate fully in science lessons. Culley noticed the same process in computing lessons, where male domination of the computers created an uncomfortable social space for those female students who wished to participate.
Spender argues that females are usually treated dismissively by the males present. Boys often insult girls, yet teachers fail to tell them off for doing this.
Curriculum
In terms of what is taught in different subjects, women tend to be missing from the content of subjects or are in the background, e.g. in History students learn about Henry VIII and his six wives or why Elizabeth I never got married, in English they study the works of male authors, the Feminist theory on the role of education has been missed out of your textbook, etc.
Curriculum sociologists
The 1975 report on curricular differentiation noted that 98% of co-educational schools segregate boys and girls for some aspects of their work, e.g. in PE lessons. When boys and girls are taught together in mixed classes the style of teaching may incline pupils to believe that the subject is more appropriate for one sex than another.
Kelly suggests that boys and girls come to share the view that certain branches of science - chemistry, physics, electronics - are more suitable for men. Language can very easily convey the idea that men are the initiators, the creators, the active agents. The effect of word usage such as the term ‘man’ to mean humans is to filter out the recognition of women’s participation in major areas of life.
Subject Choice
Girls tend to choose ‘feminine’ subjects such as English, Health and Social Care, while boys tend to chose ‘masculine’ subjects such as Maths, Science, Business, IT. These choices can affect their future careers.
Subject Choice sociologists
Riddell claims that free choice in relation to subjects studied tends to reinforce gender stereotypes. In other words, when given free choice of the subjects to study, girls stir away from high status subjects such as Science as a result of gender scripts proscribed by the wider society.
Arnot argues that the introduction of the Technical and Vocational Education Initiative, with its emphasis on gender equality, actually did little to achieve gender equality. She suggests that, given a free choice, girls and boys tend to respond according to society’s views of what is proper for each gender.
Statistics show that girls are the most underrepresented in the subjects that lead to high status occupations. These are not surprisingly areas such as Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Technology.
Criticisms of feminism
Feminists tend to ignore the improvements made to the education system since the 1960s which have decreased gender inequalities.
