Feminist theory Flashcards
Overall feminist theory of education
role of education is to maintain patriarchy and gender inequality for the
benefit of men and at the disadvantage of women
It does so thorough a variety of ways:
Textbooks
Teacher interactions with students
Student interactions with each other
Curriculum
Subject choice
How do textbooks maintain patriarchy
Language used in textbooks – textbooks tend to use
gendered language (he, him, his, man) when referring to a
person. This downgrades women and makes them seem
invisible thus contributing to the gender socialisation of girls
into being passive.
Images used in textbooks – tend to present men and
women in traditional gender roles, e.g. doctor = male,
nurse = female.
Sociologists to support textbooks theory
Lobban claims that early reading schemes reinforce gender stereotypes
found in the wider society. From a study of 179, she found that only 35
stories had heroines compared to 71 heroes. In 1992, Best found that 75% of female characters were portrayed in domestic roles.
Kelly argues that there is a masculine bias in science texts, in which women are either passive or invisible. Thus examples used in these texts tend to utilise male images and ignore famous female scientists.
Culley argues that computing textbooks tend to show men in decision
making positions and females carrying out deskilled tasks such as inputting
data.
Teachers’ interactions with
students
Research has shown that teachers show more interest in
boys than girls during lessons, asking them more questions
and giving them more help.
Teachers also have higher expectation of boys’
achievement and future careers than of girls.
Teachers’ interactions with
students (support from sociologist)
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.
Hicks found that many female teachers often see male teachers as better educators than females, because men are able to concentrate on their careers more than women. As for male teachers, Spear found that many science teachers are hostile to equal opportunities and express traditional attitudes supporting a subordinate role for women.
Students’ interactions with 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.
Support for Students’ interactions with each other
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.
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.
Curriculum
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,
support for curriculum
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
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.
There is a marked divergence between boys and girls in choices of subjects and careers. Women are clustered in the Arts, Languages and Social Sciences, males in Sciences and Mathematics. This pattern is more marked in co-educational schools where pupil options tend to be more sex stereotyped than in single sex schools.
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.
