Gender and Education
Gender and education refers to the study of how gender influences educational experiences, opportunities, and outcomes. It encompasses the examination of gender disparities in access to education, curriculum content, teaching methods, and the impact of societal expectations on educational achievement. This field also explores strategies to promote gender equality and inclusivity within educational institutions.
8 Key excerpts on "Gender and Education"
- Kate Ashcroft, Stephen Bigger, David Coates(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 6 Gender DOI: 10.4324/9781315041711-6 In the last 15 years there have been enormous advances in women's education. More and more lecturers are familiar with equal opportunities issues. This does not mean that no problems remain to be investigated and resolved. Women and men are still concentrated in particular subject areas. Women are still under-represented in better paid sectors and in senior positions in employment, including in colleges and universities, and there is increasing concern about the quality of the educational experiences and achievements of some boys and men. In this chapter, we start by looking at some of the ways that gender and sexual equality are defined. We consider a variety of theoretical frameworks that you might choose to use in an analysis of gender issues. We look at the link between gender roles and societal norms and values. We consider the effects of a person's sexual orientation upon her or his educational opportunities and experience. We explore the notion that men and women can each be both educationally advantaged and disadvantaged; and look into the effects of gender on career choice and opportunities. We consider the effects of patterns of hierarchy on women's careers in education. Finally, we examine factors in successful gender policy-making. 1 Approaches to Gender and Equality in Education Issues of gender often interrelate with those of social class and race. In considering gender, and in analysing data from the research tasks, it may be important to think about this interrelationship. If you are going to research in this area, it is also important to be clear about the terms 'sex' and 'gender'. Gender refers to the socially constructed roles and expectations that we have of girls, boys, men and women. Sex refers to biological differences. Thus, one might refer to sex differences in achievement being related to gender, but it would be incorrect to talk about gender differences in subject choice being related to sex...
eBook - ePubThe Sociology of Education
A Systematic Analysis
- Jeanne Ballantine, Jenny Stuber, Judson Everitt(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...In fact, the totality of evidence suggests advantages and disadvantages for both males and females in the educational system—whether measured in terms of learning, grades, educational attainment, or eventual earnings. This chapter explores gender differences and inequalities in educational experiences and outcomes. Returning to the open systems approach, students are considered both inputs and outputs in the educational system. Students are inputs in the sense that they are one of the “raw materials” or resources that enter the school system to be “processed.” They are outputs in the sense that schools are tasked with transforming students into graduates who, ideally, have been successfully socialized and who have gained the human capital needed to enter work or higher education. Throughout this chapter, we explore the experiences of students in schools based on gender, examining how educational experiences may reproduce existing inequalities, as well as how schools can operate as sites for social change. GENDER SOCIALIZATION AT HOME AND SCHOOL Gender is one of the primary traits around which society is structured. Gender refers to the set of social distinctions that differentiate men and women ; it is a socially learned and enacted role. Sex, by contrast, refers to the set of biological characteristics that differentiate males and females. Although sex and gender in the U.S. have historically been treated as a binary—that is, two categories, male and female—more gender identities have emerged over time, including transgender and nonbinary. Sociologists are now starting to explore those, as well. The family, schools, and media are settings in which we learn our gender roles and reproduce gender differences. In this section we first show patterns of gender socialization at home...
eBook - ePubGender in the Classroom
Foundations, Skills, Methods, and Strategies Across the Curriculum
- David Sadker, Ellen S. Silber, David Sadker, Ellen S. Silber(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Educators will not all agree, we know, about the scope of what comes under the heading of social studies education, which is and always has been a controversial enterprise. Because it is normative and rests on values and the interpretation of values in action, we know that some teachers, schools, and communities will come to different conclusions about even so fundamental an issue as equity. That is why it is important to recognize that this chapter addresses the subject of gender balancing the curriculum from the standpoint of both equity and effectiveness. We must underscore the point that teaching with an eye to gender and diversity produces more effective learning in students. We suspect most teachers will recognize the truth in this statement. How far you will travel with us, however, in promoting a vision of global citizenship tied to social action for social justice is probably less certain. The work of social studies educators must involve the task of moving the institutions with which they are associated toward greater equity and fairness for all individuals, boys and girls, and fellow citizens of this nation and planet. Accomplishing these goals, even in a small way, means moving the curriculum outside the classroom and school by bringing national and global issues inside the classroom. One manageable way of doing this with a particular emphasis on gender and diversity might be to look at the media and its socialization of gender roles and treatment of diversity. So many boys and girls get their notions about what it means to be men and women from the media. Likewise, depictions of racial and ethnic groups can often be quite stereotypical in popular culture. Educating students to critical media literacy will help undermine the corrosive effects on both young men and women of these images...
eBook - ePubEducation and Sociology
An Encyclopedia
- David Levinson, Peter Cookson, Alan Sadovnik, David Levinson, Peter Cookson, Alan Sadovnik(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Our task in the present chapter is to track such feminist expressions and their diverse forms in the sociology of education 1. Broadly speaking, in this chapter we map diverse feminist theoretical perspectives and their impact on educational analyses within the “sociology of education.” We also highlight the contemporary issues that have emerged as a result of such analyses. We are well aware of the unpopularity of, and problems associated with, such “mapping exercises” (see Middleton, 1993). 2 However, it is our belief that readers must have access to the “constructed” histories of a field, in particular, its “contents” and links to the study of education. Capturing the essence of this history and its contemporary representations is essential to the formulation of new perspectives on the study of gender in education. However, in qualifying the nature of our task, it must be said that we treat this account as one story about Gender and Education that, like all other stories, is open to “further deconstruction” (Norris, 1982). The Development of Gender in Education as a Field of Study One of the first sociological attempts in the United Kingdom to view gender as a theoretical construct was the work of Ann Oakley (1972). She argued that if gender, as opposed to sex, was a social category then it could be applied to the study of socialization and society, not just sex differences. Oakley’s (1972) work therefore set the tone for developing the concept of “gender” as analytically, as well as politically, preferable to the concept of “sex” (i.e., biological distinctions between men and women) in sociological analyses of gender in education. Two key texts illustrated the direction that such a gendered analysis of education could go. Eileen Byrne’s (1978) book, Women and Education, was the first to document the myriad ways in which sexual discrimination manifested itself in the U.K. education system...
eBook - ePub- Miriam E. David, Marilyn J. Amey(Authors)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications Ltd(Publisher)
...154). However, this perspective misses the fact that gender is a key organizer of society, producing not only inequality between men and women but also reflecting deep ideologies that create an enduring and pervasive division of labor that assigns differential life chances and statuses to occupations and activities performed by women and men. The relative status and conditions of women and men are not merely a manifestation of inequality but rather the profound consequence of gendered ways in which both modern and traditional societies have been structured across time and space. Increased ties among the government, the university, and private firms have boosted the status of research over teaching, particularly research that focuses on practical, saleable products and services rather than basic research or humanistic concerns. The high level of interest in sales and the low level of self-reflection on institutional and individual bases does not bode well for consideration of gender in more comprehensive and socially beneficial ways. Gender in the Higher Education Curricula Given the increasing specialization in fields of study in the early 21st century, little concern is assigned to the transmission of knowledge of universal value past the provision of a general education curriculum in the early (undergraduate) years of university study. Not surprisingly, universities express scant preoccupation with the incorporation of gender issues in their departments and programs. The discipline of economics that dominates the social sciences and is highly influential in policy circles epitomizes what is happening to the treatment of gender. Economics continues to be characterized by a framework that is gender blind and conceives of rationality essentially as profit-driven behavior, paying little attention to the role of ideology and social norms in shaping the decision-making of individuals. Research on business schools in U.S...
- tavis d. jules, Robin Shields, Matthew A. M. Thomas, Tavis D. Jules, Robin Shields, Matthew A. M. Thomas(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...GAD theorists view gender as an adjective as well as a noun, and point out that the gendered nature of the structures, institutions, practices, pedagogies, etc. that comprise education and development often disadvantage females. Even as GAD scholars have emphasized the need to transform education for greater gender equity and empowerment, much of their work has remained focused on improving wellbeing for women and girls worldwide. In contrast, the final group of scholars, those who also conceptualize gender as a process of becoming—a verb—extend gender work beyond the historic emphasis on girls and women to attend to more categories and processes of meaning and identity, such as sexuality, gender identity, and the intersections with race, class, situatedness within global systems of power, and knowledge production, etc. These scholars draw on a collection of gender-related and emancipatory theories including queer theory, post-colonial theory, and theories of intersectionality. We employ this grammatical framework to examine these approaches to gender in the hopes of historicizing and enlivening their contributions within the field of CIE. OVERVIEW AND APPLICATION TO COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION Gender the noun: WID emphasizes females’ access to education and development The first gender-focused movement to influence the field of CIE, the WID movement, was established within the related field of international development. Within this framework, gender is conceptualized as a noun, is typically synonymous with the category of biological sex, and its usage implies a focus on a homogenous typology of women and their inclusion in international development efforts...
eBook - ePubFrom 'Aggressive Masculinity' to 'Rape Culture'
An Educational Philosophy and Theory Gender and Sexualities Reader, Volume V
- Liz Jackson, Michael A. Peters, Liz Jackson, Michael A. Peters(Authors)
- 2018(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 2 Education for sexism A theoretical analysis of the sex/gender bias in education Bronwyn Davies Editors' introduction Bronwyn Davies focuses in this article on understanding how and why gender differences emerge in educative processes. Davies is critical of what she discusses as role socialisation theory, giving a feminist-inspired analysis of the ways in which this perspective obscures the role of children as persons with agency and an active sense of self, which they participate in developing over time. She goes on to critically evaluate social reproduction theory, before considering the ways a feminist theory of discourse can help make sense of how young people identify as gendered and sexual beings in education and society in the context of large societal perspectives and values. As Davies notes, these perspectives and values can be seen to entrench a gender binary and sexist orientation, wherein men and maleness are the norm and women and femaleness are deficient or deviant. Davies articulates as a resolution to this issue the need to engage in critical discourse against gender binary thinking, and she considers different methods for proceeding in such work. The article is a strong example of how feminist philosophy was brought to bear in educational theorising in the late 1980s, foreshadowing works that more emphatically rejected the gender binary in the twenty-first century. Equity According to Kristeva (1981 and 1986) the feminist struggle, must be seen historically and politically as a three tiered one, consisting of the fight for: equal access to the male symbolic order; equal right to have one’s way of being legitimated by the educational system; and the right to a symbolic order that does not have as its basic underpinning the male female duality. Moi has schematically summarized these as follows: Women demand access to the symbolic order. Liberal feminism. Equality. Women reject the male symbolic order in the name of difference. Radical feminism...
eBook - ePub- Emily W. Kane, Phil Jones(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...The basic question of whether boys and girls receive equitable opportunities to pursue schooling is one that has received much attention internationally, and that question is the first one addressed in Chapter 5. International organizations like the UN have developed programmes to encourage gender equity in education, and many national governments have addressed the issue as well. Along with progress and initiatives in support of educational opportunities for both boys and girls, the literature reviewed in that chapter reveals controversies, tensions and complex intersections among gender, religion, social class, ability/disability, ethnicity and a host of other factors. Connell, introduced in Chapter 2, argues in a 2010 essay that the international Education for All initiative (discussed in Chapter 5) offers some promise, but is also highly problematic in that it simplifies gender to a binary contrast between boys and girls, focuses on school enrolment numbers rather than the content of curriculum and treats boys as the baseline rather than carefully assessing their experiences in school. Both school enrolment statistics and the more nuanced questions of curriculum, teacher expectations and peer interactions are explored in Chapter 5, with examples from around the world. Chen and Rao (2011), for instance, document gendering practices among Chinese kindergarten teachers, concluding: ‘Teachers interacted with boys significantly more than girls. They also subtly conveyed traditional Chinese gender values through their repeated use of gendered routines in the kindergartens and their behaviors reflected gender stereotypes’ (103)...
