Gendered Education Communication in Schools

By the end of this unit, you should be able to: Identify ways that boys and girls are disadvantaged in schools Identify policies that are applied to female and male athletes in schools Identify ways that students are pressured into conforming to ideas of masculinity and femininity Identify things we can do on our campus to help decrease discrimination and disadvantage based on sex and gender.

Academics Boys are developmentally disadvantaged – Verbal Skills – Lag behind in reading and writing Women outnumber boys in higher education – 57% of Undergraduate Students are women – 59% of Graduate Students are women – 20.1 million women have college degrees while only 18.7 million men do

Academics Girls are rewarded for completing work, reading and writing well, and being obedient – Discourages independence Women drop out of math and science fields because of discouragement from faculty and peers – However with equal opportunity and training, mean and women perform equally well

Academics Gender Non-conforming students – Gender Binary norm is imbedded in schools – Assumption of heterosexuality Gender-Stereotyped Curriculum – Betsy Ross – Mother Jones

Reflection If you could make three changes in elementary schools, with the goal of making them work better for boys and girls, what changes would you make?

Athletics Female students enjoy more opportunities now because of Title IX – Women must be provided equal opportunity to sports – College must provide female athletes with proportional scholarship dollars – Equivalent equipment, practice times, travel, facilities, support, etc.

Athletics Male athletes and coaches still have more support – Few women’s sports are coached by women – Division I colleges pay male coaches more – College and universities try to skew numbers Count women multiple times Count men as women if they practice with women Count female athletes who don’t play or are cut after the numbers are reported

Athletics

Gender Pressures from Peers Pressures to conform to masculinity – Drinking, sex, sports Pressures to conform to femininity – Wear popular clothes, be attractive, be fun

Gender Pressures from Peers Culture of romance – encourages women students to regard being attractive to men as more important than academics and career preparation Effortless perfection – pressure felt by women students in college to be beautiful, fit, popular, smart, and accomplished… without visible effort

Gender Pressure from Peers Even faculty can be affected by gender expectations and pressures – Men tend to hold higher positions in education – Fewer female and minority role models – Evaluation biases – women and minorities score higher if the evaluation is blind – Hard for men as well – harder for men to be good faculty members and a good parent – Invisible Hand Discrimination – unintentional discrimination applied to policies that are not meant to be biased

Single Sex Schools Would single sex schools solve the gender problem in education?

The Bro Whisperer In your groups: – Discuss and summarize the article – What do you think it means to “be a man” at Kent State University? – Do you think movements like “Party With Consent” would work on our campus? Why or why not? – What do you think about Kimmel’s suggestion to only allow sororities to host events where alcohol is present?

What did we learn? Both boys/men and girls/women are disadvantaged in school Title IX helps provide equal opportunities to female athletes, but there are still some discrepancies between male and female sports Peers and faculty pressure us to conform to ideas of masculinity and femininity while in school There are things we can do on our campus to help decrease discrimination and disadvantage based on sex and gender.