Race, Class and Gender in Education
The Sadker and Sadker article for today highlighted the gender divide in today's schools. They show that the separation of gender roles is not solely established by the teacher's neglect of females. However, the fact that teachers pay more attention to boys, even if it is negative, adds to the neutral role of girls. It appears as if girls are so good that they do not matter. From this, boy can justify their separation from the "supspecies" of girls.
Jonathon Kozol focuses on the economic divide within America's schools. He stated taht there is no real equity; it is just close enough that no one can make a significant complaint. While the poor know that they are missing out and that nothing can be done to change it, the rich justify the disparity with their own "unfair disadvantatges." He ended with a profound finding that this is not a problem that can be fixed once it occurs. People only have one childhood, and they cannot be given what they lost out on as an adult. This is just that the skills the rich were given as children cannot be taken away.
Jay Macleod concluded that no matter what, we are all trapped in the game, whether we want to play or not. The whites in his study had no desire to work and a very bleak vier on the future. The blacks, on the other hand, saw the importance in education and wanted something better for themselves. Sadly, in the end, neigher group achieved much better than where they where when they started.
While reading for today, I was reminded of the bleak reality for the disadvantaged that I grew up in. While I see the validity within the Sadker and Sadker article (as I had seen it before myself), I think that it neglects many positive, pro-female actions that schools across America are taking now. The article makes it sound as if no progress has been made in gender roles for the past 30 years. Kozol's article, to me, holds a lot of ground and I agree with everything that he highlights. The rich work so hard to keep their position in socitey that they blind themselves to the injustice that they are doing. Macleods article was simply depressing. There is virtually no opportunity for either of the races in the lower class to advance. So which is better, to have a false hope, or no hope at all?
Discussion Questions
1. If teachers were to rigidly enforce the equality of genders to students, would that even affect the separation that the students put in place themselves? Would gender roles really disappear if females were more encouraged?
2. With the realisitic view that educational funds will not be equally distributed for a long time, is it better to continue with the false pretense that all children in America have the same opportunities? In other words, should we just let the disadvanted know of what they have lost by simply being born poor and from this they would not have false hope that they can escape their current life?
Comments
In response to question 2:
I believe that the gender roles established by children themselves are not really established by the children themselves. This may sound confussing, but children are taught everything they know up to a certain age when they can then branch out and discover things on their own. Therefore, I believe that if teachers, parents, doctors, and everyone in direct communicary contact with children of a young age could change their perspective methods of dealing with girls and boys their would be a profound change. For example, if teachers gave girls more of a chance to participate in the classroom they would have greater opportunity to develop a strong sense of self esteem and thus have the courage to speak up to men in later life stuations. Girls and boys base their social interactions upon their enviornmental stimulus.
Posted by: Anna Sievert | March 22, 2007 2:19 PM
Response to 1: I don't think so. It's not nearly that simple. It's incredibly hard to step away from societal norms and expectations... which is to be expected, since society is functioning properly when it instills those in people.
Response to 2: I guess I don't understand what you're proposing here. So, instead of selling the American Dream and telling the poor that they COULD escape a life of poverty through hard work, luck, etc etc, we tell them that they can't, and better luck next time?
That seems like a quick path towards a nice, bloody revolution. Also, while the picture is bleak, I'm not sure it's quite as bleak as you're making it out to be. There are people in this country who care, who are working to change societal injustice, and being born poor is not necessarily a prison sentence.
Sports, education, and the military are all viable paths (although not always possible) to climb out of poverty.
Furthermore, crime is an option. Seriously. If you're born dirt poor and you think you can't get anywhere through the normal social ladder, crime starts looking like a pretty lucrative industry to improve your situation. It's not happy or pretty, but it's there.
You won't get very far by rubbing poverty in the faces of the poor.
Posted by: Cam | March 24, 2007 11:25 AM
I think if there was a way for teachers to consciously quit enforcing gender roles a lot of the gender separation would disappear. If students no longer thought of themselves in terms of "boy" or "girl" but all as students, they would all have to play the same role. Things like teachers setting up boy lines and girl lines really obviously stress that there are separate groups. Things like calling on boys more often than on girls more subtly divide the students by gender. If all those little divisions could be eliminated, I think the students would see each other all as students, not as boys and girls.
The only gender inequalities that would be left, would be the ones learned at home and ones due to biology. Children would still be bringing with them expectations about gender that they have seen elsewhere, which probably cannot be taken away when in an "equal" classroom. Also, as brought up in Thursday's discussion, many boys are more immature for their age and slower learners than girls. This could lead to the majority of the students that are getting extra attention because they need it being boys.
Posted by: Sally | March 25, 2007 10:34 AM
Question number 2 assumes that few if any people transition out of poverty because of educational opportunities, which is clearly not the case. While there are clusters of people that remain in poverty for substantial periods of time, those in poverty often transition out, which clearly doesn’t mean that they become millionaires afterwards. Nonetheless a great draw for immigrants is the American Dream and the availability of opportunity.
Personally my family immigrated to the United States when I was 4 and we came here with literally a few hundred dollars. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that at times my family lived in poverty yet by the time I entered elementary school I was attending high performing schools, which continued to be the case through high school. Ironically I attended one of the high performing high schools that Jonathon Kozol describes in his book.
Some people definitely enter the world at an economic disadvantage but it is far from impossible to break out of the class you’re born into. We don’t live in a feudal society and assuming that the disadvantaged have nothing but “false hope� is ludicrous. Though injustice does exist in our society, the American Dream still exists.
Posted by: Sandra Jackiewicz | March 25, 2007 3:59 PM