Equal Treatment of Boys and of Girls in Content and Methods of Skill Development in the School
Equal Treatment of Boys and of Girls in Content and Methods of Skill Development in the School
Content of skill development
Knowledge communicated in class is frequently presented in a one-sided and incomplete manner. In classes in the sciences, history, art and music it is still frequently achievements of men that are taught without reference to their personal environment or indeed even to German culture. Women and other cultures tend to be ignored, which results in myopic perception and one-sidedness. Knowledge is communicated in a more proper way if subjects are not presented in a supposedly gender neutral way but in a way that includes a gender perspective. For instance, a discussion of “work” can be far more differentiated if the gender-based segregation of the labor market and gender-specific division of labor are also included, since paid employment and housework can be discussed just as much as voluntary and honorary work.
Today, gender equality is important for society as a whole and as a direction-setting influence in people’s lives. So “gender equality” should be taken up as a topic in the curriculum as being part of the preparation for life provided by the school. This includes thinking about your own identity – am I a boy, a girl, healthy, ill, poor, rich, did I grow up with German as my native language, in the Jewish faith...?
The school can make a considerable contribution to promoting gender competence in terms of language. Things must be described correctly anyway, so this should include describing them in a way that differentiates in terms of gender. For instance, the German word for “doctors” (“Ärzte”) is often used indiscriminately to mean both male and female doctors, even though there is a female form of the word (“Ärztinnen”). (“Die Ärtzte” are incidentally also a rock band in Germany.)
Methods for developing skills
The attribution of characteristics, behaviors, interests, abilities and activities to different people influences, consciously or unconsciously, the way in which some skills and not others are developed by girls and boys. It is therefore important to pay attention in the behavior of teachers and in selecting teaching materials that no stereotypes are reproduced. Women do sport too, and men can cook; some girls and some boys are technically skilled and not all girls or all boys are alike in all respects. A few examples will make this clear:
Knowledge communicated in class is frequently presented in a one-sided and incomplete manner. In classes in the sciences, history, art and music it is still frequently achievements of men that are taught without reference to their personal environment or indeed even to German culture. Women and other cultures tend to be ignored, which results in myopic perception and one-sidedness. Knowledge is communicated in a more proper way if subjects are not presented in a supposedly gender neutral way but in a way that includes a gender perspective. For instance, a discussion of “work” can be far more differentiated if the gender-based segregation of the labor market and gender-specific division of labor are also included, since paid employment and housework can be discussed just as much as voluntary and honorary work.
Today, gender equality is important for society as a whole and as a direction-setting influence in people’s lives. So “gender equality” should be taken up as a topic in the curriculum as being part of the preparation for life provided by the school. This includes thinking about your own identity – am I a boy, a girl, healthy, ill, poor, rich, did I grow up with German as my native language, in the Jewish faith...?
The school can make a considerable contribution to promoting gender competence in terms of language. Things must be described correctly anyway, so this should include describing them in a way that differentiates in terms of gender. For instance, the German word for “doctors” (“Ärzte”) is often used indiscriminately to mean both male and female doctors, even though there is a female form of the word (“Ärztinnen”). (“Die Ärtzte” are incidentally also a rock band in Germany.)
Methods for developing skills
The attribution of characteristics, behaviors, interests, abilities and activities to different people influences, consciously or unconsciously, the way in which some skills and not others are developed by girls and boys. It is therefore important to pay attention in the behavior of teachers and in selecting teaching materials that no stereotypes are reproduced. Women do sport too, and men can cook; some girls and some boys are technically skilled and not all girls or all boys are alike in all respects. A few examples will make this clear:
- Behavior of teachers: In biology class, a teacher has just the boys looking at their strong muscles to demonstrate the workings of muscles. The right way would be to encourage all of the students to learn actively by experience.
Girls in one school are placed between two undisciplined boys in order to maintain order. The right way would be not to misuse girls as “social lubrication” and thereby establish them in a fixed role, from which boys are at the same time freed, but to encourage social skills in both girls and boys.
At a school party the girls are not allowed to cut the bread rolls. The boys should do this, because they are “better at using sharp knives”, so the girls should wash the salad. The right way would be to mix groups and allow both girls and boys to learn how to deal with dangerous tools.
- Attribution is effective: Studies on the “Pygmalion effect” show that attributed abilities have a considerable effect on the performance behavior of students. In one experiment, teaching persons were told that certain girls and boys in their classes (who had in fact been selected at random) were especially intelligent. The teachers subsequently devoted more attention to these students, and their performance improved. And it is exactly stereotyped attributions regarding for instance the abilities of girls and boys in the sciences or in languages and the arts that have a reinforcing or discouraging effect on girls and boys. PISA 2000, too, demonstrates the important function of people’s subjective assessment of their own mathematical abilities (the mathematical self-concept of the learning person) in mathematical performance. The self-concept is gender-specifically influenced, since girls as a rule assess their own mathematical talent lower than boys do, regardless of their actual ability. “This gives rise to the pedagogic duty to encourage the mathematical self-concept of girls in particular.” (Artelt et al, 2001, p. 25).
- Teaching materials: Not only subject knowledge is taught in textbooks. Materials also implicitly (and sometimes even explicitly) say things about gender relations. This is shown in countless scientific studies. This can be illustrated by one example of gender stereotyping in mathematics textbooks:
- Boys / men tend to be bigger, heavier and older than girls / boys.
- There is a separation between men’s jobs and women’s jobs, and women tend to do jobs that are not as physically demanding and sell smaller things and smaller quantities.
- Women buy things for the community (e.g. food for the family), men for private hobbies (e.g. newspaper).
- Girls / women and boys / men as well as life contexts typed as feminine and masculine are appropriately represented (quantitative gender equality) and
- Gender roles are softened or dissolved by the use of opposite examples, such as girls with short hair who mend bicycles and get angry and boys with long hair who cry and cook (qualitative gender equality).
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last modified
2010-01-02 20:08
