Education and Gender Inequality Essay

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Gender Issues in Education Today

The objective of this study is to examine gender issues in education today and to discuss its impacts or potential impacts on individuals and society. This study will examine how this issue has been addressed by philanthropy, charitable organizations, and governments.

Initial examination of the gender gap in education appears to show that women are on the receiving end of less education to prepare them for life however; there are new reports stating that male students are falling behind their female counterparts in school and that females are outperforming males in the educational setting. For example, the work of Whitmire (2010) states that the debate surrounding "gender and schooling have taken a surprising turn in the past decade. After years of concern that girls were being shortchanged in male-dominated schools, especially in math and science, there has grown a rising chorus of voices worrying about whether boys are the ones in peril." (p.1) Whitmire states that boy are "faring poorly compared to girls" when one considers the rates of dropout and graduation along with grades and scores on tests. Whitmire states the belief that this is happening because "K-12 schools are shortchanging boys. Far too many boys drop out before earning a high school diploma. Worse, too many boys who do make it through high school are either unprepared for or unmotivated to do college-level work." (2010, p.1) A large part of the problem is that the manufacturing jobs that boys could begin out of school without any college and make good wages have been "disappearing for years." (Whitmire, 2010, p.1) Whitmire goes on to state that conventional wisdom held that "women need a college degree more than men" and at one time this was certainly the case "but is no longer" states Whitmire. (2010, p.1)

I. Reports on Gender Gap in Education and Male Students

The work of Chapman (2015) entitled "Gender Bias in Education" relates the statement of Mulrine (2001) as follows:

"Across the country, boys have never been in more trouble: They earn 70% of the D's and F's that teachers dole out. They make up two thirds of students labeled "learning disabled." They are the culprits in a whopping 9 of 10 alcohol and drug violations and the suspected perpetrators in 4 out of 5 crimes that end up in juvenile court. They account for 80% of high school dropouts and attention deficit disorder diagnoses." (cited in Chapman, p.1)

Chapman states that the discrepancy in performance "is notable throughout Canada. In Ontario, Education Minister Janet Ecker said that the results of the standardized grade 3 and grade 6 testing in math and reading showed '...persistent and glaring discrepancies in achievements and attitudes between boys and girls'." (2015, p. 1) In addition, it is reported that in British Columbia "standardized testing indicates that girls outperform boys at all levels of reading and writing and in Alberta testing shows that girls '...significantly outperform boys on reading and writing tests, while almost matching them in math and science'." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) Yet the American Association of University Women reported in 1992 stating that "females receive less attention from teachers and the attention that female students do receive is often more negative than attention received by boys." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) When socialization of gender is examined "within schools and evidence of a gender biased hidden curriculum demonstrates that girls are shortchanged in the classroom. Furthermore there is significant research indicating steps that can be taken to minimize or eliminate the gender bias currently present in our education system." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1)

Chapman reports that socialization of gender in today's schools is such that "assure that girls are made aware that they are unequal to boys." (2015, p.1) Specifically, "Girls are praised for being neat, quiet and calm, where boys are encouraged to think independently, be active and speak up." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) Junior high school girls reported that being popular and to have everyone like them is more important that being viewed as "competent or independent." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) Socialization of femininity begins early in the school setting and specifically reported is that girls begin at a young age to define their "femininity in relation to boys. One study of a third grade classroom examined four self-sorted groups of girls within the classroom: the nice girls, the girlies, the spice girls and the tomboys.

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Through interviews researcher Diane Reay found that 'nice girls' was considered a derogatory term indicating, "...an absence of toughness and attitude. Furthermore, the girlies were a group of girls who focused their time on flirting with and writing love letters to boys, the tomboys were girls who played sports with the boys, and the spice girls espoused girl-power and played 'rate-the-boy' on the playground. Reay's research shows that each of the groups of girls defined their own femininities in relation to boys. (2001 cited in Chapman,2015, p.1)

The work of Myra and David Sackler notes four types of responses provided by teachers to students: (1) praising students; (2) giving positive feedback; (3) remediation and encouragement to correct their answer or expand upon it; (4) criticism upon an incorrect answer. (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) the Sacklers found in their study that boys were far more likely to receive praise or remediation from a teacher than were girls. The girls were most likely to receive an acknowledgment response from their teacher" (Sadker, 1994 cited in Chapman, 2015, p.1) Chapman notes that these findings agreement with a 1990 study conducted by Good and Brophy that stated finding that "teachers give boys greater opportunity to expand ideas and be animated than they do girls and that they reinforce boys more for general responses than they do for girls." (Marshall, 1997 cited in Chapman, 2015, p.1)

Additionally reported is that "special services in education appear to be applied more liberally to boys than to girls. Research shows that boys are referred for testing for gifted programs twice as often as girls, which may be because, "...giftedness is seen as aberrant, and girls strive to conform." (Orenstein, 1994 cited in Chapman, 2015, p. 1) In fact, boys are representative of in excess of "two-thirds of all students in special education programs and there is a higher the proportion of male students receiving diagnoses that are considered to be subjective. While medical reports indicate that learning disabilities occur in nearly equal numbers of in boys and girls, it may be the case that, "Rather than identifying learning problems, school personnel may be mislabeling behavioral problems. Girls who sit quietly are ignored; boys who act out are placed in special programs that may not meet their needs." (Bailey, 1992 cited in Chapman, 2015, p.1)

Gender bias is reinforced through the resources that are chosen for use in the classroom such as "Using texts that omit contributions of women, that tokenize the experiences of women, or that stereotype gender roles, further compounds gender bias in schools' curriculum. While research shows that the use of gender-equitable materials allows students to have more gender-balanced knowledge, to develop more flexible attitudes towards gender roles, and to imitate role behaviors contained in the materials." (Chapman, 2015, p.1) However, there is an ongoing use of gender-based texts in today's classrooms.

A 1990 conference of researchers found that even when texts are specifically designed to align with the present guidelines in California on equity of gender and race in regards to adoption of textbooks there is still an existence of "subtle language bias, neglect of scholarship on women, omission of women as developers of history and initiators of events, and absence of women from accounts of technological developments.." (Chapman, 2015, p. 1) Chapman reports that a study conducted by Jones, Evans, Byrd and Campbell (2000) utilized analysis of lessons that were videotaped in order to demonstrate to teacher's their behavior that is gender biased. One teacher stated: "As a teacher, I was struck by the Sadkers' research on classroom exchanges and was forced to acknowledge the disproportionate amount of time and energy, as well as the different sorts of attention, I give to male students." (Chapman, 2015, p.1)

II. Charity and Philanthropy

According to the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University -- Purdue University Indianapolis" Despite the growing body of research on charitable giving and women in philanthropy, few articles have been published in the past several years that address gender issues in planned giving Most of the articles that do exist are not based on a significantly large sample size or empirical methods. Only one quantitative analysis of gender differences in planned giving was identified after reviewing the prior literature." (2015, p.1) It is reported that a senior associate at Washburn & McGoldrick, Cindy Sterling, who.....

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