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Unlock This CourseFeminist perspectives look at how schools might treat boys and girls differently and how this affects their education. Feminists believe schools often reinforce traditional gender roles and can limit opportunities for girls and women.
Key Definitions:
Feminist perspectives help us understand how schools might contribute to gender inequality. By looking at school processes through a feminist lens, we can identify problems and find ways to make education fairer for everyone.
Before the 1970s, girls were often educated differently from boys, with a focus on domestic skills. While formal equality exists today, feminists argue that hidden inequalities still persist in how schools operate.
There are several different feminist approaches to understanding education. Each has its own view on what causes gender inequality and how to fix it.
Focus: Equal opportunities and removing barriers
Liberal feminists believe girls should have the same chances as boys in education. They want to remove stereotypes in textbooks, encourage girls to study STEM subjects and challenge sexist attitudes.
Focus: Patriarchy and male dominance
Radical feminists see schools as places where boys learn to dominate and girls learn to accept second-class status. They argue schools are designed by men, for men and reflect male values.
Focus: Capitalism and women's oppression
Marxist feminists believe schools prepare girls to be exploited both at work and at home. They say education teaches girls to accept lower-paid jobs and unpaid domestic work.
The hidden curriculum refers to the unwritten lessons that schools teach alongside the official subjects. Feminists argue that this hidden curriculum often reinforces traditional gender roles.
Schools might claim to treat everyone equally, but feminists point out several ways that gender stereotypes are reinforced:
Research by Gaby Weiner (1994) found that school textbooks often showed men in active, leadership roles and women in passive, caring roles. Men were shown in a wide range of occupations, while women were typically shown as mothers or in traditionally female jobs. Although textbooks have improved since then, subtle gender bias can still be found in many educational materials.
Feminists have studied how teachers interact differently with boys and girls, often without realising it.
Studies show that teachers often give more attention to boys than girls in the classroom:
Dale Spender's research found that teachers thought they were giving equal attention to boys and girls, but when recorded and timed, they were actually giving boys up to two-thirds of their attention.
Teachers may have different expectations of boys and girls. For example, they might expect girls to be neat, quiet and hardworking, while expecting boys to be more disruptive but also more naturally talented. These expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Boys are more likely to be disciplined for their behaviour, while girls are more likely to be praised for their appearance or neatness rather than their intellectual abilities. This sends different messages about what's valued in each gender.
Despite girls now outperforming boys in many subjects, there are still significant gender differences in subject choices at GCSE and A-level.
Statistics show clear gender patterns in subject choices:
In the UK, girls outperform boys in GCSE science subjects, but are much less likely to continue with physics at A-level. Only about 20% of A-level physics students are girls. This contributes to women being underrepresented in high-paying STEM careers. Feminist researchers suggest this is due to stereotypes about these being 'male' subjects, lack of female role models and subtle discouragement from teachers and parents.
Different feminist perspectives suggest different solutions to gender inequality in schools:
While feminist perspectives offer valuable insights into gender inequality in education, they have also been criticised:
Sue Sharpe's research in the 1970s found that girls' priorities were "love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs and careers, roughly in that order". When she repeated her study in the 1990s, she found girls' priorities had changed to "job, career and being able to support themselves". This shows how girls' aspirations have changed over time, partly due to feminist influence on education and society.