Gender

equity
&
education
Megan & Ryan’s story

March 19th 2019

Assoc. Prof. Susanne Gannon
Think of a particular experience or context in your
secondary schooling. Think about the extent to which
gender may have impacted on this experience or context:

Go to:
https://poll.fm/10267458

Record your answer on the poll.

(You can add comments if you wish to)
Sex & gender
Theories
Concepts
Examples
Resources

Megan & Ryan’s story

https://youtu.be/MfAjWdccL8Q

https://www.thinkuknow.org.au
 Sex & gender?
Sex = biological characteristics: physical features,
genes, hormones that are used to distinguish male and
female bodies

Makes us “male”, “female” and ….

SBS Insight
Transgender
Gender = social, cultural, psychological traits that to be Sept 17, 2013
linked to males, females through particular social
patterns, contexts and discourses

Makes us “masculine”, “feminine” and …

 Competing gender theories
Biological determinism (& neo-
biological determinism)

Social constructivism The Checkout

and gender performativity
https://youtu.be/3JDmb_f3E2c

Huggies: ‘because boys

and girls are different’

http://www.youtube.com/watc
h?v=z76EPVnuOkA
 Binaries of gender?
active passive
strong weak
loud quiet
hard soft
outside inside Binary oppositions – ways of thinking
sport & computers books about the world, not how the world is
self-reliance dependent - mutually exclusive, hold each other’s
individualistic sociable opposite in place
competitive cooperative - hierarchical, with one side more valued
physical sciences humanities - limiting
paid work unpaid work
power powerlessness
rational emotional
Maths English Despite diverse talents, sexual
violence guile preferences, identities, personalities,
Mars Venus varied interests and ways of interacting
masculine feminine of individuals, difference collapses
→ Male → Female into a binary relation. (Budgeon, 2014,
318)
 Binaries of gender?
What becomes possible when people begin to
think of gender as:
(i) more like a continuum than as opposites;
(ii) as multiplicities of masculinities and
femininities;
(iii) as intersections of gendered norms with
range of other elements to make up complex
grids – or ‘constellations’ of identity – culture,
ethnicity, belief, sexuality, location, etc
Becoming a man (woman) is a matter of constructing oneself in and being
constructed by the available ways of being male (female) in a particular
society. It is a matter of negotiating the various discourses of femininity and
masculinity available in our culture, those powerful sets of meanings and
practices which we must draw on to participate in our culture and to establish
who we are. (Gilbert & Gilbert, 1998, pp. 46–47)

- What constraints and possibilities exist?

- How are preferred ways of being gendered
made available?
- How does agency figure?
Gender describes not only the differences and contrasts between male and
female. It refers instead to relations between people and to a social structure
that deals with different kinds of human bodies and ascribes different social
meanings and expectations to these bodies. (Connell, 2002, p. 10)

- What sorts of relations construct gender?

- Which social structures deal differently
with different bodies?
- How are different meanings &
expectations ascribed?
 Biological determinism
- ‘Biology is destiny’- biological factors (including male/female
chromosomes) completely determine how an individual behaves over time
– “essentialism”

•Girls and boys are biologically different and these differences manifest in
behavioural ways

•Suggests that certain behaviours are unchangeable because ‘boys will

be boys’/ ‘girls will be girls’

BUT………notions of appropriate gender behaviour are not static, but

differ over time, between ethnic and cultural groups, and between and
within families.
 Problems with Biological determinism

- generalisations like “boys are better at maths”/ “girls

are better at reading”, “Men are from Mars, women are
from Venus”

- “sex differences are small, their origins unclear, and the

variation within each sex far outweighs any differences
between the sexes” (Gilbert & Gilbert, 1994, p. 44).

- obstructs school equity policies and practices when

stereotypical behaviours are regarded as ‘natural’ or
‘impossible to change’.
 Neo-biological determinism
• Different ‘Brain’ Theory
CLAIMS cerebral lateralisation –boys are‘left brained’/ linear
and girls are‘right brained’/less localised

BUT…cannot explain why economically & socially advantaged boys consistently

outperform girls and boys who do not have access to the same resources →
social, rather than neurobiological, dimensions of learning count.

• Different ‘Chemistry’ Theory

CLAIMS that testosterone makes it hard for boys to sit still
long enough to learn to read or write
BUT… cannot explain prepubertal gendered
underachievement. Notion that testosterone
affects learning and perception is deeply
contested (eg Fine, Testosterone Rex 2017.
 Sex-role socialisation
• Gender is socially conditioned - boys and girls learn to be masculine and feminine through
the different social expectations imposed on them by family and peers.

• Limited – deficit model - difference is deviance - popular in 1960s and 70s

• Relies on role modelling to provide‘messages’ about gender which are passively ‘soaked
up’ by boys and girls.

• Fails to address the influences of gender, race and class or that people practise their
masculinity and femininity differently depending on context.

• Doesn’t acknowledge effects of institutions (e.g.. legal and educational systems)

 Social constructionism &
gender performativity
• Individuals are actively involved in constructing gendered identities – however not
conscious nor rational – question of agency always problematic

• masculinity and femininity constructed as binary opposites

• Masculinities and femininities vary depending on situations, beliefs, histories –

require repertoires of gendered practices

• Gender is dynamic, constant, relational – a performance dependent on repeated

iteration, requiring recognition as appropriately gendered/ sexed (Butler, 1990, 2004)

• Available discourses of gender circulate via cultural institutions including school,

church, media, community and family, which legitimise some masculinities and
femininities and de-legitimise others

• Three dimensions/ layers: ‘the production of gendered selves, cultural expectations

re performance of ‘proper’ gendered selves that shape everyday interactions, the
structure of institutional domains that form the backdrop…’(Budgeon, 2014, 319)
 EXAMPLE 1 – CURRICULUM - Girls and IT
ARC funded research
(Education Dept Victoria, NSW, Vic, SA & WIT)

Girls not choosing ICT subjects

under-represented in 11-12 ICT subjects
(ITP & esp. SDD)
-under-represented in University level
computer science
-under-represented in ICT industries
-------------------------------------------
- 26 schools
-1430 surveys
-66 student focus group interviews
- 50 teacher interviews
 Girls not choosing ICT subjects
Competing explanations

BIOLOGICAL DETERMINISM:

They hate [games] well they don’t hate them but they only play the really crap games like SIMS, and stuff like that
because they are more into making houses and stuff like that, and boys like shooting people, and killing people
and stabbing people. (Male student)

It’s probably the way guys’ brains work more than anything (female student)

Most of the girls have problems in logic, in mathematics, they just can’t follow the procedure. (Male teacher)

SEX ROLE SOCIALISATION:

I used to put up lots of stuff in particular with women in ICT…I found all these case studies at one time of women
who went into IT careers (Female teacher)

Don’t want to break their nails….Maybe you should paint the computers pink. Make computers a fashion
accessory and it might work (Male student)

Probably go to hairdressing or fashion or something else. I think that is more suitable for a girl. (Female student)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM:

No I’m not really interested in computer games or anything like that, I don’t know, I’m not good at them so I just
don’t like them…Like the only time Ive got to play with them would usually be when I’m with a guy mostly; [they
can be] intimidating like they would know everything…(female student)
 Girls not choosing ICT subjects
Findings

• Interest in ICT education is associated with marginalised performances of

masculinity and is not constructed as appropriate for girls or for most boys.

• Both students and teachers tend to reproduce outdated understandings

of gender, which mitigate against interventions aiming to interrupt limiting
notions of what ICT is and who it is suitable for.

• Where teachers and schools have implemented strategies to attract more

girls, these strategies sometimes further reinforce stereotyped notions.

• Limiting beliefs about gender and ICT education can be found at all levels of
schooling, both where ICT is explicitly taught, but also in contexts of
incidental and informal learning.

• Proliferation of disabling images in media and popular culture

Who wants to be an IT girl?
(The Age, 5/5/2008)

Can computing be sexy?

Just ask these girls.
(Daily Telegraph, 30/4/2008)
 ‘hegemonic masculinity’
RW Connell Masculinities
1995, 2ndedn, 2005
empirical studies of school, class and gender;
ethnographic documentation of social constructions of
masculinity, life history interviews
– ‘masculinities as configurations of practices’ (2005,
xviii)
- ‘to recognize diversity in masculinities is not enough.
We must also recognise the relations between the
different kinds of masculinities of alliance, dominance ‘Hegemony does
and subordination. These relationships are not mean total
constructed through practices that exclude and control. It is not
include, that intimidate, exploit and so on. There is a automatic and
gender politics within masculinity’ (2005, 37) may be disrupted
or even disrupt
itself’ (2005, 37)
 from ‘hegemonic’ to ‘toxic’…
‘toxic masculinity’ - Michael Flood 2018 (for
Jesuit Social Services)
•1000 young men’s attitudes towards seven
“pillars” of traditional manhood:
self-sufficiency, toughness, physical
attractiveness, rigid gender roles,
heterosexuality, homophobia,
hypersexuality, aggression, control over
women

Findings:...many young men remain greatly influenced by these societal messages of

what it means to be a man…However, some traditional ideals seem to be dropping
away…There was a consistent gap between social messages and personal ideals,
with lower personal endorsement of every element of traditional manhood.
 ‘new femininities’
• Idealized femininity – ‘figure of the ‘empowered’ and autonomous
yet reassuringly feminine woman’ but ‘does not rework dominant
perceptions of gender difference and their hierarchical
complementarity’; tends to be ‘white, western, heterosexual’ middle-
class norm; adopts practices in order to become ‘individuals’ and
exercise ‘choice’, ‘successful girls as ‘exemplars of flexible self
invention’ (Budgeon, 2014)
• ‘pariah feminisms’ – those that ‘violate the authorised practices of
gendered relationality’ and that are ‘regulated by social
stigmatization’ – include being inappropriately desirous, excessive
sexuality, aggression, demanding, exaggerated expressions of
traditional femininity, promiscuity or sexual inaccessibility (Budgeon,
2014)
 EXAMPLE 2: School violence 1 (hegemonic masculinity
in year 9)
“More than simply a physical space, the classroom is a socially produced
context. It is a site of discursive production and reception and of competing
discourses in which relations of power are produced and circulated” (2007: 204)

Class 9.1. The bad lads
-performances of embodied
hypermasculinity (shouting,
interrupting, laughing, joking,
acting tough/ cool, play
fighting, refusing authority)
-and hyperheterosexuality
(vocabulary of abuse,
ridicule, humiliation &
objectification of girls;
homophobic abuse of boys)
-surveillance & policing of
‘manly’ behaviour
Jerry to Kyle: I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.
Jerry to David: Kyle’s a faggot.
Jerry to Tom: Kyle’s a faggot. [Jerry raises fist.]
Jerry to Daniel: Hey, I’m gonna punch him in the
head….
I’m usually not that embarrassed to go up there
and talk, but when there’s people who put you
down …makes you feel embarrassed… They’ll
laugh or say something about you or comment
out loud … It really puts you down to know that
they’ve said something about you and you’re
standing up there.
Dalley-Trim (2007)
 Hegemonic masculinity in yr 9 cont.
“The dominant boys’ performances, and more specifically their mobilization
of discourses of (hetero)sexuality and gender, brought with them
depressingly real, punitive and disenfranchising consequences for others”
(Dalley Trim, 2007, p. 204)

Graham: Nathan disrupts the whole class.

Class 9.2 Roguish lads & Corey: He’s the one who aggravates her (i.e., the
larrikins
teacher). He always comes late. He comes in, just
-small group of dominant stuffs around … He yells out, runs ‘round.
boys: funny boys & Steven: He answers back, throws things.
troublemakers Graham: He tries ta knock ya.
Corey: He tries to put you down..
-interrupting, laughing,
joking, misbehaving & Samantha: She’s always with them, the boys. If
acting cool they’re naughty she goes over to ‘em…
-verbal sparring dominates
Christine: And like, she’s always with them. […]
the classroom The way she pays more attention to the boys than the
girls, ‘cause it’s like the girls are gonna be perfect,
-girls (and many boys) ‘cause we’re girls. It’s the same nearly with every
marginalised and silenced class. You get used to it after a while.
 School violence 2
- Gender central to school violence – significantly higher proportion
of victims of harassment & violence are girls (and women) or
nonconforming boys – but violence in schools often explained as
gender-neutral or individualised/ pathologised via psychological
discourses of bullying, or excused as ‘natural’ – e.g. boys inherently
aggressive, girls natural victims

- Interventions must look at interplay between individuals, relational,

social, cultural & environmental factors – including cyberworlds &
networked relationships that impact on school

- High expectations of staff (as well as students), vigilance, reflexivity,

intersections with homophobia, classism, racism & other
technologies of power, critique of stereotypes & limits of normativity
as sets of practices used to reinscribe privilege, systematic attention
to school policy, whole of school approaches

- ‘Circuit breakers’ as moments where teachers intervene to interrupt &

deconstruct circuits of recognition around homophobic practices
Psychosocial approach to gender & schooling

Intersectional analysis – gender, class, race

----------------------

Ambivalence over the ‘successful girls’ narrative

– entangled with anxiety of failing boys
discourses (‘poster girl for neoliberalism’)

Panic about ‘mean girls’ – deviant female

aggression vs normalised middle-class relational
aggression

Crisis of ‘sexy girls’ & media & consumer culture

– risk, protection, moral regulators (‘slut
shaming’)

- Popular culture as a site where feminism is

circulated and contested
 EXAMPLE 3: Sexual harassment in school:
‘sexting’
Disregards broader legal & political
context of sexting

Avoids critique of a culture that requires

young women to preserve their
'reputations’

Plays on teenage embarrassment about

bodies & mixes with the anxiety of mobile Megan’s story
technologies/ social media

A potent mix of technology, fear and body

shame
See resources at Think U Know
(Albury & Crawford, 2012)
http://www.thinkuknow.org.au/site/megans
story.asp
EXAMPLE 3: Sexual harassment in school: ‘#me
too in schools’
Polly Dunning…23 Jan, 2018 SBS Life

When I joined an international

movement…what I didn’t mention is that
one of the experiences at the forefront of
my mind happened when I was in Year 8
with a boy who was my peer.
Another when I was in Year 9 with another
boy who was my peer. In fact, the majority
of my experiences of sexual harassment
and abuse happened before I was 18…
And I’m not unusual, In fact research [in
UK] …found that over a third of girls
experienced sexual harassment before
age 12, most commonly from their peers,
and almost two thirds had experienced it
through their teenage years.
 EXAMPLE 3: Sexual harassment in schools: homophobia
“…accepted parts of school culture where faculty & staff rarely or never intervene… Students
report that teachers stand by & allow biased hurtful behaviours to go unchallenged…norm-
setting of heterosexual gender roles” (Meyer, 2008)

1998 AUSTRALIA: same-

As far as discipline, how it’s handled, I had to push for action when another kid called a kid
sex attracted young faggot’. However, I know that in my school a racist comment was not tolerated and was
people: dealt with immediately. (MT05)
13 % physically abused
I do not think that we ever studied anything related to that … I don’t know if I was really
46 % verbally abused attuned to [sexual harassment] – to be quite honest. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t so aware
that it was going on because in my training it had never really been brought up as an issue.
nearly 70 per cent of (FT02)
abuse was at school.
Any type of physical harassment would get a strong response. They don’t tolerate any type
EXTERNAL FACTORS of fighting in the school… But where people are just kind of saying things to one another –
INSTITUTIONAL no, those are not responded to in the same way. And it would be difficult to respond to
a) structures & responses: them because they occur so much – it’s almost like they’re a part of the school culture.
b) curriculum & workload (FT02)
c) education & training
d) school culture I spent the first couple months enforcing all of this [uniform policy, swearing, & name-
SOCIAL calling] & there are some teachers that just never enforce it and so you realize that out of
a) administrators 20 teachers, we have about five who do all the enforcing and you just can’t anymore. You
b) interpersonal relations can’t do it … I just feel like some teachers just don’t really have a clue. It’s scary. It’s really
c) community scary. (FT03)
INTERNAL FACTORS
MOTIVATORS or BARRIERS Eventually I told [my Principal] that I was going to tell the kids [that I’m gay]. She said, ‘if
–philosophy, identity, you come out to those kids I will not guarantee your safety at this school’. I had to make a
life experience decision. She was tough. I couldn’t stand working for her … She didn’t like me because I
was gay. That was clear. (MT05 ) [See NSW ANTI-DISCRIMINATION ACT & SKOOL’S OUT KIT]
 Current research:
Gender matters: Changing Gender Equity Policies and Practices in
Australian secondary education (ARC 2019-2021)

Gender Equity: A framework for Australian Schools (1997)

The policy that disappeared?
Five strategic directions:
1. Examining processes of gender construction – theories of
gender & sexuality; critiquing language, popular culture, human
relationships
2. Enhancing curriculum, teaching and learning – academic
success for boys & girls, gender-inclusive curriculum; participation
& achievement; literacy, numeracy, ICT & the arts
3. Violence and school culture – gendered violence, sex-based
harassment, heteronormativity; teaching relationship skills &
antisexist & antihomophobic policies & strategies
4. Post-school pathways – examine gendered perceptions of
vocational & professional aspirations & careers; paid & unpaid
work; non-traditional career options
5. Supporting change – gender policies embedded into school
structures and reporting; examining intersection of gender + SES,
culture, disability & location
 Resources
Gender and Education organization
http://www.genderandeducation.com

Gender and Education journal

 References
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