Education: High school and earlier

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• Education High school and earlier
• Access
• Process
• Outcomes
• Theoretical understandings

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• Differences earlier
• Few differences in boys and girls access to
  middle and high school
• Girls slightly more likely to attend head start
  than boys (reflects poorly on human capital
  parental investment models)

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• Differences at this level appear more in process
• Gender in Interaction
• Peer interactions
• Student-teacher interactions

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• Peer interactions
• Boys rejection of feminine characteristics
• Boys greater activity leads to domination of
  space and classes
• Gender segregation within classrooms such that
  boys and girls often do not interact
  cooperatively within classroom

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• Student-teacher interactions
• Assumption teacher interactions with students
  matter
• Teachers spend more time interacting with boys
  than with girls
• Teachers interact with boys and girls in
  different ways
• Reinforcement of gender roles - comments about
  physical appearance, goals
• Types of comments given to boys and girls
  different teachers more likely to engage in
  constructive behavior with boys but barely
  acknowledge girls

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• Methods for establishing difference
• Qualitative research on limited number of
  classrooms
• Strengths of qualitative research
• Can find hidden patterns
• Can explore mechanisms
• Weaknesses
• Lacks generalizability
• More easily subject to charge of researcher bias
• Yet generalizable research suggests validity of
  results

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• Gender in textbooks
• Women much less likely to be mentioned in
  textbooks
• 7 out of 631 pages in a world history text
  dedicated to women (2 on a fifth-grade student
  from Maine)
• Etc. (4 times as many men, 11 times...)
• Presumed important b/c of establishment of role
  models
• Similar patterns exist for race/ethnicity
• Same at college level? (not in this class)

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• Other curriculum
• Recreate gender roles in the class
• Texts and teachers both show women in more docile
  roles and men in more active roles
• Children asked to take ownership of these roles
  they are part of the curriculum

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• Outcomes
• What are important outcomes of school?
• Test scores
• Grades
• Self-development
• Completion of degrees
• Occupational placement

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• Test scores
• Girls outperform boys on test scores at nearly
  all levels
• Main exception is that boys outperform girls in
  math and science scores at the end of high school
  (although girls typically outperform during
  elementary and middle school)

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• Bias in testing?
• Some tests have biased items
• Questions about sports
• Middle-class questions
• Little evidence to suggest that current items are
  biased strongly towards women
• Need to know what tests measure and decide
  legitimacy then

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• Grades
• Women tend to have higher GPAs than men, both in
  high school and later in college

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• Self-development
• Sadker and Sadker
• argue that the processes gradually erode womens
  self-esteem and assertiveness
• Another outcome may be that women begin to select
  out of certain fields
• (remember womens lower aspirations for science
  math majors in college despite near-equal test
  scores and those majors attractive earnings)

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• Completion of degrees
• Women more likely to finish high school and
  college.

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• Occupational placement
• Higher achievement in education does not
  translate to higher occupational status

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• Sociological theories and gender in the schools
• Functional theories
• Could make argument for necessity of sex-role
  socialization for society
• Unclear why this is imperative, risk of circular
  reasoning
• Human capital
• Fails in several respects in that the specific
  predictions it makes tend to fail
• Parents slightly more likely to invest in girls
  education
• Conflict
• Can make a case that schools are structured the
  way they are to reproduce male advantage
• Yet although some elements go along with this,
  women do have advantages in completion

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• Single-sex education at lower levels
• Recent developments
• Expansion of single-sex classrooms, schools
• October 24th Department of Education will now
  allow same-sex education if
• Schools think it will improve achievement,
  diversity of courses, or meet individual needs

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• Why single-sex education?
• Proposed as a solution to problems
• Boys discipline problems
• Girls self-esteem
• Boys failure at reading and writing
• Can erode sex stereotypes (boys can play the
  flute easier, girls can do math)

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• Why single-sex education?
• Suggests that acknowledging differences b/t boys
  and girls will improve instructional techniques
• From a brain-based perspective, makes sense so
  specific gender differences can be addressed
• Can deal with problems created by peer
  interactions
• Emphasizes removing appearance pressure for women

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• Criticisms of single-sex education
• (from NOW and NWLC)
• Reinforces stereotypes
• Reduces male/female interaction
• Segregation makes unequal treatment more likely

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• Local
• Thurgood Marshall elementary switched to same-sex
  education in 2000
• Test scores rose dramatically Only 10 percent of
  boys at Marshall Elementary met state standards
  for reading after one year, 66 percent of boys
  met the standards. Girls' test performance
  improved by a smaller margin.

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• Local
• Principal Wright (of Marshall elementary) named
  Principal of the Year in 2003, hired by Victory
  Schools in Philadelphia same year.
• 2005 test scores 50 of students passed reading,
  36 passed writing, 8 passed science

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• National
• U.S. Department of Education released a
  systematic and near-exhaustive review of all
  existing studies in 2005.
• - Most studies compare private and public.

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• Conclusions
• In the most-studied areas, achievement and
  socioemotional development
• Few studies show that co-ed schools are better
  (10 for development, 2 for achievement)
• One third to one half of studies suggest that
  same-sex schools have better outcomes.
• Most common result is that there is no difference.

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• Ford Foundation study of California public pilot
  program
• Classroom distractions decreased
• Traditional gender stereotypes were reinforced
• At-risk students may benefit most from
  single-gender
• Implementation by itself does not solve gender
  problem

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• Decision may come down to desired function of
  schools
• If schools are primarily technical, then
  single-sex classrooms may be a good answer
• Greater prevalence in disadvantaged areas
• Some researchers single-sex classrooms are more
  effective for disadvantaged children
• Sources are social rather than biological
• If schools are more important for socialization
  and self-development, co-ed schools may be a good
  answer

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• Biological differences and education
• Sources of differences
• Types of differences
• Methodological difficulties

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• Differences in outcomes result either from
• Differences in treatment
• Process differences discussed last time
• Curricula, teacher treatment
• Individual differences when entering a system
• Early childhood socialization
• Biological differences

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• Differences in outcomes
• Girls grade advantage
• Historical male dominance in math and science
  (continues today in SAT, but not many other
  exams)
• Disciplinary actions
• School completion
• Differences in social patterns
• Self-esteem development

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• Sociobiology/ Evolutionary psychology
• Biological characteristics result from
  evolutionary processes
• Two processes operate
• Mutation
• Selection

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• Sociobiology/ Evolutionary Psychology
• Mutation introduces new characteristics randomly
• Selection reduces the number of characteristics
  in the population, but
• Must occur prior to reproduction
• Selection also only matters when selection
  pressure is high

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• Sociobiology/ Evolutionary Psychology
• Gender differences result from selection of
  characteristics that increase
• Likelihood of survival until reproduction
• Likelihood of reproduction
• Survival of offspring
• Survival of kin

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• Sociobiology/ Evolutionary Psychology
• In hunting/gathering societies, men typically
  engaged in hunting (and limited warfare), women
  engaged in child care and gathering
• Thus, to the extent that certain characteristics
  increase efficiency in these behaviors, they
  should exist now

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• Notes on Gurian
• hand-waving over natural selection
• the brain created these circumstances. human
  environmental socialization enhanced
• Biological differences should have their source
  only in personal characteristics that are genetic
  in origin
• E.G. If I train to be really good at video games,
  my child will not inherit this

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• Two types of biological approaches
• Theoretical (evolutionary psychology)
• Infers biological origins to common behaviors
  through mechanisms of selection and efficiency
• Empirical (brain-based of Gurian)
• Documents some known differences b/t male and
  female brains and seeks to explain different
  behaviors with differences

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• Gender differences in education
• Gurian proposes restructuring classrooms and
  education rather dramatically to help boys and
  girls learn naturally
• But is it plausible?

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• Speculative differences (Dont write down)
• Gurian infers differences in brain capabilities
  from differences in development
• E.G. Arcuate fasciculus likely develops
  earlier in girls as evidenced by earlier speech
  capabilities
• Occipital lobe differences evident in
  divergent responses to light sensitivity
• Dopamine In healthy brains, few differences
  known between male and female patterns. (cites
  greater male schizophrenia - not true though)
• Synapse Likely high level of similarity in
  male and female brains
• Temporal lobe ... Would explain female
  superiority in language tasks
• Werenckes area likely more highly active in
  females etc.

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• Real differences with specious relevance (dont
  write down)
• Melatonin explanation of females increased
  sensitivity to bright light
• Medulla Oblongata Increase in SIDS death in
  males could be explained by this
• Hypothalamus Males greater and more constant
  sex drive
• Myelination continues in all brains into the
  early twenties irrelevant for early learnings
• Progesterone Primarily to promote conditions
  for healthy pregnancy
• Oxytocin Likely involved in mother-child
  bonding capacity being increased at birth.

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• Real differences with real consequences
• A number of these seem to exist
• Brain stem, basal ganglia, brocas area, etc.
• Still hard to believe entirely
• Corpus callosum is one mentioned, although next
  book documents evidence that there is no
  difference

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• Consequences
• Males respond more quickly to attention demands
• Females have better verbal communication skills,
  listening
• Females have increased memory storage
• Males superior at spatial relationships

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• Differences in learning styles, activities
• Boys are
• more active
• Need more space
• Process emotion more slowly
• More disruptive
• These seem like empirical regularities, but
• May result from differences in early childhood
  socialization rather than biology

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• Assume differences are real
• What should be done?
• Goal is to teach all children as well as possible
• If differences are biological, then the
  educational system must change
• If differences are socialized, then educ. system
  maybe should change can also try to change
  students more

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• Gurians suggestions
• Many of the specific suggestion are
  gender-neutral
• Diet, class size, bonding, changed school hours,
  preschool, better discipline techniques
• Some are gender-specific
• Boys in front of classroom, more space given to
  boys, specific learning techniques (emphasis on
  spatial learning for girls and reading/writing/emo
  tions for boys)

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• Importance of biological differences
• Difficult to establish here
• Gurian likely cites some legitimate differences
  in the brain structures of men and women
• How big are these differences?
• How much do they matter relative to social
  influences?
• Many of the examples he uses could just as easily
  come from gendered socialization patterns in
  early childhood.