Gender and education

• A historical overview of women and men in education.

• Gender, education and power

Why education (as a research topic/ theme for the discussion) is important for Gender sociology?

1. Education is the agency responsible for socializing :• Schools are officially charged with the responsibility of equipping

students with the knowledge and skills they need to fill various roles in their society – this is accomplished primarily by requiring students to study subjects (reading, writing, mathematics, etc.) known as the formal curriculum

• Schools also teach students particular social, political and economic values – they constitute a kind of hidden curriculum that operates within the formal one

• Hidden curriculum – through it the students learn what they can expect for themselves in the world and, for certain groups of students, this may result in very low aspirations

• What kind of messages both formal and informal curricula send about gender – their impact on the aspirations and achievements of male and female student

Why education (as a research topic/ theme for the discussion) is important for Gender sociology?

2. Level of education is one of the most important indicators of the social position of individual, or social status

3. Increase of women’s education is one of the most important factors for their social integration, participation in the labour market and decision making

4. Education (it’s level and quality) indirectly, through the participation in the labour market, determines economic position of women and men (their incomes/wages)

A historical overview of women and men in education

• The word school derives from an ancient Greek word that means ‘leisure’

• Until relatively recent times only the very wealthy had enough free time to pursue what may be considered a formal education

• Men’s education – classroom, private studies, tutoring and colleges (philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, training in self-discipline, other academic subjects)

Upon the graduation of colleges they took places among the ruling class as ministers, lawyers and other professionals

A historical overview of women and men in education

• Women’s education – at home (reading and writing, music, literature and foreign languages)

• Much more restricted knowledge

Aimed at teaching how to fulfill women’s ‘natural’ roles (good mothers and partners for their elite husbands)

A historical overview of women and men in education

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) – ‘Emile, or about education’ (Émile ou de l'éducation)

Dr. Edward H. Clarke ( Harvard Medical School) – “Sex in Education or A Fair Chance for the Girls” (1873 ):

• Wrote about certain "Miss G" who was a top student "leading the male and female youth alike" at a time when women were just beginning to push the boundaries holding them from higher education

• Unfortunately, Miss G died. Explanation was based on the "Conservation of Energy" theory - Miss G died because, as a woman, "she was unable to make a good brain, that could stand the wear and tear of life, and a good reproductive system that should serve the race, at the same time that she was continuously spending her force in intellectual labor"

• Clarke suggested that women who engaged in sustained vigorous mental activity, studying in a "boy's way," risked atrophy of the uterus and ovaries, masculinization, sterility, insanity, even death.

• Coeducation was seen as impractical since young women should study no more than four hours each day, with a total remission during the menstrual period, a regime which would be emasculating to boys.

• Critics of "Sex and Education" pointed to Clarke's faulty methodology and lack of statistics. They presented an impressive array of evidence against his theories: case studies, letters from authorities, and data on the health, career patterns, marriage rates, and fertility of women who had attended college.

• They argued that coeducation promoted healthy, realistic relationships between women and men, was less expensive and more practical than separate education, and had proven effective and beneficial.

• Clarke’s theories were used in the decades that followed, not only by opponents of coeducation but also by opponents of the extension of women's roles in other areas.

A historical overview of women and men in education: some facts (XIX century)

• England: compulsory primary education for working class was established in 1880

• France: compulsory primary education for boys in 1833, for girls – 1850

• USA – the first Young Ladies Academy, established in Philadelphia in 1786

• During the first half of XIX century free public schools for boys and girls began to open, especially in the northeastern cities

A historical overview of women and men in education: primary /secondary education

Public schools for boys and girls

Different formal curriculum

Lower standards in girls’ schools

Men dominated among teachers

Gender differences in literacy rates, education level, opportunities to enter colleges and universities

A historical overview of women and men in education: colleges and universities

USA:• until 1832 women were not permitted to attend college with men • Oberlin College in Ohio was the 1st coeducational college in USA,

1841 – the first BA degree for female student in this college• by 1872 there were 97 coeducational colleges• The prestigious universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) continued to

deny women’s admission on a number of grounds (reason - belief that women were naturally less intelligent than men so their admission will lower academic standards)

• Yale and Princeton did not admit women as undergraduate students until 1969

Western Europe:• Until the end of XIX century women were not admitted to the

universities

A historical overview of women and men in education: colleges and universities

• USA: during 1870-1900 – a number of female students increased 8 times, share of women among college students reached 32 percent.

• Austria (Vienna university) : sex ratio in 1897 – 1F/183M, 1913 – 1F/12M. Women concentrated in Pedagogics

• England: Oxford university did not admit women until 1920, Cambridge university – until 1947 (on equal basis)

• Norway: women were admitted to the universities in 1882

• Netherlands: women were admitted to the universities in 1884

USA: women in Education

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

PS CU BA MA PG

1870

1900

1920

1950

1984

Universities

• During the first 800 years of the 900 years history of the university as an institution, universities have been pure male institutions

• During the last hundred years formal obstacles based on gender have been gradually lifted

• Especially during the 1980s and 1990s, the proportion of women among university students and faculty has grown in most countries of the world

• Nowadays , in many industrialized countries over a half of the student populations are female

Universities

• Nowhere gender equality has been reached in universities / academia

• Sex segregation of the study fields (result of socialization / sex stereotypes)

• Hidden discrimination (in masculine fields of studies), or micro-inequality: Hall and Sandler (1985) have documented more than 35 kinds of micro-inequalities experienced by female undergraduate and graduate students

• Women’s possibilities to enter the institutional and organizational systems of science and proceed in them are significantly more limited than men’s

Pedagogų skaičius 2008–2009 mokslo metų pradžioje 

 Lithuania, 2009

Educators/ Pedagogues, total number

%

F M F M

Total 46578 13071 78,1 21,9

Secondary schools

36020 5373 87,0 13,0

Vocational schools

2666 1242 68,2 31,8

Colleges 3055 1429 68,1 31,9

Universities 4837 5027 49,0 51

Education: gender differences (world data)

1. Literacy rates

2. Education level (enrollment in secondary and tertiary education)

3. Study fields