While the issues for boys at school are not always the same as for girls, some important lessons can be learned from the work with girls over recent decades. The lessons for school action include:
Many educators have tried strategies that have focused on perceived deficiencies of femininity such as girls' behaviour and choices. Such programs often include self-esteem courses, assertiveness training, career planning, and science and technology days. They aim to make girls aware of how some constructions of femininity position them for narrowly defined 'feminine' futures. They challenge girls to broaden their horizons.
Masculinity, on the other hand, has not been examined by educators in the same way. Men and boys have not had similar opportunities, or challenges, to examine how their lives and choices are affected by pressures to conform to particular ways of being masculine. The costs of some masculine behaviours are very high - to boys as individuals, to their families, to other boys and girls at school, and to the wider community. This deserves scrutiny.
Feminism has also challenged institutions, including schools, to change expectations, processes and structures inhibiting female participation and so undermining gender equity. A parallel process examining how schools can challenge or reinforce different kinds of masculinity has not occurred. This is an important step in understanding how different boys experience school.
National research during the 1980s showed that far fewer girls took high level maths and science than boys. In Queensland, (Hobbs 1987) confirmed that this was not related to ability or achievement levels, but due to narrow gender-based subject selection by students. Gender differences in computer education revealed a similar situation (Willis 1987) reducing girls' chances of tertiary entry into the prestigious fields of science, engineering and technology. Although it barely raised an eyebrow at the time, boys were vastly underrepresented in the humanities.
Despite years of educational policy promoting gender equity, today's subject selection figures show similar gender segregation. The humanities are still dominated by girls while boys form the majority in high level maths, science and information technologies. Girls' choices are more diverse, reflecting the broader range of subjects now on offer. Boys select more narrowly, clustering in maths, science, IT and vocational subjects, sometimes despite not enjoying or doing well in them.
The gender work of recent decades has had mixed results. More girls, mostly from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, select high level maths and science and achieve results that rival boys from similar groups (sometimes sparking panicky headlines). Many boys, especially from upper socioeconomic groups, achieve as well in literacy as their sisters. However, many other boys and girls - often from lower socioeconomic groups, from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and from Indigenous groups - remain hampered by gendered subject selection, limited school engagement or success, and narrow post-school pathways.
Self-esteem and career programs have had some positive results, but the deficit model - assuming that there is something wrong with girls that needs to be changed - is itself part of the problem. By seeing girls (or boys) as the source of their own difficulties, we avoid questioning how school practices may contribute. Yet we know that schools can and do make a difference.
The processes of gender construction are many and varied, and boys (and girls)
engage actively with them - complying, resisting, celebrating, protesting
- as they develop gendered identities. By critically examining processes of
gender construction, schools can help students recognise and question assumptions
about males and females that limit their futures.
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© The State of Queensland (Department of Education, Training and the Arts) 2002.