I hope that this message helps underline that equity is not about giving
girls something that has been taken from boys or giving boys something that
girls
do not get. It is about acknowledging that gender socialization, the
biology
of sex, individual attributes and power distribution collide in
institutional
settings in ways that provide or diminish opportunity for success.
Acknowledging that, we move on to getting the barriers out of the way for
both
sexes.
Any school that is doing its job with regard to sports and Title IX is not
just looking at the proportion of males and females who are participating,
they are going directly to those students and finding out what is
preventing participation for the under represented group. At my school,
both genders
said they'd like to see more sports offered but there were key gender
differences in why students said they don't participate. Girls were more
likely than boys to cite conflicting after school responsibilities, lack of
money and conflicts with coaches. So we're looking at what we can do to
deal with those specific barriers.
Girls also use the training facilities less than the boys do for some very
clear reasons, so we're putting things in place to deal with that. We're
also introducing a female only club sport which, if successful, we'll
foster
into an interscholastic sport. It will help increase the proportion of
female
athletes, in part, by providing an activity where there currently is none.
Comparably, boys have a wrestling opportunity which girls have let us know
clearly they are not interested in. Nothing is being taken away from boys.
We are looking at male/female involvement in non-sport extracurricular
activities, although participation is more balanced there. We are
definitely looking at academics, which is the area where we may be able to
increase
male students' success if we can better come to understand their
experiences at
school. In all the measures we looked at, boys and girls are on par at the
elementary level and boys begin to dive in reading, writing and language
arts at the Middle School level. Math scores at the upper levels waffle
around
more. Our girls out scored our boys in Math SAT's for the past couple
years but the boys outscored them on the state math test.
In terms of GPA, girls are not only doing better in general, but the boys'
score curve is skewed toward the lower end, although the gender ratio of
the upper most scoring kids is balanced. We're taking things layer by
layer.
We'll be looking at truancy and absentee patterns. (Are boys coming to
school later, as a group, and more often missing their first period
classes? What
do we do about this? Schedule more study halls for first block? Call them
at
home in the morning? Are boys more often than girls missing classes at the
end of the day for sports related absences? Are we provided appropriate
make-up and academic support?) My goal is to take some of our academic
questions directly to students next year through focus groups and to glean
strategies from the kids themselves.
We also just conducted a brief survey to get a look at attitudes and
perceptions of males and females with regard to the state test.
Interestingly, both genders cited the Math segment of the test as the most
difficult part of the test. But boys said that was the section they tried
hardest on and girls said it was the section they gave the least effort to.
What can we learn from the boys that might transfer to the girls? In
general very few girls stated that any section other than Math was
difficult. The
boys perception of the hardest parts of the test were more evenly
distributed across reading, writing, listening and math. What can we learn
from the
girls that might transfer to the boys? What do we need to ask the boys
next
about why this is and what strategies do we need to put in place to help
them
improve their performance?
Finally, we looked at gender and ethnicity in class level enrollment, i.e.
the number of kindergarteners through seniors in a given graduating class.
We had about five years where we could look at complete data and several
more
years where we had partial data. My assumption before looking at the
numbers was that we were losing more males out of our school system over
the course
of their careers as students. Wrong! We're losing more girls. The
pattern
of decreasing enrollment for both genders (in a given graduating class)
remained pretty constant despite the actual number of students in a given
year,
despite any loss or gain of students due to inmigration or outmigration.
And it
remained constant whether we segregated gender by ethnicity or not.
We're also looking at gender experiences with regard to harassment,
discipline and social skills. We use the information from students to
improve our
reporting and training process. Our current focus is understanding what
will help us help students speak up for themselves and for others. In
other
words,we're targeting the silent bystander population. Trying to foster a
change
in climate that generates from the students themselves. One thing we've
heard
from them this year that had not shown up before is they'd really like the
adults to speak up more when they see things going on. A comparable staff
survey identified a need for a more diverse range of specific things
teachers can do and say in order to intervene in day to day incidents.
Gender
differences in perception and attitude about harassment that showed up in
students surveys will help provide answers that most effectively help
adults deal with boys or girls- as harassers or targets.
We're looking at what teachers are doing in their classrooms and aiming for
a systematic infusion of skills, strategies and content across that grades
that will foster equitable experiences and opportunities, taking into
account
the gender and ethnic diversity of the student population. Staff in my
district just very generously completed a survey that asked them extensive
questions
on classroom content-- everything from what they teach about leadership and
social skills to whether or not they cover civil rights laws to whether
they actively teach group process skills or have a textbooks in need of
review
for gender bias. We also asked them to identify if they need help
augmenting
what they teach in these areas or if they are willing to take on new areas
(with
support). We now have a sort of staff generated "equity" map from which to
work.
Interesting stuff. The stuff from which institutions can create change.
The most effective process that we have found is combining hard data with
surveys and focus groups where actual human beings explain their
experiences and
offer their solutions. It is amazing what ideas are generated when you
begin to
move beyond the paradigm of slicing up a finite pie.
Rochelle Riling
seamouse@televar.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Apr 12 2002 - 15:16:48 EDT