discrimination in co-ed schools
Martin O'Connor (o_martin@mailexcite.com)
Thu, 23 Apr 1998 02:12:22 -0400
I'm an Australian, so I really don't know very much about
the mechanics of your school system. I do however have an
anecdote which may be of particular interest especially to
Phillip Bellina who claimed that girls are unconsciously
treated badly by teachers. A friend of mine completed a
Diploma of Education in 1995 (that's a post graduate teaching
certificate), she told me that students who were completing
this course were instructed by their lecturers to ignore
boys in the classroom as girls needed the attention more.
In my own primary schooling, which is probably not as long
ago as for many of the participants here, I had a number of
female teachers who would yell at boys for talking while
placidly allowing girls in class to chat to their heart's
content.
David Thomas, in his book "Not Guilty: in defence of the
modern man"(1993; Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London), cites
surveys by the Inner London Education Authority which showed
that teachers consistently praised girls more than boys and
criticised boys more than girls.
Martin O'Connor
o_martin@mailexcite.com