Wired Women, Spiderman and Gender Trouble in School
Canadian feminists Jensen, de Castell, and Bryson sorrowfully remark that gender inequity in technology education is part and parcel of boys' tendency to "continue to dominate their workshops and elbow girls out of the way in labs and lectures to jockey themselves to the front, again." This comment, made in their 2003 article '"Girl Talk": Gender. Equity, and identity discourses in a school-based computer culture, reflects the persistent but flawed view of males and females as rivals.
In terms of a debate about gender and education, comments like this imply that the issues are either/or scenarios, where helping one comes at the expense of the other. Furthermore, the comment suggests that the "real underdog" in the school setting is a girl. That hypothesis may be somewhat off the mark.
Researchers have over the past two decades documented consistent differences in the use of computers and information technologies between boys and girls. Despite initiatives to achieve the opposite, women's participation in these fields appears to be declining. The number of girls enrolled in advanced computer classes in high school and college is falling. One might assume that this should be a worrisome trend as career predications for the 21st century indicate that to obtain higher paying and higher status jobs, computer literacy skills beyond word processing and data-entry are a must. One, again, might assume that if the current trend continues, female students are less likely to achieve that level of competency and confidence in technology than their male peers.
But let's put these assumptions to the test by putting gender based differences in perspective. During the same time span when researchers were noticing gender difference in technology education, boys have started to, particularly in North-American, Australian and British public school settings underachieve quite spectacularly in comparison to girls. That gap is widening. In developed countries, boys seem to "jockey themselves to the front" only when it comes to dropping out, course failure and learning disabilities. The vast majority of Canadian dropouts in 2005 were young men. Meanwhile, young women now outnumber men in universities across Canada by almost three to two-a gap expected to grow even further.
The underachievement of boys in school - especially in the area of literacy acquisition- has become a significant concern for parents, teachers and school administrators. Numerous studies and initiatives have recently been dedicated to making schools "boy friendly." Various "causes" for their underachievement have been identified. Among them is the predominantly female staff of elementary schools, testosterone levels in boys and differences in learning styles or preferences between boys and girls. Depending on what is identified as the main cause, several innovative recommendations have been made. Among them are the "mix and stir" approach, i.e., attracting more male teachers to elementary schools, "performative literacy", which allows boys to move about and act out the story they are reading, and all-boys classes. Educational theorists have also pushed for curricula, which address the three different learning styles - visual, auditory and kinesthetic (VAK). They hope that boys can be engaged through different and more varied methodologies. But despite all these ideas and recommendations, boys and young men continue to be disengaged in school and carry on to "jockey themselves to the front"- on their way out.
Perhaps we need to dig a little deeper. What about North American popular culture and the images of masculinity it presents to young boys? What if the common image of the assertive, aggressive "bad boy" in popular culture and media is part of boys' trouble in school?
The dominant Western image of masculinity presented by popular culture is not that of a sensitive, artistic, male thinker, reader or writer. Newkirk (2002) gives a great example of this notion: Spiderman. What possibly better way for Spiderman to hide his super powers than to take on the disguise of a writer! I sometimes see glimpses of how this predominant image of masculinity affects children in my neighborhood in Canada's West Coast. Take Thomas, a grade two student, for instance. Thomas is one of the tough kids in the playground-not afraid of anybody. He is loudly assertive and defends himself against any real or perceived offense. In doing so, he fulfills the implicit rules and regulations of boy culture, influenced so strongly by popular culture. He hates reading and writing with a passion and goes to the resource teacher to not fall behind further. He bends the school rules whenever he has a chance to and occasionally flushes his homework down the toilet. While this behavior gets him in trouble, it also raises subdued smiles from teachers, neighbors, and family members. His peers admire him; he is 'cool.' Neighbors and family members are a little charmed by his mischief and misbehavior. He is a bit of a "bad boy," which we tend to find charming and likeable.
Yet at night a threatening, humiliating world envelops Thomas. In his dreams, he finds himself stark naked in the school playground, filled with (clothed) schoolmates. During his waking hours, Thomas is 'cool' and survives the brutal social dynamics of the playground because he simulates a toughness to cover up as profound sense of vulnerability.
Now let's refocus on popular culture and the "gender gap" in technology education. Perhaps some links can be made there too. Computer games, for example, attract many more boys than girls. Not surprisingly, those games are by and large designed for and marketed to boys. Many of the games my own son likes to play, for example, are solitary games, based on rules and winning, and on either/or constructions of truth, thus favoring male solitary and competitive learning styles (Gilligan, 1988) and male epistemologies (Grumet, 1988, Agosto, 2001). Computer game characters are often violent, sometimes sexist and primarily male. More often than not, female characters are disproportionate and surreal looking bystanders rather than active participants. One is hard pressed to find games in which the main, positive game characters are female, games that can be played in collaboration with others rather than solitary games, open-ended games, and games with multiple possible outcomes (Agosto, 2005)- all the features that appeal to girls.
Contrary to what the tone and arguments employed in the 'gender debate' imply, the issue here is not about 'the real underdog', nor is it an either/or scenario. It is difficult to see how Thomas' nightmares, or boys' tendency to "elbow girls out of the way" to illiteracy; suspension from school or failure altogether, serves girls and women. Helping boys to succeed in schools does not have to come at the expense of girls. Similarly, rethinking technology and technology education to be more gender inclusive and to find ways to make women inventors, makers and repairers of technology, does not have to come at the expense of boys. We might let go of the discourse of rivalry to explore depictions and images of masculinity and femininity in local culture (including the school itself); videos, adult films, cartoons, advertisement and television coverage so that we get a sense of which images of masculinity and femininity children have to negotiate. This in turn will give us a clearer picture of children's gendered ideas of identity, and thus, of technology education and the education of boys. Addressing gender issues in this way will serve both boys and girls.
References
Agosto, D. E. (2005). The changing nature of the computer gender gap and the role of the library media specialist. Unpublished manuscript. College of Information Science & Technology: Drexel University
Agosto, D. E. (2001). Propelling Young Women into the cyber-age: Gender considerations in the evaluation of web-based information. School library media research, 4. Available online at: http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslpubsandjournals/slmrb/slmrcontents/volume42001/agosto.htm
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press.
Gilligan, C. Ward, J. Taylor, J. Bardige, B. (1988). Mapping the moral domain: the contributions of women's thinking to psychological theory and education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Grumet, M., R. (1988). Bitter milk: Women and teaching. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Jenson, J, de Castell, S., & Bryson, M. (2003). "Girl Talk": Gender. equity, and identity discourses in a school-based computer culture. Women's Studies International Forum, 26(6), 561-573. Retrieved on November 17, 2005 from: http://www.shecan.com/
Newkirk, T. (2002). Misreading masculinity. Boys, literacy and popular culture. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
Wever-Rabehl, G. (2005). Difference first: Gender in education and technology. Satya Nilayam Chennai Journal of Intercultural Philosophy No.7. February 2005, pp.121-125. Chennai: Satya Nilayam Research Institute.
Whittenburg, B. (2000). The technology gender gap. How are we doing. Gray Matters, 3, (3). Retrieved on February 25, 2005 from: http://womensmedia.com/girls-tech-gap.htm
