Socio Cultural Pedagogical Report On Gender And Schooling

The Issue

Discuss about the Socio Cultural Pedagogical Report.

This paper outlines a practical pedagogical initiative developed in response to a socio-cultural educational situation which has been more evident in our communities encountered in the area of gender and schooling by a graduate teacher. Gender and schooling are based on the understanding that variations in the experiences and results in education for boys and girls are as a result of gender on what are the expectations, behaviors, and interests of the two sexes (McClintock & Anne, 2013). The impact of gender and schooling acknowledge that boys are valued by the education system over girls in many parts of the world. There most evident cases in the social-cultural area of area of gender and schooling in most institutions (Jones et al., 2012, p. 437). Gender is an aspect that has been distinct in many parts of the world both in schools as well as other fields. Both the initiative and the pedagogical situation are evident in this paper by a rationale which is theoretically informed.  

The socio-cultural educational situation is set in a huge state high school on the outskirts of Brisbane, along with Racecourse road in Australia. It has been noted that most of the student who joins the institution are boys and also a few female students select subjects related to technical courses. This I observed as a graduate teacher and taking students for year 10 through physics. It was also present in a task force report that was commissioned on gender equity in schools to ensure that all students had equal chances of education and careers (Vavrus, 2009, p. 383). The year ten students are making their subject selection before advancing to year 11. It is astonishing how the girls are performing in physics, and other technical subjects and they drop them. This is due to the perception that certain careers such as engineering suitable for males. This was the response given by the girls upon asking them why they don’t opt for physics. They also argued that the community valued technical courses as male careers. The socio-cultural pedagogical situation that is faced with as a graduate teacher is a large number of female students in year ten opting to drop physics despite performing well because it is linked to technical courses that are perceived to belong to males.

As a pedagogical initiative to curb this issue, I have decided to sink into educating female students on the need to ignore such perceptions hindering them from subject selection and career choices. This will mainly be mainly through reviewing the lesson plans and putting down new ones. I will also enlighten parents during school meeting on post-school career pathways and bring a session of dealing with school culture in my class and the school at large (McClintock & Anne, 2013).

The Rationale

Critics on whether girls should take sciences and the perspective that technical courses are a common thing in most parts of the world affecting gender and schooling of many students. In my case, I am faced with girls in year ten not selecting physics as one of their subjects. The main cause of this was the culture that boys were best suited to pursue careers linked to technical courses. In my class of year 10, I have witnessed some well-performing girls opt to drop physics in claims that it is not feminine subjects based on their careers and also the culture that the society has towards girls who enroll in technical courses (Jones et al., 2012, p. 438). The rationale here is to justify the presence of this scenario in my class as a graduate teach and lay down the suitable means to help the girls under questions fight this articulation that makes them drop physics when proceeding to year 11 (Asher, 2007, p. 66). The rationale will also involve an initiative focused on the school parents during the meeting to enlighten them on the significance of providing equal chances to both girls and girls in the Australian community.      

The educators in the Australian school have to put in practice the regions national curriculum and the teachers have a diverse and complicated role in managing gender questions in all fields in everyday life of students at school not taking any side. There are socio-cultural beliefs that have in the past valued the male child to be highly valued and advantaged compared to the girl child. This is evident in the cases in my class of year ten girls who have been victims of not taking physics and other technical subjects such as chemistry due to the perspective from the community that these subjects were masculine. This nature has largely advantaged the male child over the female. The partakers in this institution and the community at large should be made aware of the Australian policy that had been initialized back in the 1970s up to the late 1980s enabling women to receive same and equal treatment as males (Robinson & Davies, 2008, p. 222).

Some examples of gender and schooling pedagogical are one study conducted by Forum for African Women Educationalists’ (FAWE) that was aimed to utilize cultural norms, role models, and institutional dynamics to inform the creation and application of lesson plans seeking to remove gender barriers in class. It was initiated because girls’ barriers in class and setting that may hinder their ability to equally take place and exploit their academic potential (Jones et al., 2012, p. 450). The case of girls of year ten not taking physics and other subjects termed to be masculine is gender sensitive pedagogical and teachers should handle them with care and give proper guidelines and equal chances to all students regardless of their gender (Smith et al., 2014). This was also constituted by myths in the community that male students perform better in physics and other technical subjects compared to females. This was opposed by the fact that girls of year 10 had an overwhelming performance in my subject, i.e., physics compared to girls (Flintoff et al., 2008, p. 73). Thus, girls in year ten were dropping physics for subjects such as arts due to the claims that have been characterized in the gender and education for a long time in the past. Another myth that I will highlight in my rationale is that for creating awareness to parents, students and the community at large to embrace a change in schooling practices so that female can have equal chances for experiencing career subjects as well as males (Vavrus, 2009, p. 383). This rationale will help push for gender equality in the school and Australia at large by making the girl child feel valued and presented with the same chance as boys in the fraternity.

Pedagogical Initiative

The issue brought about by the high number of girls from my year ten science class not taking physics in year 11 as a result of perceptions about it and other science subjects termed as masculine and the future career is a complex socio-cultural pedagogical situation in nature. The situation is linked to other huge issues in the society of gender and gender inequality. However, the claim that physics and other science subjects are masculine is a belief that has no support base. To demonstrate to my female students, parents and the entire school at large that physics and other science subjects do not have any relevant links for the girls in lives and their career aspirations. I have designed a practical pedagogical initiative that includes strengthening female’s experiences of the world in my class, school and the community as a whole (Robinson & Davies, 2008, p.239). This will take place through revision of the lesson plans and write new ones over the year as time goes by as well as organizing enlightening talks to the parents during school meeting and re-organizing specific aspects of the built environment of the science classroom itself.

Writing and revising the lesson plans and coming up with learning experiences which actively show young females experiences will target some work units over the course of the coming semester specifically for those which target physics and other science subjects (Jackson & Mazzei, 2008). My area of specialization will be the experimentation bit where have noted through a survey that begins major after subject selection. This area is where most girls claimed not to like (Meyer, 2010, p. np) and thus constitutes to poor performance to those who choose physics in year 11. I will prepare few practical lessons in the science laboratory and incorporate the girls to actively take part in measuring volumes of specified objects so that they may gain a better understanding and monitor the necessary concepts in using scientific instruments and obtain the correct measurements. These lessons will be in a series format articulating what the students will cover to real-life situations that will narrow down to career opportunities in future. The practical part will be articulated to economically driven processes of devolution and deregulation present in the current working climate which are regressive to end gender inequality (Yates, 2009). These processes have also opened up new chances for creative feminine intervention with the shift towards active policy schools.

Gaining Equal Opportunities for Female Students

There will be a session of talking to the girls about careers. These will be mainly to pass the point that it is not the subject that matters which post-school career choice one makes make but most important the grade scored. Some girls ended up performing poorly in their final exams in physics after putting into consideration the claims and culture that physics and other science subjects guided one to masculine career courses (Liasidou et al., 2014). The school’s course guideline should outline that to students selecting subjects so that girls do not feel limited in taking science courses where they could have performed better.

Moreover, I will review the national action plan for the girl child education with the year ten science class, the school and the community through a percentage of parents who attend meetings in the school. This will discourage the culture developed towards girls who take physics and other science subjects termed as masculine (Sing & Khine, 2008, p.299). The national policy of Australia resulted in the national action plan for the education of girls which involved eight prioritized areas. They include; examining the construction of gender, improving the educational results for girls who benefit least from schooling due to socio-cultural factors and others, eliminating sex harassment for the girl child and reforming the curriculum and teacher practice to end these practices (Robinson, 2014, p. 221). Through the review of this plan, the school and community will be able to see them through which the girls are disadvantaged through their school experiences. This may be used to expound on the fact that at year 10 class, girls were performing better than boys as opposed to their final exams where trends showed girls who had the potential to score highest grades during their final exams ended up underperforming (Yates, 2008). The reasons attributed to this could be the culture that physics and other science were masculine.

However, after the increased awareness on gender equality in schools and diversification of careers to fit both sexes, an alarming number of girls will join science courses and achieve better results overall than boys. This plan will enlighten the girls on the continued narrowed definition of gender as reflected in post-career options. Through this, the will be a high number of girls who have the potential to perform better in physics and other science subjects in my class and the school as a whole. In exploiting the plan, I will also teach the girls in my class that the extent that the school achieves in gender equality does not mainly translate into workplace reforms. The entire fraternity and also that schools do not all times teach the skills required to curb post-school barriers hindering equity (Clegg & Rowland, 2010, p. 720).   

Myths Surrounding Gender and Schooling with Girls in Year 10

I will launch my initiative first to the girls in my class (year 10) and also the boys to educate them on the need for equal treatment and chances across all parties. After creating awareness in my class and aiding the girls who have problems whether to pursue physics and other sciences (Thompson & Harbaugh, 2013, p. 301). I will proceed to the school administration to request for permission to address the same issue to parents during the general meeting and the school website. This will help cover wider regions and enlighten people that no careers are feminine or masculine. 

Conclusion

This paper is based on a socio-cultural pedagogical situation, and the initiative laid to solve the problem. The situation in the picture is the low number year ten girls in a school in Australia who choose to proceed with physics and other science subjects despite performing well than boys. This situation is constituted by the belief that science course leads to masculine careers which are not true. Students’ career is determined by the overall performance of the student in class regardless of the subject.

The initiative has come up with as a graduate teacher is to revise the lesson plan of the girls in year 10 and encourage them to pursue subjects which they perform better despite the socio-cultural situations in the fraternity. Additionally, I will reach out to the community through meeting the parents during school meetings. This will aid in dealing with the inequality that girls face due to the culture that there career that is masculine. Through an analysis of all teachers in the school, those upholding the same pedagogical situation will be able to figure things right and lay down strategies for ensuring equity across all students taking particular subjects and create awareness to others within the institution.    

References

Asher, N. (2007). Made in the (multicultural) USA: Unpacking tensions of race, culture, gender, and sexuality in education. Educational Researcher, 36(2), 65-73.

Clegg, S., & Rowland, S. (2010). Kindness in pedagogical practice and academic life. British       Journal of Sociology of Education, 31(6), 719-735.

Flintoff, A., Fitzgerald, H., & Scraton, S. (2008). The challenges of intersectionality: researching difference in physical education 1. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 18(2),         73-85.

Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (Eds.). (2008). Voice in qualitative inquiry: Challenging conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research. Routledge.

Jones, Tiffany Mary, and Lynne Hillier (2012). “Sexuality education school policy for Australian GLBTIQ students.” Sex Education 12, 437-454.

Liasidou, A., Maniatis, P., Papageorgiou, I., Pasias, G., Roussakis, Y., Sotiris, P…. & Pavlidis, P.             (2014). Inclusive education and critical pedagogy at the intersections of disability, race,     gender, and class. Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies, 10(1).

Luke, C., & Gore, J. (2014). Feminisms and critical pedagogy. Routledge.

McClintock & Anne (2013). Imperial Leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. Routledge.

Meyer, E. J. (2010). Gender and sexual diversity in schools (Vol. 10). Springer Science &             Business Media.

Robinson, K. H., Bansel, P., Denson, N., Ovenden, G., & Davies, C. (2014). Growing up queer:  Issues facing young Australians who are gender variant and sexuality diverse.

Robinson, K., & Davies, C. (2008). Docile bodies and heteronormative moral subjects:      Constructing the child and sexual knowledge in schooling. Sexuality & Culture, 12(4), 221-239.

Sing, C. C., & Khine, M. S. (2008). Assessing the epistemological and pedagogical beliefs            among pre-service teachers in Singapore. Knowing, Knowledge and Beliefs, 287-299.

Smith, E., Jones, T., Ward, R., Dixon, J., Mitchell, A., & Hillier, L. (2014). From blues to rainbows: The mental health and well-being of gender diverse and transgender young       people in Australia. Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society.

Thompson, G., & Harbaugh, A. G. (2013). A preliminary analysis of teacher perceptions of the     effects of NAPLAN on pedagogy and curriculum. The Australian Educational

Researcher, 40(3), 99-314.

Vavrus, M. (2009). Sexuality, schooling, and teacher identity formation: A critical pedagogy of    teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(3), 383-390.

Yates, L. (2008). Revisiting feminism and Australian education: Who speaks? What questions?    What contexts? What impact? Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education,          29(4), 471-481.

Yates, L. (2009). From curriculum to pedagogy and back again: knowledge, the person, and the   changing world. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 17(1), 17-28.