Gender Equality in Schools

Published by Oxfam, this 11-page paper discusses the content and delivery of education, around the world, and how these components can reflect and reproduce gender inequalities. Oxfam stresses that girls' and boys' learning and interaction with each other, and the teacher, are influenced by ways of teaching and learning, the content of the curriculum, and interpersonal relations within the classroom. The paper considers these aspects of education provision - citing examples of successful initiatives to make gender equity a central part of teaching and learning - and recommending changes needed to ensure that education provision will promote gender equality. It emphasises the centrality of communication in achieving global goals such as Education for All (EFA), as well as in ensuring that girls and women draw on education to ensure their full and equal participation in society.

Specifically, Oxfam suggests beginning by developing a picture of a gender-equitable approach to schooling, one that is motivated by the commitment to go beyond simple access issues to understand gender more holistically. An assessment of the school involves asking questions such as: "What perceptions of masculinity and femininity are children bringing to school, and what are they acting out in the classroom and on the playground?" Oxfam then presents one vision of a "girl-friendly" school, which would encourage challenging and questioning the culture of the school, the curriculum, and narrow-minded concepts and prejudices. Such a school would foster increased participation of girls and women, more actively involving them in planning and evaluating their own work. Teachers would support this process by developing a broader understanding of the conditions that lead to sexism, homophobia, bullying, and racism, and craft initiatives to combat these attitudes and behaviours.

Specific strategies for creating girl-friendly schools discussed here include:

• Curriculum reform - "Across the world, assumptions about what is appropriate for boys and girls to learn can undermine equality in learning." Power is related to certain types of knowledge, Oxfam stresses, and assumptions that girls are not good at mathematics, for instance, can result in girls being channelled into "lower-status" subjects. One example of an initiative to challenge such assumptions is textbooks used for Hindi language teaching in Madhya Pradesh, where there has been a conscious effort to present girls in positive roles (e.g., by featuring women who fought for their states and women renowned for their educational achievements). Partnership has been one strategy used to develop such programmes; in India, curriculum design for non-formal education has been facilitated through academic-activist partnerships, one of which helped create numeracy manuals using women's indigenous knowledge of folk and street mathematics. Special attention needs to be paid, Oxfam stresses, to: curriculum content, learning materials (e.g., by understanding how children learn about gender from textbooks), language of instruction and literacy, and methods of evaluation and assessment.
• Adjusting the dynamics of teaching and learning in the classroom - "The curriculum is only as good as the teachers who deliver it." Teachers can make a difference, Oxfam claims, by understanding themselves as "facilitators of learning, rather than merely deliverers of knowledge". To facilitate that learning, they need to address and adjust their own assumptions about girls and what they are capable of, such as by assuming that a girl can learn mathematics (an attitude shift that "will affect their approach to teaching girls and their expectations of what girls can achieve in the subject.") They also need to attend to girls' own low expectations of themselves and what they can accomplish. The steps Oxfam proposes for supporting this multi-faceted process include developing good policy frameworks, ensuring that these frameworks guide the development of good policies, and, finally, providing training to teachers and government officials - and galvanising community endorsement for their efforts.
• Educating teachers - Oxfam urges making gender equity a central theme throughout a programme of teacher education, and ensuring that training both helps teachers develop practical solutions and is accompanied by monitoring and follow-up support. "Building networks of teachers to work together or collaborating through school clusters and teachers' centres, are ways of sustaining training and providing ongoing support for teachers and education officials." To address issues of teacher-learner relationships and learning styles, Oxfam holds that teacher education should foster confidence in teachers to encourage participation from pupils and the local community in shaping a vision for gender equity. This suggests that teachers need to work alongside parents and communities, such as by providing venues and forums where strong gender-equality messages can be explored and reinforced. In addition, Oxfam suggests that teachers need to not only be able to teach gender equality, but should engage in a process of addressing how they live out these messages in their private lives. This process may involve "changing personal behaviour and challenging some of the deeply held assumptions that perpetuate inequalities."

Oxfam offers the following recommendations to ensure that education provision promotes gender equality:

• Governments and non-state providers "have a responsibility to develop gender-equitable education policies for children's learning, as well as for their long-term well-being." Oxfam claims that they should:
  
  • ensure that curriculum development involves consultation at all levels of society about gender equality
  • develop and implement government-agreed standards for quality and equality in education
  • ensure that there are strong legal measures to outlaw sexual violence and harassment in school, with clear procedures for dealing with abuse, which are widely communicated.
• Headteachers and teachers should:
  
  • inform themselves about existing policy for gender equality
  • develop school-level policies for gender equitable approaches to teaching and learning
  • move beyond gender stereotypes and investigate the schools' and teachers' own values and culture and aspirations for gender equality.
• Parents and community members should:
  
  • take an active interest in their children's learning and ensure that the school learning environment is healthy and safe
  • play an active part in the management of the education resources to ensure they are used for the benefit of both girls and boys equitably.