DISCUSIÓN Y CONCLUSIONES

Teachers, as the prime deliverers of the curriculum, play a crucial and seminal role in the development of learners’ gender perceptions, not only through the teaching strategies that they employ but also through their own actions in this domain. They are the primary agents in schools that reproduce the status quo in society with respect to values and norms regarding gender. What needs to be pertinently remembered is that teachers, as products of the society themselves, have their own perceptions of gender; they act in ways that reflect these perceptions, further complicating the ‘continuity and change’ function of education and impacting the education system’s obligation to bring about gender equity in education. The actions of teachers and their learners during interaction that takes place both in the classroom and in the informal settings of schools, like playgrounds, change and recreate the perceptions of gender of the learners. In this respect Connell (2006, p.viii) talks about the:

“…very complex tissue of gender beliefs and practices that operate in particular situations, and the varying ways young men (for instance) draw on them in constructing ways of life.”

Teachers, given their own gender and the perceptions of science and science education that they bring into the classroom, complicate the ‘gender in education’ issue even further by promoting and reproducing gender roles, with their power inequalities, in their delivery of education. This will be elaborated on further in the next chapter. Despite the significant role that teachers play in reproducing gender inequality in classrooms, Weiner (1994, p.71) points out that teachers cannot be held entirely responsible for this and “educators should rather work at what they can to re-educate society”. Teaching strategies and the extent to which they are infused with science teachers’ gender perceptions constitute an external influence on learners’ perceptions of science and gender. Learners are also influenced by the own internal ‘constructs’ that they have cultivated about gender and they develop opinions of what constitutes a particular gender identity.

The implications of the above-mentioned perspectives are, as this thesis maintains, that girl learners especially, enter science classrooms with gender perceptions (including gender perceptions of science) that, although a ‘work in progress’ having been impacted from various sources, put them at a disadvantage of participation. Science teachers are an important component in mediating the different environments that learners come from, in the interests of a gender-free science classroom. Naidoo et al. (1998) go further and contend that, besides curriculum content and style of delivery, policy change and the redistribution of resources are important aspects of gender equity. Girls’ gendered perceptions of science have been illustrated empirically. In their study to investigate the cultural stereotypes of six Grade K (Kindergarten) learners relative to their self-perceived

competencies, Andre et al. (1999) were surprised that many of the stereotypes with regard to science were already present at the younger Grade Levels 1 to 3 and suggested that interventions be targeted at younger grades via the curriculum. Of significance is Andre et al.’s (1999) comment that, though their data suggest that girls and boys like the areas of Biology and Physical Sciences equally, the differences in their later science achievement, course selection and career choice more likely reflects cultural bias imposed on youths through socialisation. Pieterse (2001) in Bonthuys and Albertyn (2007, p.27) captures the societal effect of gender role stereotyping on science and science education succinctly, when stating that:

“Given the social pressures to conform to gendered stereotypes and their wide dissemination through the media, religious, educational and other social institutions, it is no wonder that people internalise stereotypical expectations (Pieterse, 2001).”

In placing science teachers in the context of the transference of gender perceptions from teachers to learners, Shaw (1995, p.6), in discussing the link between social settings like schools, the developing of social constructs like gender, and the social interaction that leads to the ultimate form of the construct, further points out that:

“To social constructionism, the social setting itself is an evolving construction. When the members of a social setting develop external and shareable social constructs, they engage the setting in a cycle of development which is critical to determining its ultimate form.”

Interaction involving learners and teachers in science classrooms is thus at the heart of the way in which the gendered nature of science is reproduced: it creates the challenges that face girls and results in the perceptions that science is for boys. A key aspect of this is the male-oriented environment of science classrooms. Murphy and Whitelegg’s (2006, p.300) comment is significant when one looks at the male-oriented environment of science classrooms that girl learners find themselves in:

“There is no quick fix to girls’ participation in physics. Fundamental reconsideration of the contribution of physics to students’ future lives is needed. …the problem is not the girls; rather, it is the teaching and learning of physics and the constraints that females experience in having to play a dual role in the public and private spheres without a concomitant shift for males.”

Socialising agents like education and the media, reproduce the gendered nature and image of science. Together with these agents, Lorsbach and Tobin (1997, p.2) contend that there are other persons who are “part of our experiential world” who are important in contributing to learners’ making meaning of experiences in their lives. This argument has implications for the science classroom situation where teaching strategies need to promote co-operative learning as a way of integrating others’ opinions into learners’ construction of their science knowledge. Lorsbach and Tobin (2007, p.2) conclude by maintaining that:

“Using a constructivist perspective, teaching science becomes … an active social process of making sense of experiences.”

Lorsbach and Tobin (1997, p.3) also argue further that, in keeping with this constructivist epistemology, teachers should become more sensitive to the prior experiences that children use to construct their science knowledge. Thus, the messages that learners receive from society, like the discrepancy in the career opportunities for women as compared to men in science, together with the manner in which girls are socialised to accept the status quo regarding the place of women in society, all conspire to confirm, and by implication reproduce, the masculine image of science. It is within this masculine-oriented science environment that girls have to construct their own feminine identity with regard to science and where science has developed its male image as a result of its construction in a male-dominated society, as a male pursuit (Kelly, 1985). This image is supported by the prevalence of males in science careers and in the study of science; the ‘packaging’ of science as a pursuit for boys; the playing out of gender roles in science classrooms; and the innately masculine image of science. Whyte (1986) argues that the male-dominated image of science contributes to, confirms and reproduces the gendered, stereotypical expectations that, unless challenged, lead to role distortions. Gendered differences develop as society accepts these role distortions as the norm.

This thesis contends that the science teachers of the girls and boys participating in this research, as socialisation agents in classrooms where societal norms and values with regard to gender and science are transferred, continue to play a significant role in perpetuating the masculine image of science through the manner in which they transfer scientific knowledge to these learners via the curriculum. The science classroom, as one of the social settings in which the transfer of the male image of science takes place and where gender is constructed, is thus a significant locale for the reproduction of the status quo with regard to science and gender. The fact is that learners enter the schooling system with preconceived ideas of science and gender that have been developed at home and that are affirmed in society via various constructs. There is a wealth of evidence to support the contention that educators in schools, colleges and universities sustain and reproduce the masculine image of science (Eccles, 1989) and this will be presented in more detail in the next chapter. The pivotal role of educators in the transference of gender constructs in science and science education is aptly summed up by Harding’s (1996, p.14) argument that:

“At a crucial period in the development of modern science, gender constructs interacted to establish its dominant values and ways of working, placing science in a masculine straight- jacket.”

2.4.3 Constructing gender identities in schools: the social context of the school