The feminist researchers of the 70s and 80s not only highlighted the experience of girls at school but also formed part of the struggle on behalf of women working in education and their professional aspirations. Consequently, women were seen moving into more positions of power such as that of Head Teacher as well as comprising much of the workforce within schools. At the same time the idea was challenged that the teaching of younger children was women’s work, an idea
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rooted in nineteenth century ideologies of manliness, which meant that the only men in such positions were often public school students who had stayed to teach in those schools. The lack of men in primary schools, was therefore the focus of feminist educators who sought to benefit pupils by breaking down the barriers of what were seen to be traditional roles. It was argued that men should be seen by children at an early age to be teaching in a primary setting to eradicate the idea of child care as being women’s work (Browne and France, 1986). It was also hoped that, in doing this, it might also result in more value being placed upon early years education which was often viewed as being of a lower status than teaching at secondary level. Whilst for the first time the absence of men in primary school teaching was scrutinized, the role of women in delivering early years education was not initially viewed as a cause for concern or detrimental to pupils. However, more recently, the idea that primary schools are still largely staffed by women has been highlighted as an issue and it has been argued that it places boys at a disadvantage. One of the ideas informing this government position is the link which is made between ‘laddish culture’ and learning and the need to tackle this by introducing male role models to develop alternative forms of masculinity (Skelton, 2012, Brownhill, 2014). This was seen in the ‘Reading Champions’ initiative (2004) which celebrated positive male role models for reading in order to encourage boys in their literacy, although many of these were sporting heroes, in particular, footballers. Mentors to facilitate engagement were also encouraged in the document ‘Raising Boys Achievement’ (Younger and Warrington, 2005) as a strategy for success.
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In tandem there has been a growing reaction to the ‘feminism of education’ (Miller 1996, Epstein et al. 1998). This idea is linked to essentialist views in that it takes for granted that there are fundamental differences between men and women and posits the idea that boys are disadvantaged by female teachers who may not be able to accommodate or understand their learning styles and hence, a range of literature has been provided with suggestions and tips on how to make learning more ‘boy-friendly’ by building in elements of competition and accepting boys’ needs for adventure and action (Hannan, 1999). Strategies focusing on literacy offered by Ofsted are the inclusion of ‘boy-friendly texts’ and the need to reflect on how good results by boys have been achieved such as that of one teacher ‘who evaluated her teaching and ‘reach[ed] a tentative conclusion that she teaches language in a ‘scientific’ way’ (2003:22). Other initiatives also point to a view, at government level, that boys and girls inherently learn in different ways such as the pilot by Ofsted of the single sex classroom.
Teaching materials have also been criticized as being too ‘girl-friendly’ and advice has been offered such as that of Bleach (1998a) that book covers should show males as central characters. Initiatives such as ‘Boys into Books’ implemented by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2008 demonstrate the
commonly held perception within education that boys have specific interests which are not sufficiently catered for by the current curriculum. This is echoed in the
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Boys’ Commission Report (2012) who argue that schools need to teach a greater range of texts which are more suited to the needs of boys.
However, criticism of reading materials for not being ‘boy-friendly’ is somewhat confusing considering that in the early stages of literacy learning, school reading scheme books are arguably biased towards them in terms of inclusion. A study of early reading schemes by Baker and Freebody (1989) revealed that they
contained more boys as ‘social actors’ (Van Leeuwen, 2008) who were more likely to appear in a story as a single character whilst girls were equally likely to appear singly or with other girls. Boys were also much more likely to be protagonists and where more than one social actor was included were generally introduced first. Even in modern reading schemes such as the Oxford Reading Tree, an analysis has shown that male participants are ‘numerically dominant in material, verbal and relational-attributive processes’ (Wharton, 2005:244).
An interesting point to note in the early reading books offered to children is that ‘they provide ....a definition of what their identities, interests and attitudes and experiences are conventionally deemed to be’ (Baker and Freebody, 1989:47) and therefore contribute to the construction of gender identity; ‘fathers paint, pump, fix,
drive (cars), water (gardens), mothers dress, hug and kiss (children). Girls tend to
like animals whilst boys tend to like inanimate objects...mothers are firmly located in emotion-related activities.’ (Sutherland, 2011:124). Considering this, it might be possible that early reading books contribute to a notion of masculinity which
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rejects emotional expression and response as feminised practice and results in some boys identifying school based literacy as unmasculine as it involves self- disclosure and empathetic response (Hunter, 1988, Gilbert, 1989). Alloway and Gilbert (2010) describe the ‘truly literate subject’ as one ‘who is able to lay bare the soul: to engage in literacy practices that describe feelings and emotions and which locate the reader/writer as a sensitive and aesthetic subject who derives pleasure from print and literary expression’ (2010:55). The early reading schemes may, therefore, help to construct this as undesirable for boys whilst at the same time demanding ‘personalized expression and response’ to the same texts.
Other complaints about feminised education centre around the idea that there are not enough male teachers and this is particularly pertinent in primary schools – an idea which Government Policy tried to address in 2007 via the Training and
Development Agency who stressed the importance of male primary school
teachers as role models. However, despite claims to the contrary, there appears to be little evidence to suggest this makes a difference in achievement (Skelton, 2001, 2003, Helbig, 2012, Brownhill, 2014). Connolly also warns that the unease about women teaching boys creates a culture of blame and also ‘constructs the idea that the achievements of boys and girls are linked [so] that one group cannot succeed unless at the expense of the other’ (2004:43). Such assertions imply that feminism has created a bias towards the privileging of girls (Gurian,1998) rather than acknowledging its role in striving for equality. Furthermore, the building of a curriculum around what is girl-friendly/boy-friendly does little to challenge
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stereotypes but rather embeds and accepts as inevitable, behaviours which are often linked to hegemonic forms of masculinity which may be a root cause of poor academic performance. Specifically, it defines some skills such as expressive emotional response as feminine and seeks to work round this for boys rather than challenging its rejection.