Participantes del estudio

An important question to ask is how the above debates broaden and relate to our understanding of the issues of gender and education in the Global South. What path has the discourse of boys, girls and schooling followed in Africa? What does this discourse look like in different parts of Africa? Morrell, Bhana and Pattman (2009) present a number of reasons for attending to boys in the African context, while at the same time acknowledging that girls are basically disadvantaged more than boys. They note that current inequalities prevail where boys are favored to the detriment of girls and the following gender inequality indicators are listed:

• Percentage of boys in the primary and high school is higher than girls • Dropout rates for girls due to pregnancy are high

• As we move up the educational ladder into higher education the gender gap increases in favor of boys

• Girls portrayed as victims of sexual violence in schools and how this hinders girls’ achievement.

• Girls performing not achieving in Science, Math and Technical subjects

The magnitude of the above gender disparity indicators vary across different contexts in Africa. These inequalities are explained as emanating from cultural practices inherent within patriarchy that subordinates women to men. For example when a family has to decide between sending a boy or girl to school, the odds would be that the girls would stay at home while the boy goes to school (Peresuh and Ndawi, 1998; Swaison, 1995; Ansell, 2002).

Other researchers have noted how the curriculum texts negatively represent women as house wives (Gordon, 1995), assigning girls a position of subordination. The same texts also depict boys in powerful roles as leaders in public and private places. But what has not been considered is how these textual discourses really manifest themselves and with what impact in the day to day experiences of boys and girls. How are these representations internalized or challenged? Partly this study attempts to fill this gap by exploring the experiences of boys and girls in a rural high school context in Zimbabwe. Given the above inequalities, a focus on girls has been central in research about gender and schooling, with a view of trying to find strategies that would improve the fortunes of girls. Consequentially, a focus on boys and the construction of masculinities as a gendered construct has largely been absent from literature on gender. Where the focus has been present the construction of violent a masculinity has received attention (Morrell, 2001). Boys and men have been demonized and seen as potentially dangerous to girls and women. Strict binary notions of gender that distinguish men and women has emerged in

the “girl focus” Commenting on the emphasis on visible boys/men, in the West, Thorne (1994) has labeled this systematic theoretical blind spot, the “Big Man bias” (p. 97). There is an undue focus on the bad boys or the most wildly successful as if they are representative of all males. The ordinary boys, those who are not disruptive or destructive, those who are not scholastic or athletic stars have received little attention (Weaver-Hightower, 2003). Within Africa the “Big Man bias” has been conceived in relation to the dangers they pose for girls with a view to magnify the supposed disadvantage of girls. A legitimate concern may be that most of the boys are not bad but, they have been made invisible in the current gender discourse that overemphasizes domination as underpinning the relations between boys and girls in school. This leaves a huge gap in as far as understanding the gendered lives of the rest of the boys, who most of the time relate peacefully and productively with girls. There is therefore a reasonable justification to examine these salient but silenced boys. However, while many boys/men may not be violent or ‘bad’ they are still complicit in maintaining the gender order because they benefit from the patriarchal order (Connell, 1995, p. 80).

According to Morrell, et al., (2009), despite the focus on girls, there has not been a crisis of masculinity and we cannot talk of a boy turn within the African context. Boys are still treated well and doing well in school. In terms of resources and facilities boys still get preference. On the other hand girls battle to convert improved academic performance into labor market benefits, where women continue to earn less than men in comparative situations. However Morrell, et al., (2009) argue that despite the apparent favorable position of boys there, is a serious need to attend to the issue of boys in developing contexts because of the following reasons:

• High levels of unemployment and crime levels

• Number of boys also dropping out of the school system is high • Violence, vandalism and gangsterism.

• Drug addiction.

I would also add that there should be a focus on gender rather than boys because this would permit us to simultaneously examine boys and girls in relational terms. The problems that affect boys also impact on the girls and more so in negative ways. A methodological concern that Hightower (2003) pointed out is ….how might we research

and write about boys and girls within the same article or book? (p. 490). A solution

resides in adopting a relational approach to the study of gender, an approach which has been absent in much gender and education work in Africa, particularly in rural Zimbabwe.

As an ongoing issue with the above concerns, Morrell, et al (2009, p. 705), also reports that,

….there has not been a clear understanding of the connection between schooling and the world of work…the consequent poor prospect of employment juxtaposed with the enduring expectations that men should be

providers.

Morrell’s assertion points to the need for research on gender and schooling to expand beyond school measures of students test scores, drops out due to pregnancy and disciplinary problems, but to examine the way these micro-level-events are connected with other social and structural dynamics outside the school.