Intervening in the Debate about Boys' Education in Germany

1. Intervening in the Debate about Boys' Education in Germany Thomas Viola Rieske Universität Potsdam ETUCE Project „Teachertradeunionactionschallenging gender stereotypes and gender segregation in thelabourmarket“ Peer Learning Activity, Brussels, 9 May 2012

2. Introduction: The Debateabout Boys & Education • Disadvantaged Boys? • Feminised Education? • MasculinePedagogies? • Alternatives

3. Introduction: Discourse around Boys and Education • New Perspectives on Gender & Education since the 1990s in Industrialized Countries • Girls as catching up with or overtaking boys in formal education, boys are at risk • Education as feminised and disadvantaging boys

4. Introduction: Discourse around Boys and Education  Boy-turn of research and policy attention  Discourse of Boys’ Crisis reorganises our knowledge of gender, education and inequality

5. Disadvantaged Boys? • Girls get better grades, drop out less often, start to overtake in tertiary education • Girls do better in literacy, more and more they equal boys in mathematics & science • Boys more often appear as problematic within school

6. Feminised Education? • High proportion of women in education • Lack of male role models in kindergarten and schools • Cultural feminisation of teaching and behaviour rules • Privileging of girls and femininity because of feminism

7. More Masculine Pedagogies? • Adjusting to boys’ interests • Accepting and fostering boys’ behaviour and identities • More men as role models, figures of identification, authorities for boys

8. Disadvantaged Boys 1. Is it a new phenomenon?

11. Disadvantaged Boys 2. Disadvantaged in all dimensions?

13. Disadvantaged Boys 3. Which boys?

15. Boys‘ problems with education • Boys are differently at risk • Specific constellations get out of sight • Other problems of boys are neglected

16. Disadvantaged Boys? 4. (For whom) does education pay off?

18. Is attainment a good indicator for successful education? • Women more often than employed under precarious conditions • Education is more than formal education and „skills for life“ • self-esteem, strategies of pursuing one’s needs & interests, career choices • Experiences of discrimination, recognition, support on the ground of gender norms, racism, social inequalities

19. Alternative Description Still, gender determines what kind of education someone is offered, can accept and can benefit from. This leads to an unequal distribution of skills, grades, experiences of support and discrimination, payment, power resources amongst girls and boys. More boys than girls show problems in relation to formal education and those skills that are associated with femininty.

20. Feminised Education? 1. Too many women?

21. Association of teacher‘s gender and educational attainment • Contradicting results – mainly no support of the hypothesis • Boys‘ relative distance to schooling was known when teachers were predominantly male

22. Gender is more than male-female-proportions

23. Gender is more than male-female-proportion • Women‘s proportion is biggest in positions with low acknowledgement, low payment, low power Children experience a world (at schools), where men tend to be responsible for decisions and knowledge, women tend to be responsible for nurture and daily routines

24. Feminised Education? Too much femininty?

25. Too much femininity? • Research on teaching materials: heteronormativity, gender stereotypes • Why is working in groups, restricting movement, or the rejection of physical violence declared feminine? • Is feminisation no problem for girls??

26. Masculine Pedagogies? Adjusting to boys?

27. Adjusting to boys‘ typical interests and habits? • Naturalising and Strengthening gender differences and stereotypes • Neglecting shared interests of boys & girls • Lowering educational aspirations?

28. Alternatives Offering spaces of development and challenges to boys (and girls)

29. Alternative problematisation Boys (and girls) experience gendered expectations and the pressure to become employable. These „impulses to normalize“ can be contradictory and produce conflicts.

30. Alternative problematisation Boys experience conflicts between „doing student“ (accepting rules, working on their intellectual skills, asking for help) and „doing masculinity“ (being autonomous, strong, dominant and trusting their gifts):

31. Alternative problematisation “The hegemony of the ‘effortless but successful’ male image puts boys under considerable pressure to ‘pass’ as non-conforming; many devote considerable effort to strategising around remaining accepted by peers, which often means underperforming while in school.” Lynch 2009 (NESSE report)

32. Alternative problematisation Not being masculine means to loose (the hope of) privileges and a sometimes important means to gain recognition and belonging.

33. Alternative Orientations • Criticising inequality of life pathways • Reflecting one‘s own view on gender and gendered practices • Allowing for diversity and intersectionality • Gender-senstive pedagogy as a critical exchange about the impulse to normalize

35. Alternative Orientations After 37 years of trying to be male and over eight years of trying to be female, I’ve come to the conclusion that neither is worth all the trouble. Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw, 1995

36. Reactions