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Girls’ education in Hong Kong: Incidental gains and postponed i nequality 香港女童教育 : 偶然的平等与延迟的不公

Girls’ education in Hong Kong: Incidental gains and postponed i nequality 香港女童教育 : 偶然的平等与延迟的不公. Grace Mak 麦肖玲 The HK Institute of Education 香港教育学院. Two objectives of the paper. A critical review of girls’ participation in education in the last 20 years: Progress in what areas? Why?

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Girls’ education in Hong Kong: Incidental gains and postponed i nequality 香港女童教育 : 偶然的平等与延迟的不公

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  1. Girls’ education in Hong Kong: Incidental gains and postponed inequality香港女童教育: 偶然的平等与延迟的不公 Grace Mak麦肖玲 The HK Institute of Education 香港教育学院

  2. Two objectives of the paper • A critical review of girls’ participation in education in the last 20 years: • Progress in what areas? Why? • Remaining gaps?

  3. Research on the subject • Mainly in status attainment perspective. • Measuring the gap. More on whatthan why. A deficit perspective • Outcome, not process • Unproblematic • Ignores multiplicity and contradictory values different people attach to achievements.

  4. Research gaps • Why – the complex dynamics between structural factors, e.g., policy and social trends, and girls’ response to it • Two dimensions of the problem – • Girls’ subjectivities: gendered identity formation & its interaction with public discourse on gender relations and edu provision • Epistemology – gendering in school knowledge & assessment

  5. Arguments • Partial gains in education: • titular policy of universal basic education • Decline in fertility and raised value of daughters • Incidental outcome of uncoordinated policy and demographics, rather than an ideology of gender equity • Inequality perpetuates in spheres where male interests continue to be safeguarded: the family, economy, and politics

  6. Arguments • Discourse on gender difference: • Need to clarify the assumptions behind relationship between gender & knowledge/assessment • contention between natural and social factors as valid explanation for gender difference in education.

  7. Current situation • Girls’ enrollment rates higher than boys’ since 1991 (3-18 age groups) and since 2001 (19-24 age group). • Girls generally “outperform” boys • Gender divide in subjects -- remained but narrowed. • Increase in women’s participation in higher education, but mostly in sub-degree programmes

  8. Women as a % of students enrolled in UGC-funded programmes by level of study, in % of headcount(Source: UGC)

  9. Persons aged 25 and below who were studying outside Hong Kong by place of study and sex, 2002 Source: Census and Statistics Department (2005), Survey on "Hong Kong students studying outside Hong Kong" in 2002.

  10. Questions • What is being compared? Is numerical gender parity or a deeper sense of fairness the ultimate objective of intellectual inquiry into the question? • Are the increases in education misleading in our assessment of gender equality?

  11. Academic Performance • Macall et al.: higher rates of boys than girls in underachievement esp in P5 and P6 • EOC: 1993-1998 P6 girls consistently outperformed boys • Wong et al.: 1997 HKCEE girls outperform boys in all areas of school curriculum

  12. Academic Performance • HKCEE results in recent years: • Girls generally do better than boys • Except in languages, Grade A-C boys and girls, close • Gender divide in non-language subjects: blurring • HKALE: • Gender divide in lang, math and sci – intensifies; blurs in other subjects

  13. Shifting pattern of gender difference in new edu context • What is the nature of the change? • School organization • Knowledge organization --Gender matching of knowledge; what favors who • But: changing performance in math & science

  14. Shifting pattern of gender difference in new edu context • How students perform in a subject – TIMSS vs PISA findings on science • Gender difference in aptitude and the assumption behind • Girls’ positive response – natural or socially oriented? • If latter, is it sustainable? A shifting vs constant phenomenon?

  15. Limitation of education as a change agent • Change in degree • Little fundamental change in gender inequality in the family, economy, and politics

  16. Econ economic outcome of girls’ educationSource: Census & Statistics Dept.

  17. Contradiction between Phenomena & Explanation of phenomena (facts) (perceptions, values…) • Educators’ consciousness lags behind social phenomena; gender as a non-issue.

  18. Current state of women Womanhood as personhood education economy new forms of inequality family politics Perspectives on gender roles

  19. Agendas for Future Research: Subjectivities • Essentialist stance (a collective voice of women) vs. Post-modern stance (diversity and multitude of voices) • Inter-gender difference vs intra-gender difference (Individuals as autonomous beings) • Differential response to education  construction of gender as a complex social category shaped by interaction of gender, class, ethnicity and other factors.

  20. Agendas for Future Research: Subjectivities • e.g., underachieving girls as a research category • e.g., “underachieving” women • Underachievement by choice or by elimination? • Values & re-defining “status” and “achievement” • Liberation or limitation?

  21. Epistemology • Shifting relationship of gender and knowledge • Natural vs social explanations

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