Essay about Gender Equity in Education

The passing of Title IX has changed the world tremendously in multiple ways. As stated in a peer-reviewed

Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity (2015). Title IX covers 10 key areas including: education, athletics, careers, employment, learning environments, technology, sexual harassment, testing, Math and Science, and education for pregnant and parenting students (2016). The law was passed in 1972 (2016). One of the most striking figures of the Title IX movement was Billie Jean King. King was a renowned tennis player and huge advocate for gender equality (2013). Despite having to endure both private and public battles, she never gave up on fighting for what she believed in (2013). Although King is often seen as someone who fought for women’s right she continually points out that she was fighting for “equal opportunity for both boys and girls” (2013). Title IX mainly focuses on helping women and young girls gain gender equality in common places but it can affect men

Society’s understanding of gender roles debate about gender equity and have always been connected to the social roles that men and women we assigned to shape Americans views of education for girls and boys. What has also been affected is race and social class between females and males who attend schools. Ideas of what women and men are suppose to be and do have cut across different classifications. Ending unfairness in schools has rested on change to gender roles mainly women.

Epstein, Richard. "Women don't need Title IX anymore, and men are hurt by it" Fulton County Daily Report. LexisNexis (November 4, 2002)

The lack of action and the incompetence of HEW was the primary obstacle in the way of thorough enforcement of Title IX . Inspired by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title IX took years for women to see the law enacted due to the disgraceful lack of enforcement by HEW. Experts show that the Education and Welfare did “three tenths of a complaint per person” failing to protect women to the best of its abilities for more than five years (NOW 71). The HEW did not make a priority to evaluate the claims of race or gender discrimination and after the passing of 1972 women who were excited about the passing of the law were met with one obstacle, the grace period. Feminist Susan Ware notes that The Department of Health, Education and Welfare appointed a “grace period of four to three years” for secondary institutions, meaning that some women did not see the law take hold until graduation (NOW 74). The grace period allowed schools to do as they please under the guise of evaluating results of complaints of discrimination which gave the law a sluggish start. During this period women flooded HEW with thousands of complaints by women facing gender discrimination on college campuses across the nation.

When you send your children off in the morning to go to school, no matter what grade they are in whither it be elementary, junior high, or senior high, you expect that they will receive the best education that they can get. They should be asked challenging questions, encouraged and called upon to participate in class, they should also be given as much help as they need to secede by the teacher. However, this is most commonly not the case. Parents and the children themselves are unaware of what is going on because gender bias is not a noisy problem. Most people are unaware of the secret sexist lessons that occur every day in classrooms across the country. In this essay I will use two essay's from the reader:

An additional impact on youth education choices has been policy focuses. In the 1970’s it was identified that young women were disadvantage compared to boys in education. This disadvantage presented itself in the form of retention rates and poor performance in the workforce following education. As a result there was extensive policy focus on eliminating the differences between the genders. This focused on areas such as curriculum, equal budget and spending and research into female needs in education. This demonstrated a result by the increase in females completing school and choosing subjects that were previously dominated by males (White and Wyn 1998, p.24-25).

The disparity between the achievements of males and females has been a concerning issue in education since the day girls were required to go to school. Ideally, as a whole, students belonging to either gender should perform equally well in their studies, but rarely has that ever happened. Boys traditionally performed better than their female peers because it was once normal for them to receive an education while girls stayed at home. Recently, however, a different trend has occurred in gender achievement. On average, “In high school, girls get higher grades in every subject, usually by about a quarter of a point, and have a higher median class rank” (Brooks 410). This sudden shift has prompted many concerned parents to wonder whether school curriculums have been recently designed to interest girls, while ignoring what boys like in the process. Although it is easy to blame the public school system for catering to girls, they are not the immediate problem; the expectation for boys to pursue certain interests is the reason for the achievement gap.

This essay will examine the inequality in education that is present in our society in accordance with sex and gender. In recent years, females have been outperforming males in all subject areas. The term sex refers to the biological characteristics of a person’s body that makes them either male or female while gender refers to someone being masculine or feminine. (Stoller 1968, p.9) This essay will demonstrate why males are underachieving in the education system looking at it in terms of gender and sex differences and how they impact that. That will be followed by other factors affecting this result. Then, a few different perspectives on education will be looked at.

David Brooks observed that the only reason boys’ averages on test scores hasn’t fallen completely behind is due to a select group of extremely high scores. He is stating that the gap between males and females is growing significantly and research isn’t totally exact. In a study published by the Department of Education said that in 2005 133 women will graduate for every 100 men, and by the decade’s end the number would grow to 142 women for every 100 men. This is in part due to girls scoring approximately a quarter point higher grades in each class than boys(Brooks). This leaves you to quizzically wonder why the problem has grown to cataclysmic level it is at today. Currently this evinces how women as a whole do better in public school when compared to males.

The gender gap has been a concern for decades, it used to be that females lagged behind males when it came to academic achievement. Females now outperform males academically and are more likely to obtain college degrees and enroll in graduate school despite the gender inequalities that remain in American society. The underachievement of females has diminished if not vanished due to the focus of the United States for the past 30 years to close the gender achievement gap. Yet, the concern in the most recent years has been both the lower performance of girls in mathematics and science and now males’ underperformance in most academic areas (Del Rio & Strasser, 2012). Why is it that despite that females and males attend the same educational environment, males are having a hard time keeping up and females continue to be less likely to take advanced math or science classes or enroll in science and math related careers?

Men and women have equal opportunities in school, regardless of the type of education pursued. In my experiences in school, I have never witnessed limits or restrictions set on young boys that young girls do not have as well. I have never witnessed gender specific classes nor have I witnessed any differences in the type of education allowed to both men and women. Female-favored curriculum is not the cause of a women dominated schooling system; it is, as I have observed and inferred, differences in interests and fundamental nature. Men tend to be toward the extremes when it comes to testing, resulting in more students who give up on school, while women tend to test more toward the middle, resulting in more consistent outcomes (Hulbert 415). The average student would love to go to college. The benefits of college, including receiving a higher paying career, definitely outweigh the negatives. For this reason, consistent test scores from women result in numerous college-pursuing women. However, for every genius man there is also a high school failure, causing an absence of men in the bachelor’s degree club. Men and women are two different species, and it shows when related to education.

Single-sex schooling used to be the common form of education until schools decided it would be easier to have boys and girls in classes together; Title IX also made it hard for single-sex schools to be established. According to Gerald Bracey’s work, it was not until the late nineteenth century that single-sex schools were beginning to be restrained due to the fact that joining boys’ and girls’ classes saved money (1). Although single-sex schools were wiped out for a period of time, they are now beginning to become more and more common. Nancy Autin states in her article that the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, now renamed the National Association for Choice in Education, “estimates that in the 2011-12 school year, more than five hundred public schools offered single-sex classrooms. Around 115 of those schools qualified as single-sex schools, conducting almost all of their educational activities in all-girl or all-boy settings” (2). As single-sex schools are beginning to commence, the issue of Title IX and the legality of these schools is becoming the political issue.

It is now agreed that schools and teachers play a crucial part in replicating and strengthening gender inequalities. A recent study of educators, however, shows that there was a general lack of awareness with respect to the concept of gender and ways in which gender operates in the educational process and that these concerns were not being addressed in teacher training institutions The type of school also had an effect on these outcomes; in all girls schools the performance levels of the girls are higher compared to that of coed schools. I think this is because the girls will focus more without the distraction from their inter-action with the boys (i.e. the visits to the restroom to repair make-up to impress their male counterparts will be less, there will be no intimate involvement) and also females tend to be more competitive even among themselves. In the schools located in the inner city communities, there tends to be much lower rates of participation and performance by both boys and girls. A girls’ motivation to achieve far exceeds that of boys. Marginalized females will place importance on education and do their utmost to be successful at all costs. Most females with disability and other females from the inner-city community when given the opportunity do extraordinarily well to prove their worth to society.

Gender equality is a broad topic with many different angles that can be examined. For my part in