Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education

Susan S. Klein, Barbara Richardson, Dolores A. Grayson, Lynn H. Fox, Cheris Kramarae, Diane S. Pollard, Carol Anne Dwyer, Susan S. Klein, Barbara Richardson, Dolores A. Grayson, Lynn H. Fox, Cheris Kramarae, Diane S. Pollard, Carol Anne Dwyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317639602
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1985, the Handbook for Achieving Gender Equity Through Education quickly established itself as the essential reference work concerning gender equity in education. This new, expanded edition provides a 20-year retrospective of the field, one that has the great advantage of documenting U.S. national data on the gains and losses in the efforts to advance gender equality through policies such as Title IX, the landmark federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education, equity programs and research. Key features include: Expertise – Like its predecessor, over 200 expert authors and reviewers provide accurate, consensus, research-based information on the nature of gender equity challenges and what is needed to meet them at all levels of education. Content Area Focus – The analysis of gender equity within specific curriculum areas has been expanded from 6 to 10 chapters including mathematics, science, and engineering. Global/Diversity Focus – Global gender equity is addressed in a separate chapter as well as in numerous other chapters. The expanded section on gender equity strategies for diverse populations contains seven chapters on African Americans, Latina/os, Asian and Pacific Island Americans, American Indians, gifted students, students with disabilities, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. Action Oriented – All chapters contain practical recommendations for making education activities and outcomes more gender equitable. A final chapter consolidates individual chapter recommendations for educators, policymakers, and researchers to achieve gender equity in and through education. New Material – Expanded from 25 to 31 chapters, this new edition includes: *more emphasis on male gender equity and on sexuality issues;
*special within population gender equity challenges (race, ability and disability, etc);
*coeducation and single sex education;
*increased use of rigorous research strategies such as meta-analysis showing more sex similarities and fewer sex differences and of evaluations of implementation programs;
*technology and gender equity is now treated in three chapters;
*women's and gender studies;
*communication skills relating to English, bilingual, and foreign language learning; and
*history and implementation of Title IX and other federal and state policies.Since there is so much misleading information about gender equity and education, this Handbook will be essential for anyone who wants accurate, research-based information on controversial gender equity issues—journalists, policy makers, teachers, Title IX coordinators, equity trainers, women's and gender study faculty, students, and parents.

1

Examining the Achievement of Gender Equity in and through Education

Susan S. Klein* with Cheris Kramarae, Barbara Richardson

Introduction

Our empirical research and experience make clear that gender continues to be an important organizing and disempowering principle in the school system. Equity in education is not only a matter of numbers. While this Handbook provides many figures and statistics, the authors do not reduce equity issues to a series of variables, or to handicaps to be overcome. Instead, the authors detail the systematic, persistent, and group-based power and subordination problems in education. They also describe promising gender innovations needed throughout our educational systems to foster change and achieve equity. The material in these chapters challenges many current policies and practices, by reporting on empirical research, by noting serious gaps in the research, by describing programs that have and have not been successful, and by offering perspectives that can alter our current understanding of equity in education. The Handbook includes facts, assumptions, strategies, practices, and content related to curriculum, governance, socialization, psychology, working with diverse populations and multiple educational levels. It is a landmark and definitive piece of work for anyone studying, teaching, or interested in gender equity in education.

This chapter covers key purposes and understandings that have guided the development of this 22-year update of the Handbook for Achieving Sex Equity through Education (Klein, 1985). The first section explains the title and the underlying concepts of achieving gender equity in and through education along with key terms like equality, sex equity, and gender analysis. Section two shows how gender equity goals and values are supported by international and U.S. laws and policies. The final section compares four aspects of the 1985 and the 2007 Handbooks ranging from influences due to key changes in society, to expectations for gender equity research, to changes in the chapters covered. The Handbook’s summary chapter highlights key findings, recommendations, and conundrums.

Key Words and Concepts

Handbook for this volume means a research- and evidence-based summary analysis of a fairly comprehensive set of gender equity issues in 29 chapter topic areas related to education. Each chapter summarizes what is known about gender equity issues and solutions, with recommendations to guide future efforts to advance the field and practice of gender equitable education. Supplemental web pages will provide new research, recommendations, and related sources. Our publisher, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, specializes in research-based Handbooks in a variety of fields inside and outside education.¹ According to Lane Akers, vice president-editorial of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, these Handbooks “provide a broad, comprehensive snapshot of the theory, concepts, research, and methodologies that define a particular field of study. Most of them are interdisciplinary to some extent thereby introducing people in adjacent (but often isolated) fields to one another. In short, these comprehensive research Handbooks tend to bring integration to some loosely coupled fields of study.”

Gender equity in and through education follows the common research and evaluation framework by examining education processes in education as well as outcomes through education to help make a more gender equitable, productive, and peaceful society. (This in and through distinction was also used in the 1985 Handbook.) A key theme of this Handbook is that education is an important tool in creating gender equity in society. This in and through distinction helps explain the continuum of gender equity process and outcome goals, as it helps us think about the wide variety of process and outcome goals that are valued by society, clarifies how some people distinguish between equity and equality, and explains some contradictions such as why sex segregation in education processes may at times be justified if it leads to increased gender equity in outcomes.

Process and outcome goals fall on a continuum of education accomplishments and lifetime outcomes. In a continuum, sometimes indicators (such as high self-esteem or school attendance) are seen as part of the process and sometimes as the desired outcomes. There are variations among individuals and populations on what is most valued in the U.S. as well as around the world in terms of education processes and outcome goals. Sometimes there are also conflicting public laws and policies that support these values with sanctions or rewards. Conflicts between public secular policies and some religious policies, especially related to gender equity and the roles and constraints on women and men, create challenges in establishing consensus goals. As the Handbook authors point out, often values associated with men’s stereotypical achievements have been favored over achievements more typically associated with women, and men have traditionally been expected to obtain more of the desired gender equity goals. If the outcomes are judged valuable for girls and women (such as empathy and cooperation), or for men (such as strength and earning ability), they should be equally valued by society and equally attainable by all population groups.

In discussing efforts to achieve gender equity “in” formal and informal aspects of education, Handbook authors address gender equity process goals that focus on fairness, following equity laws and policies, and the decrease of inappropriate sex or gender stereotyping or segregation. Using these process goals, it may be justifiable to treat specified girls and boys, women and men differently² if there is evidence that this treatment will increase gender equity in the desired quality of life outcomes for the individuals and for the larger society. As discussed in chapter 9 on “Coeducation and Single-Sex Environments” and chapter 5 on the role of government, some different treatment of boys and girls even in sex-segregated classes or schools is allowed under the 1975 Title IX Regulations (OCR, 1975). Title IX is the landmark 1972 U.S. federal education law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex by organizations receiving federal financial assistance for education programs or activities. Under the 1975 Title IX Regulations this temporary sex discrimination (or compensatory or affirmative action) is allowed if it contributes to ending sex discrimination or decreasing gender gaps in other outcomes. However some of the chapters in this Handbook were quickly updated when the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education issued new Title IX Regulations on October 25, 2006, (OCR, 2006) which said that single-sex education activities are permitted for a much broader array of purposes than ending sex discrimination. (See especially chapter 9 and the summary chapter 31 for the details.).

In discussing achieving gender equity outcome goals through education, the authors focus on all that is of value to individuals and society, including frequently neglected strengths and roles traditionally associated with women. The following 1994 gender equity outcome goals are based on the 1985 Handbook for Achieving Sex Equity through Education goals.

Gender equity outcomes are attained when:

• Both women and men acquire, or are given equitable opportunity to acquire, the most socially valued characteristics and skills (even if they have been generally attributed to only one gender), so that fewer jobs, roles, activities, expectations, and achievements are differentiated by gender.
• There is decreased use of gender stereotyping in decision making by or about individuals.
• Sex segregation in education and society caused by gender stereotyping and other inappropriate discriminatory factors is reduced and eventually eliminated. (Klein & Ortman, 1994, p. 13).

The concept of gender equity outcomes valued by our society means that women and men, girls and boys should have full access to the same personal aspirations, rights, and responsibilities related to basic indicators of quality of life such as health, productivity, knowledge, happiness, freedom, safety, economic self-sufficiency, etc. Our society refers to the diverse populations in the U.S. and the world. Our focus on what is valued by society will be the goals described in international agreements, such as the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, national constitutions and other detailed public laws and policies, such as the United States Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments. These are discussed in part 2 of this chapter.

Gender equity and gender equality. Gender equity means attaining parity between women and men in the quality of life, academic, and work outcomes valued by our society, without limitations associated with gender stereotypes, gender roles, or prejudices. Although many who work toward these goals have their own definitions of equity and equality, there is no consensus on what these distinctions are. Thus, in this Handbook unless noted otherwise, the terms gender equity, gender equitable, and gender equality³ are used interchangeably.

We have used gender equity instead of gender equality in the Handbook title to be consistent with the title of the 1985 Handbook for Achieving Sex Equity through Education and because equity is generally preferred and used by educators. Most authors would agree, however, that the word equality, meaning the same treatment and outcome, is especially appropriate when talking about equal rights, responsibilities, and opportunities (the process dimensions), as well as receiving the same equally valued outcomes desired by society. This includes equal pay for work of comparable value, for example when men and women athletic coaches or student newspaper advisors are equally qualified and are paid the same.

Educators use the term equity to talk about a wide variety of populations related to gender, race, poverty, disability, etc. (Klein, Ortman, & Friedman, 2002). Many also consider equity to be more comprehensive and flexible than equality because it implies the concept of fairness or some differences in education processes rather than the concept of sameness when dealing with a diverse student population. When educators make fine distinctions between equality and equity, they often define gender equity as:

• Providing an equal opportunity for access to education even if it involves extra efforts to recruit the under-represented men and boys or women and girls.
• Ensuring fair, just, and comparable but not always identical treatment during the education process. The differential treatment is based on gender differences in needs, or evidence that it will be more effective in contributing to the desired outcomes. For example, male and female athletic uniforms may be different if designed to protect different parts of the body such as the inclusion of a penis cup. Another example is potty parity with different types of facilities provided for women and men.⁴
• Reducing gender gaps by obtaining equal outcomes desired by society. In defining equity processes and outcomes, others say attaining equity means there are no systematic differences in the distribution of conditions, practices, and results related to gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, or other relevant characteristics.

Some argue that in many cases, equality, or appropriate identical treatment, is preferred; however, others prefer the flexibility of the concept of equity. Both equality and equity are used in important legislation related to nondiscrimination on the basis of sex. For example, equality is key to equal rights protections in constitutions, and equity is allowed under the 1975 Title IX Regulations in education processes to allow different treatment of girls and boys (such as sex segregation) if this different treatment will result in more equal valued outcomes.

Gender equity and sex equity. The title of the Handbook was changed from sex equity to gender equity to reflect the change in the use of these terms in the field over the past 20 years. For example, in a 2006 search of the Educational Resources Information System (ERIC), Sue Klein found 487 documents using the key words sex equity from pre 1966 to 1984, but only 9 documents using the key words gender equity during those years. During the time frame of the current Handbook (1985–2006), this ERIC search showed 709 documents using gender equity but only 397 documents using sex equity. During 2000 to 2006 when there were only 4 documents using sex equity and 163 using gender equity. For more on this trend see chapters by Klein, Ortman, and Friedman (2002) and Koch, Irby, and Brown (2002) in Defining and Redefining Gender Equity in Education (Koch & Irby, 2002). The large drop in the use of sex equity after 1998 is related to the drastic decrease in documents about vocational education sex equity coordinators and programs when the Perkins Vocational Education Act stopped requiring funding for thes...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Examining the Achievement of Gender Equity in and through Education
• Part I—Facts and Assumptions about the Nature and Value of Gender Equity
• Part II—Administrative Strategies for Implementing Gender Equity
• Part III—General Educational Practices for Promoting Gender Equity
• Part IV—Gender Equity Strategies in the Content Areas
• Part V—Gender Equity Strategies for Diverse Populations
• Part VI—Gender Equity From Early Through Postsecondary Education
• Author Index
• Subject Index