While popular culture may be experiencing a kind of backlash against feminism resulting in a 'Not this again!' response at the mention of 'gender,' Dr. Allyson Jule, academic and author of Sh-shushing the Girls, believes that despite battle weariness over the 'gender wars' the sheer weight of evidence that gender is a powerful variable in the classroom necessitates that it be understood in as many ways as possible and better debated among educators, parents and students alike.
Classroom study finds boys talk 9 - even 10 times - more than girls.
"Boys encouraged, girls silenced in class"
WashingtonTimes.com
"If debates about gender in the classroom are thought to be a thing of the 1970's past, ones largely settled in other sociological debates, then this study suggests the debate is not over."
-- Dr. Allyson Jule, Sh-shushing the Girls
Dr. Allyson Jule is Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University, British Columbia, Canada.
She is the author of several books and articles on the issue of gender in education, including Gender, Participation and Silence in the Language Classroom: Sh-Shushing the Girls, a personal account of her ten month study of one grade-two English language learning classroom at a Canadian Punjabi Sikh school. Allyson Jule taped and transcribed teacher-led discussions that revealed the boys occupied more linguistic space (used more words) than the girls by a ratio of 9:1.
She is also the author of A Beginner's Guide to Language and Gender, and the media reviews editor for Women & Language journal. You can listen to Dr. Jule on the monthly podcast, The Kindlings, found at (www.thekindlings.ca)
Allyson Jule is also the Media Reviews Editor for Women & Language Journal
"Language is central to learning. If girls speak less will they learn less? Will their ability to think and communicate in complex ways be reduced?
This may well be."
-- Dr. Allyson Jule, Sh-shushing the Girls
Hundreds of studies around the world support Dr. Jule's findings that girls are being silenced in class. A current trend in education research casts boys as the new 'underclass' but the results of Dr. Jule's case study and hundreds of other similar studies world wide refocus the debate onto the frustrating problem of girls silenced in class.
"The classroom is a microcosm of society. Who counts here and why? The shushing of the girls is a complicated thing. We can't solve it, but our awareness can make a great deal of difference here and this can affect the way we manage gender. If we as parents really see that gender is a big 'card' to play, and if we understand some of the ways it limits as well as propels people, then we can articulate this better to our children."
-- Dr. Allyson Jule, Sh-shushing the Girls
"A little more helps a little more"
"There are never simple conclusions to the ever-complex context of schooling, and certainly the role gender plays in the midst of it is one that will continue to be ever-new because the people and places are ever changing. There are no conclusions to the matter. There has never been nor will there ever be a final conclusion to the matter of gender in education, which is exactly why we seek further understanding about it. A little more helps a little more."
-- Dr. Allyson Jule, Sh-Shushing the Girls |
