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 Associate Professor of Education and Co-Director of the Gender Studies Institute at Trinity Western University in Canada. She also serves as adjunct faculty at the University of Glamorgan, Wales, UK. She is the author of many books and articles on the issue of gender in education, including Gender, Participation and Silence in the Language Classroom: Sh-Shushing the Girls, 2004, a personal account of her ten month study of one grade-two English language learning classroom at a Canadian Punjabi Sikh school where all the students share a Punjabi Sikh heritage. Dr. Jule taped and transcribed teacher-lead discussions that revealed the boys occupied more linguistic space (used more words) than the girls by a ratio of 9:1 and sometimes 10:1 (boys:girls). She refers to this as "use of linguistic space."
"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.
Ladies Home Journal: "Look Who's Not Talking"
-- by Stephanie Emma Pfeffer, October 2004
 "Anyone who's been doing her homework knows that girls are less likely than boys to participate in classroom discussions. The sad surprise is that this gender gap starts as early as second-grade. Allyson Jule, Ph.D., author of Gender, Participation and Silence in the Language Classroom: Sh-shushing the Girls spent a year observing a second-grade teacher interact with her students and found the boys spoke ten times more and at greater length than the girls. Dr. Jule says the teacher's unwitting behavior - making more eye contact with the boys, singling them out more - may have sent messages downplaying the importance of what girls have to say..."
"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 |
