What is the feminist view of the role of education in society?

What do feminists perceive the role of the education system to be? I have looked in my Themes and Perspectives book by Haralambos, but doesn't seem to have anything directly related to education. I also have to try and distinguish between Liberal, Marxist and Radical feminists.
Thanks,
Nicki

Reply 1

kellywood_5

OK, I've dug out my notes from AS for you, so hopefully these will help :smile:

Feminists believe that education is an agent of secondary socialisation that helps to enforce patriarchy.

The concept of 'cultural transmission' shows how culture, and in particular expectations of the genders, can be transmitted from one generation to the next.

Sylvia Walby's 'triple systems theory' (1999) argues that experiences of ethnicity and class complicate what it means to be female, so we have to combine patriarchy with capitalism and racism to understand how girls are affected.

Heaton and Lawson (1996) argue that the 'hidden' curriculum is a major soruce of gender socialisation and operates in 5 ways:
-books and textbooks where women are portrayed as dependent on men and the absence of women in science texts (Kelly, 1987)
-female students being made to feel uncomfortable in certain subjects, eg computing where boys 'colonise' the space around the computers and teachers fail to intervene, leaving girls feeling excluded (Culley, 1986)
-teachers, eg boys being asked to move furniture and girls to wash up
-patriarchal curriculum where boys' sports are recognised more than girls' and A-level subject choices are very gender-specific
-lack of positive role models (more teachers are female than male, but more men are in senior management positions and there are very few black female teachers).

Liberal feminists: changes in equal opportunities and educational policies, eg the National Curriculum, will end patriacrhy.

Marxist feminists: womens' role in society is shaped by the needs of the economy and capitalism means women are socialised into supporting men in the home and at work, which education enforces.

Radical feminists: patriarchy will only end when women are freed from the physical and emotional violence inflicted by men in the classroom and the playground.

Black feminists: being black and female is very different to being white and female and this can be seen in the way teachers treat students differently.

Post-feminists: women possess multiple identities, so there is no single meaning of what 'female' means.

Reply 2

mooncheese89

Wow, I think Kellywood pretty much covered that! :biggrin:

Just thought I would give a small example to illustrate the transmitted ideas of male/female roles- text books, and also those books like Biff & Chip that kids use when they're first learning to read- they usually feature the mother in the kitchen doing the washing up, looking after the children, and the father coming home after work; "Nice day at the office, dear?" etc.
Obviously most, if not all, branches of Feminists would consider this to be a bad thing.