This week, I’m sharing another original piece of academic writing for a course I took during my first semester in graduate school. As part of this course, we read a diverse set of books, articles on theory, as well as articles of empirical studies. The essay below is an integrative one, in which I tried to draw on a wide range of theorists and practitioners to describe how differences are produced via school curricula, ideas of “normal”, and structures/traditions. All ideas (and all typos) are my own, unless otherwise referenced. Enjoy!
There are many ways in which differences are established in our schools. One way is through direct instruction of content through established curricula. Sexual education, health, and science curricula are particularly fertile grounds for analyses of how differences between boys and girls are produced. When it comes to sex, western culture is “deeply committed to the idea that there are only two sexes” (Fausto-Sterling, 1996, p. 68) and this is what is taught; the natural existence of hermaphrodites (herms, merms, and ferms)—the other sexes—are discounted as abnormal despite their critical mass as a “minority.” Science and health textbooks, instead of embracing intermediate sexes, reinforce binaries, which are easy to grasp, so students learn about the dominant forms of biological sex. Furthermore, sexuality in most curricula is confined to heterosexuality, which is embraced as the norm, while all others are considered “deviant sexualities.” Discussions of marriage and family often invisibilize LGBTQ+ sexuality and relationships as they are not considered legitimate by conventional standards (Allen, 2008). Even though social tides are turning and people are becoming more open-minded, curricular reform is slow. According to Allen (2008), when it comes to implementing sexual education curricula, many schools still prefer the “abstinence only” model. This one-sided approach deemphasizes students’ sexual identity, considers them “unable to make positive sexual decisions” (p. 588), and is “concerned with securing their conformity” (p. 590). The overall tone is one of management and repression rather than empowerment and support in engaging with public concerns surrounding student sexuality, teenage parenthood, and abortion—all of which are not clear-cut. Even the “FLASH” (2018) sexual education curriculum (which is more inclusive than most) relies heavily on the status, legitimacy, and objectivity of science to justify the validity and value of what is presented as mainstream knowledge. For example, there are puberty- and sexuality-related activities, discussions, and assignments that make those individuals who deviate from established norms (i.e. intersex individuals, transgender students, girls who don’t shave, etc.) stand out. By making them more visible, this potentially makes them more vulnerable, uncomfortable, and even ashamed, which may have the effect of individuals self-regulating their appearance and “training” their “unruly” bodies to fit into cultural/gender norms and socially acceptable categories. Just as sexual education is too often objectified, disembodied, and out-of-touch, so is science education frequently delivered in a sterile, objective, and binary-laden manner devoid of affect and controversy. The curriculum sometimes repackages natural diversity in humans in a way that highlights difference, with differences arising from mutations (which, by their very nature can be beneficial, deleterious, or neutral, yet somehow carry negative connotations in our culture). My highlighting the predominant variations in biological features as “normal” and the rare variations as “abnormal,” binaries like male/female are further defined in relation to one another, thereby reinforcing the distinction between the opposing terms.
Besides curricula, physical school structures also create and communicate inherent differences in students and maintain heterosexuality and cis-gender identity as the norm. For instance, bathrooms are rarely unisex. Rather, they are designated as for boys/men or for girls/women, with no physical space for those who question their sexual identity or do not feel comfortable with either. Likewise, locker rooms for gym classes and sports teams are usually divided in the same manner, bolstering the legitimacy of the two dominant sexes/genders.
A third way that schools maintain differences is through educators intentionally and unintentionally modeling gender norms and/or adopting gender-bound practices. Contrary to common (misinformed) beliefs about the genetic differences between boys and girls, “no mental ability—or ability difference—is ‘hardwired’ into the brain…[rather] environmental factors are important in shaping gender gaps” (Eliot, 2010, p. 33). As such, schooling and the range of experiences, people, and materials that go along with it play a central role in shaping a student’s sense of self and what is considered normal/abnormal. Sometimes, educators who form assumptions about or judge their students too quickly will produce or maintain differences between sexes. I have seen teachers delegate specific tasks requiring various skills along gender lines, with boys taking on the more analytical, abstract, scientific, or physical jobs and the girls tackling the artistic, verbal, or organizational roles. This is not unlike the supposed “best practice” of helping girls grasp more abstract concepts by making concrete connections to the real world (Lesko & McCall, 2014). Likewise, during certain whole-class competitive activities, I have witnessed the teacher dividing the class into boys against girls, regarding this as a natural and innocuous grouping of students. For some teachers, this behavior is naturalized and reflexive, so much that it does not even occur to them that this act of separation by gender can be exclusive or hurtful to students. I sometimes wonder where we learned that it is okay to discriminate along gendered lines but not along racial or class lines? Is part of the reason sex difference is tolerated because of the widespread myth that such difference is backed by neuroscience (Eliot, 2010)?
Still sometimes, implicit differences between boys/girls are communicated to students by no fault of the school and simply by the rules governing probability. For instance, by chance, the teachers of physical education, physics, calculus, computer science, and economics may all be male, whereas the teachers of art/drawing, biology, English, sociology, health, and chorus are coincidentally all female. Since students often look up to their teachers as role models, such an obsolete distribution of teachers may create the impression and reinforce the stereotype that boys/men are better fit for STEM subjects—especially the “hard sciences”—and jobs emphasizing spatial and numerical skills, while girls/women are better suited for pursuing humanities, the “soft sciences,” aesthetic fields, and jobs highlighting verbal communication skills. For many students, their grasp of reality and understanding of opportunities and options for themselves are largely influenced by what they see and whom they are exposed to. Indeed, as Lesko and McCall (2014) write, “Larger and larger differences in physical activeness, literacy, and spatial awareness are produced through gender-differentiated activities and expectations rather than through hard-wiring” (p. 6). Thus, there is a need to bring more diversity into classrooms so that students are exposed to more perspectives, varying experiences, and different identities for intellectual engagement that is not bound to gender (Eliot, 2010). Especially in science classrooms, there is a need to reform the “traditional” science curriculum (which is quite “masculine,” elitist, and exclusive) to be more compatible with various “student gender and ethnic identities [to] generate a wide range of scientist subjectivities… and thus open the way towards a more inclusive science curriculum” (Hughes, 2001).
As was alluded to earlier, a consequence of maintaining such systems of differences is a reduction of the existing diversity and complexity of identities. On the extreme end of such systems, single-gender classes have been described as offering “a narrower range of learning needs” (Lesko & McCall, 2014, p. 12), and likely contributing to further reductions of what it means to be a boy/man or girl/woman. With regard to the acceptable sexes, Fausto-Sterling (1996) describes hermaphrodites as having “unruly bodies [as] they do not fall naturally into a binary classification” (p. 71); in doing so, she surfaces the anxiety our contemporary society still has around individuals who embody uncertainty and ambiguity, and who blur the borders that were intentionally set up to maintain order and to control bodies. It is precisely the perceived threat of the less-known and the grey-zones to our traditional beliefs about difference that motivate the reproduction of systems of difference in our schools. Schools, after all, are constructed to be “safe spaces” for students, and somehow safe has come to equal conflict-free, controversy-free, lack of ambiguity, neat, orderly, manageable, and predictable. I find it paradoxical that it is our discomfort with and unwillingness to openly engage with ideas and individuals outside of the norm that generates greater divisions in schools and contributes to intolerance and phobias of all kinds. In the end, it is questionable whose safety is prioritized—that of the students or that of the traditional institution of schooling?
Other likely effects are exclusion and oppression of those who deviate from the neat, unifaceted identities established and perpetuated in schools. By actively or indirectly molding students with regard to gender, schools negate the intersections of race, ethnicity, class, ability, and religion, and discount how these other factors aid in the construction of identity, especially forms of “femininity” and “masculinity.” With the intense focus on differences between boys and girls, schools ignore variations that exist within girls, such as how “different femininities exist and have greater or lesser status, opportunities, and expectations” (Lesko & McCall, 2014, p. 14). The same is true for boys/men and the different masculinities (ranging from fag to hypermasculine) and associated statuses (Pascoe, 2007; Richardson, 2012). Identities are rich, complex, and multi-layered. Too often do schools focus on specific layers of differences instead of seeing students holistically in terms of all their unique strengths and abilities, and in terms of the other ways in which they may be marginalized in schools. Ferri and Connor (2010) reveal how school-based disability labels are often assigned along race and class lines, creating additional hierarchies of difference between students. The study shows how that the social stigma associated with being “special ed. girls” (p. 109) is more damaging for girls than for boys. It also demonstrates how the structures and materials of schools produce differences in students by making them measurable, visible, and trackable. Instead of critiquing the disparity in material environment and/or circumstantial disadvantage, students’ failure to succeed is often attributed to their individual choice, personal incompetence, or lack of will or interest (McCready, 2009).
The exclusion, oppression, and reduction of diversity described above may contribute to an increase in all kinds of mental health issues in today’s youth who may feel trapped in their own bodies, suffer from imposter syndrome and insecurity, or blame themselves for being different. As educators, we can challenge these systems of differences by intentionally blurring the lines of borders governing sex, gender, and what is normal/abnormal. One specific way is to deliberately go against the normalized “gender script” in our own classrooms, such as by cross-dressing (Foresta, 2016). Additionally, educators can contribute to “queering” the curriculum by moving away from binaries and “locat[ing] all the in-between spaces” (Halberstam, 2011, p. 2), especially in science and sexual education. This might include teaching beyond biological sex, expanding to terms like gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation, and giving students both the space to ask uncomfortable questions and the time to work through them together. As educators, we should advocate for alternative narratives and perspectives, and ways of being beyond the dominant. As Halberstam (2011) insightfully reveals, “Today in the university we spend far less time thinking about counterhegemony than about hegemony” (p. 17). However educators choose to disrupt differences, they should do so as a school. In doing so, one might find inspiration in Ms. Jackson’s efforts to explore transgender identity as a school community—efforts that pushed both teachers and students “out of their comfort zones in valuable ways” (Jackson, 2016, p. 318). In sum, we need more supportive and safe opportunities to experience discomfort and to learn to become comfortable with not being in our optimal comfort zone. If we make this the new norm, more people might see differences, conflict, and disagreement as constructive and productive rather than as inherently negative and problematic.
References
Allen, L. (2008). ‘They think you shouldn’t be having sex anyway’: Young people’s suggestions for improving sexuality education content. Sexualities, 11(5), 573–594.
Eliot, L. (2010). The myth of pink and blue brains. Educational Leadership, November, 32–36.
Fausto-Sterling, A. (1996). The five sexes: Why male and female are not enough. In K. E. Rosenblum & T. C. Travis (Eds.), The meaning of difference: American constructions of race, sex and gender, social class, and sexual orientation (pp. 68–73). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Ferri, B. A., & Connor, D. J. (2010). ‘I was the special ed. girl’: urban working‐class young women of colour. Gender and Education, 22(1), 105–121.
FLASH Family Life and Sexual Health Curriculum. (2018). Retrieved November 25, 2018, from http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/personal/famplan/educators/flash.aspx
Foresta, C. M. (2016). Dressing Up. In A. Butler-Wall, K. Cosier, R. L. S. Harper, J. Sapp, J. Sokolower, & M. Bollow Tempel (Eds.), Rethinking sexism, gender, and sexuality (pp. 92–96). Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools.
Halberstam, J. (2011). Introduction: Low theory. In Queer Failure (pp. 1–26). Raleigh: Duke University Press.
Hughes, G. (2001). Exploring the availability of student science identities within curriculum discourse: An anti-essentialist approach to gender-inclusive science. Gender and Education, 13(3), 275–290.
Jackson, M. (2016). We Begin to Know Each Other. In A. Butler-Wall, K. Cosier, R. L. S. Harper, J. Sapp, J. Sokolower, & M. Bollow Tempel (Eds.), Rethinking sexism, gender, and sexuality (pp. 310–318). Milwaukee: Rethinking Schools.
Lesko, N., & McCall, S. (2014). Pink brains and education: A postfeminist analysis of neuroscience and neurosexism. Revista Brasileira de História Da Educação (Special Issue on the History of Childhood and Youth), 14(2), 163–190.
McCready, L. T. (2009). Troubles of black boys in urban schools in the United States: Black feminist and gay men’s perspectives. In M. B. Weaver-Hightower & M. Kehler (Eds.), The problem with boys’ education: Beyond the backlash (pp. 124–148). New York: Routledge.
Pascoe, C. J. (2007). Dude, you’re a fag: Masculinity and sexuality in high school. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Richardson, S. (2012). eleMENtary school: (Hyper)masculinity in a feminized context. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.