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Feminist Views on the Role of Education

Last updated 26 Nov 2019

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Feminist sociologists have large areas of agreement with functionalists and Marxists in so far as they see the education system as transmitting a particular set of norms and values into the pupils. However, instead of seeing these as either a neutral value consensus or the values of the ruling class and capitalism, feminists see the education system as transmitting patriarchal values.

For example, Heaton and Lawson (1996) argued that the hidden curriculum taught patriarchal values in schools. They noted traditional family structures in textbooks (along with many other gender stereotypes, subjects aimed towards specific genders, gender divisions in PE and sport and the gender division of labour in schools (predominantly female teachers and male managers).

Liberal feminists would point out these remaining issues of patriarchy in education while also acknowledging significant strides towards equality in the education system. In the 1940s and 50s, under the tripartite system, boys had a lower pass rate for the 11+ than girls (essentially institutionally failing girls in order to ensure more boys can succeed) and some subjects being specifically for one gender or the other used to be institutional rather than based on apparent preference. Today, once subjects become optional, there are quite clear gender preferences for one subject or another, but all subjects are open to all pupils. Perhaps the biggest change, since the 1980s, is that girls now outperform boys in education so if the system is a patriarchal one, designed to favour boys, it is singularly failing. However, Michelle Stanworth (1983), for instance, noted that there will still higher expectations of boys and teachers would be more likely to recommend boys apply for higher education than girls at the same academic level.

Radical feminists argue that the education system is still fundamentally patriarchal and continues to marginalise and oppress women. It does this through some of the processes already noted (reinforcing patriarchal ideology through the formal and hidden curriculum and normalising the marginalisation and oppression of women so that by the time girls leave school they see it as normal and natural rather than as patriarchal oppression). Radical feminist research has also looked at sexual harassment in education and how it is not treated as seriously as other forms of bullying (e.g. Kat Banyard, 2011).

Black and difference feminists point out how not all girls have the same experience in education and that minority-ethnic girls are often victims of specific stereotyping and assumptions. For example, teachers might assume that Muslim girls have different aspirations in relation to career and family from their peers. There have been studies of the specific school experiences of black girls, which we will consider in more detail in future sections.

Where feminists acknowledge that there has been a great deal of improvement for girls in education, they would point to feminism itself as being one of the main reasons for this. Sue Sharpe (1996) found that London schoolgirls in the 1970s had completely different priorities and aspirations from similar girls in 1996. She found that while in the 1970s girls’ priorities were marriage and family, in the 1990s this had switched dramatically to career. While there are a number of potential reasons for this, legislative changes such as the 1970 Equal Pay Act and the 1976 Sex Discrimination Act are likely to have played their part, hence supporting a liberal feminist perspective).

What all feminists agree on is that the education system does work as an agent of secondary socialisation which teaches girls and boys what are seen as universal norms and values and gender scripts that are actually those of contemporary patriarchy and that girls and boys learning these values prevents social change and challenges to patriarchy.

Evaluating feminist views on the role of education

Two features of contemporary education, at least in the UK, which critics of feminist views on education often point out are: 1) education is an increasingly female-dominated sector (most teachers are women, an increasing number of managers are women because they are drawn from the available teachers) and 2) the education system is increasingly resulting in female success and male underperformance. If this is a system designed to ensure men are in the top positions in society and women are marginalised into a domestic role, then it would appear to be failing. The education system is sending more and more girls into higher education (Michelle Stanworth’s research on this is now out of date).

However, while there is clearly some truth in these criticisms, it is still clear that there is a glass ceiling and a gender pay gap so the education system might be creating lots of highly-qualified girls, they are still losing out to their male peers when it comes to top jobs and higher incomes. They are also still more likely to take time off for child-rearing, work part time and to carry out the majority of housework tasks. Feminists point out that the education system largely normalises this (alongside other agents of socialisation such as the family and the media) and so even highly-qualified women often accept this as inevitable or normal. At the same time men are socialised to also consider this normal.

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• Radical Feminism

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The Feminist View of Education: An Outline, Explanation, and Analysis

Introduction

In sociology, the feminist view of education is a perspective that examines how education systems perpetuate gender inequalities and reinforce traditional gender roles. This viewpoint analyzes various aspects of education, including curriculum, teaching methods, and institutional practices, to understand how they impact gender socialization and contribute to the overall gender imbalance in society.

The Patriarchal Nature of Education

Feminist theorists argue that education systems are inherently patriarchal, meaning they favor and promote the interests of men over women. This bias is evident in several ways:

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• Curriculum: The curriculum often reflects a male-dominated perspective, with limited representation of women’s achievements and contributions. This omission reinforces the perception that women’s experiences and accomplishments are less valuable or significant.
• Gender Stereotypes: Education perpetuates gender stereotypes by assigning certain subjects, such as science and math, as more suitable for boys, while relegating others, like home economics and childcare, to girls. These stereotypes limit the choices and opportunities available to students based on their gender.
• Teacher Bias: Teachers may unknowingly exhibit bias by giving more attention and encouragement to male students, leading to disparities in academic achievement and self-esteem.

Gender Socialization in Education

Feminist scholars argue that education plays a crucial role in the socialization process, where individuals learn societal norms, values, and behaviors. In this context, education reinforces traditional gender roles and expectations, contributing to the perpetuation of gender inequalities. Some key points include:

• Reproduction of Gender Roles: Education often reinforces traditional gender roles by teaching students to conform to societal expectations. For example, girls are encouraged to be nurturing and passive, while boys are encouraged to be assertive and dominant.
• Hidden Curriculum: The hidden curriculum refers to the unspoken lessons and values that students learn through the educational system. This includes implicit messages about gender, such as the idea that boys are naturally better at certain subjects or that girls should prioritize their appearance over academic pursuits.
• Gendered Career Aspirations: Education can influence students’ career aspirations by directing them towards gender-specific professions. For instance, girls may be steered towards careers in nursing or teaching, while boys are encouraged to pursue careers in engineering or finance.

Challenges and Progress

While the feminist view of education highlights the inequalities and biases within the system, it also recognizes the progress made towards gender equality. Some challenges and advancements include:

• Gender Pay Gap: Despite improvements, women continue to face a gender pay gap, which is influenced by educational attainment. Feminist scholars argue that addressing gender inequalities in education is crucial to reducing this gap.
• Representation in Leadership: Women are underrepresented in leadership positions within educational institutions. Advocates for feminist education argue that increasing female representation in decision-making roles is essential for promoting gender equality.
• Intersectionality: The feminist view of education acknowledges the importance of considering intersectionality, which recognizes that gender intersects with other social identities, such as race, class, and sexuality. This perspective highlights the unique challenges faced by individuals who experience multiple forms of oppression.

The feminist view of education provides a critical lens through which to analyze how educational systems contribute to gender inequalities. By examining the curriculum, socialization processes, and institutional practices, feminists aim to challenge and transform the patriarchal nature of education. While progress has been made, ongoing efforts are necessary to create a more inclusive and equitable educational system that empowers all individuals, regardless of their gender.

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Gender equality and education

Gender equality is a global priority at UNESCO. Globally, 122 million girls and 128 million boys are out of school. Women still account for almost two-thirds of all adults unable to read.

UNESCO calls for attention to gender equality throughout the education system in relation to access, content, teaching and learning context and practices, learning outcomes, and life and work opportunities. The  UNESCO Strategy for gender equality in and through education (2019-2025)  focuses on a system-wide transformation to benefit all learners equally in three key areas: better data to inform action, better legal and policy frameworks to advance rights and better teaching and learning practices to empower. 

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This documentary-film offers a spectacular dive into the transformative power of education and showcases how empowering girls and women through education improves not only their lives, but also those of their families, communities and indeed all of society. 

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Module 9: Religion and Education

Reading: feminist theory on education, feminist theory.

Some 1903 female graduates of Western University.

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Like many other institutions of society, educational systems are characterized by unequal treatment and opportunity for women. Almost two-thirds of the world’s 862 million illiterate people are women, and the illiteracy rate among women is expected to increase in many regions, especially in several African and Asian countries (UNESCO 2005; World Bank 2007).

Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. In fact, it wasn’t until the establishment of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 that discriminating on the basis of sex in U.S. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn. A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011). Similar trends are seen among salaries of professionals in virtually all industries.

When women face limited opportunities for education, their capacity to achieve equal rights, including financial independence, are limited. Feminist theory seeks to promote women’s rights to equal education (and its resultant benefits) across the world.

• Introduction to Sociology 2e. Authored by : OpenStax CNX. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/02040312-72c8-441e-a685-20e9333f3e1d/Introduction_to_Sociology_2e . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]
• female graduates in 1903. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Group_of_women_in_cap_and_gown_at_Western_College_on_Tree_Day_1903_(3191801017).jpg . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

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27 Feminist Philosophy and Education

Nel Noddings is Lee Jacks Professor of Education Emerita, Stanford University. Her latest books are Critical Lessons: What Our Schools Should Teach (2006) and When School Reform Goes Wrong (2007).

• Published: 02 January 2010
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This article examines feminist approaches to the philosophy of education. It suggests that the philosophy of education should be an ideal domain for the analysis and application of feminist philosophy. It discusses John Dewey's opinion that there is a sense in which philosophy is the philosophy of education and that our schools should be mini-societies that reflect our best conception of what our larger society should be. It highlights the efforts of feminists to upgrade first generation ideas on liberal feminism.

Over the last thirty years, feminist philosophy has grown in quantity, if not in influence. Its growth has followed (roughly) the three generations of feminist thought described by Julia Kristeva ( 1982 ). In the first, emphasis is placed on women's oppression, and equality with men is the main goal. In the second, concentration is on women's agency, and questions are raised about uncritical assimilation into the male world. In the third, feminist philosophers critique previous generations of thought, and suggest new (or defend old) patterns of thought. These categories are better interpreted as centers of concentration than as “generations” because we find them scattered across the decades of activity in feminism. In what follows, I use this structure to organize the chapter. I use the last section to concentrate on feminist critiques in philosophy of education.

1. Women's Oppression

Feminist scholars treat a great variety of topics, but the issue of women's oppression and long struggle for equality is of central importance. It may, indeed, be regarded as the defining feature of feminism. The history of feminist philosophy confirms this interest, but it also reveals conflicts that have arisen from feminist commitments. A pessimist might describe the pursuit of feminist philosophy as a no‐win project. In fact, Margaret Urban Walker ( 2005 ) has recently made comments to that effect. A woman who chooses to do feminist philosophy may find herself rejected as a philosopher.

There have always been women philosophers. (See the four‐volume history of women philosophers edited by Mary Ellen Waithe, 1987 , 1989, 1991, 1995; see also a special issue on American women philosophers in Hypatia , Spring 2004 .) But for the most part, they have been ignored in their own period, co‐opted by male writers, and discarded entirely over time. Walker comments on the fate of Diotima, reputedly the teacher of Socrates: “she did not just disappear from the history of philosophy. She was reduced to a figment of that great man's imagination” (2005, p. 155). We will probably never know whether Diotima was a real person.

For today's women philosophers, a conflict arises in the choice to do feminist philosophy. Walker says of it, “It is a kind of philosophy, not a female or feminine activity,” and it “is a method, not a topic” (2005, p. 157). But there is little agreement on this. Some women philosophers are analytic philosophers, and for them feminist philosophy is more a set of topics than a method. (See the special issue of Hypatia devoted to analytic feminism, Fall 2005 .) Clearly, there are also feminist existentialists and pragmatists as well. Insofar as it is a method in itself—like, say, existentialism or pragmatism—it runs the same risk as other methods, that of relative isolation as a specialty, but the risk is enormously increased by the fact that most of its practitioners are women.

There are, however, excellent examples of feminist philosophy as method. One of the best known is “standpoint epistemology” (Harding 1996 ; Hartsock 1983 ; Hekman 1997 ). As method, standpoint epistemology holds that we get nearer to a true objectivity if we look at phenomena and situations through a variety of perspectives. We should give up the faulty, largely fictitious notion of a neutral or universal perspective. As one perspective in the category of standpoint epistemology, feminist epistemology looks at the world through the eyes of women. This does not in itself imply a loss of “objectivity” because it admits at the outset that, to achieve objectivity (if that is possible), we need the perspectives of all stake holders.

Still, there are problems. In educational philosophy, Barbara Thayer‐Bacon ( 2000 ) has given a useful and persuasive account of standpoint theory and the difficulties it faces. In particular, it risks re‐inscribing some of the features found so objectionable in traditional philosophy, such as privileging certain voices within the feminist community. How can anyone speak from the standpoint of all women? It is an open question whether these difficulties can be avoided. For present purposes, feminist standpoint epistemology offers an example of feminist philosophy as method . It is not a set of topics.

There is some risk, too, in rejecting the notion that feminist philosophy is a female activity. Thirty years ago, as feminist theory got a new start, feminist scholars often talked about solidarity with other women; they pledged themselves to interdisciplinary work within academe and to social efforts in the larger community. However, this is not the way to get ahead in universities, and women scholars had to blend their feminist work with approved specialties in other fields. They were challenged with the question: Are you a scholar or an activist? Answering that question changed the tone of feminist studies.

An important element of solidarity has remained among feminist philosophers within the academy. Black feminists have contributed to both liberal and radical feminist philosophy. (See, for example, Patricia Hill Collins 1990 , 1995 ; also the essays by Kimberle Williams Crenshaw and bell hooks in Meyers 1997 .) Their work has influenced the direction of discussions not only on race and equality but also on family, community, and schooling (Walker 1996 ).

The struggle with the question—scholar or activist?—helps to explain why so much feminist philosophy falls into the category of social or political philosophy. Much of this work has helped to keep the original feminist commitment alive. Alison Jaggar, for example, has described feminism as political philosophy. She notes that “feminist political philosophers…use both traditional and nontraditional categories in attempting to describe and evaluate women's experience” (1983, p. 7). Issues concerning childbirth, love, maternal work, childcare, and sexuality are brought into philosophical discourse. “By seeking to extend the traditional domain of political philosophy, contemporary feminism challenges both existing political theories and our conception of political philosophy itself” (Jaggar 1983 , p. 7). This line of thinking remains strong today. Feminist philosophers may, for example, identify themselves as Marxist, liberal, radical, or socialist (Tuana and Tong 1995 ).

The effects of this work have been felt across disciplinary lines. Feminist theologians, nursing theorists, historians, psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, and legal theorists have all contributed to the analysis of human life as embodied in women (Noddings 1990 ). However, the real social effects seem to emerge primarily from the social sciences. In a recent comprehensive work on women's well‐being, there is no sign of influence from feminist philosophy (Bianchi, Casper, and King 2005 ), and a check of the indexes of books in political philosophy often reveals mention of “children's rights” or “families” but rarely anything on women, feminism, or bodies of any sort.

That said, there does appear to be a revival of interest in creatural existence within philosophy, and philosophers of education have contributed to this literature (O'Loughlin 2006 ). One feature of this revival is increased attention to emotions and everyday life in education (Boler 1999 ; Noddings 2003b ). Questions have been raised about the traditional curriculum and why it is virtually devoid of topics that have been central to women's lives (Martin 1984 , 1985 , 1992 ; Noddings 1992/2005 , 2006a ).

Feminist philosophy has also exerted considerable influence through critiques of traditional philosophy. Susan Moller Okin ( 1979 ) has given us accounts of male philosophers who supported women's equality and of others who spoke powerfully against it. Her critique of Rousseau is especially important for educators. For years, it was not unusual for philosophers of education to extol Rousseau as the philosopher of freedom and his Emile as the book that describes an appropriate education for free citizens. However, one could hardly hold this view unreservedly after reading Book 5 of Emile . In that book, Rousseau advocates an education for Sophie that should keep her subservient to Emile. She is not to think for herself, and she is to be both sexually alluring and chaste—“both virgin and prostitute” (Okin 1979 , p. 101).

Critiques of science have also been prominent in feminist philosophy. The most convincing acknowledge the enormous success of science while noting its domination by males and male thinking. Evelyn Fox Keller puts it well in describing two different discourses on science: “One an increasingly radical critique that fails to account for the effectiveness of science, and the other a justification that draws confidence from that effectiveness to maintain a traditional, and essentially unchanged, philosophy of science” (1985, p. 6).

From this perspective, several goals for feminist philosophy of science might be established: (1) to open scientific fields to women; (2) to show how science might be improved by expanding its methods; (3) to transform the scientific description of women and women's experience; and (4) to encourage interdisciplinary work within the sciences and between science and the humanities.

Jane Roland Martin ( 1985 ), concentrating specifically on education in her critiques, also gives us a devastating evaluation of Rousseau's recommendations for women's education. In addition to critiques of Rousseau, Plato, Wollstonecraft, Beecher, and Gilman, Martin is particularly interested in the connection between feminist theory and philosophy of education. If we are serious about education for human life, why in our curriculum planning do we persist in ignoring topics and activities central to female lives?

I, too, have discussed this question (Noddings 1992/2005 , 2006a ). For example, I have offered an analysis of evil from the perspective of women (Noddings 1989 ). It is clear, however, that this is a woman's view and not that of all women. Women have suffered for centuries under a succession of myths fabricated by men, myths blaming the origin of evil on women—on Pandora, Eve, witches, and lamias. Ridding religion of these pernicious myths is crucially important (Daly 1974 ), and philosophers and educators should give more attention to the sort of religious education that might accomplish this (Noddings 1993 ). Moreover, without the distraction and mystification of theological views of evil, we might look more clearly at the human condition and work toward the reduction of moral evil.

Feminist commitment to the alleviation of suffering and the elimination of oppression has led quite naturally to a concern for the welfare of other oppressed groups. Feminist philosophers are actively engaged in the identification and analysis of the oppression experienced by racial minorities, the disabled, and homosexuals. See, for example, special issues of Hypatia devoted to race: 22, no. 2 (Spring 2007 ); to maternal bodies 21, no. 1 (Winter 2006 ).

This is commendable, but it triggers another conflict for feminists. If we work for the elimination of such a wide range of oppression, will we thereby dilute efforts to improve the condition of women as a specific group? This was the dilemma faced by feminists during and after the Civil War. Having worked hard for the abolition of slavery, feminists were then betrayed when politicians decided to push for the voting rights of black men and postpone consideration of women's suffrage (Ward and Burns 1999 ). Neither Elizabeth Cady Stanton nor Susan B. Anthony lived to see the justice they had worked for so many years to achieve.

Most feminists today defend decisions to work against all forms of oppression. They do this in full knowledge that even today women earn only 75 percent of what equally qualified men earn for roughly the same work, and we still do most of the housework and childcare. Women are still discriminated against in religious institutions that would collapse without their support. Of all groups, perhaps, women are the most complicit in our own oppression. The reason for this docility is probably that there are rewards as well as penalties in women's subservience, and many white women in the Western world—certainly most of those writing about oppression—are reasonably well‐off economically. When others are suffering so much more obviously, it is hard to push one's own case, but this is a continuing dilemma for feminists.

Still another dilemma for feminists trying to overcome women's oppression is the question of how to fit into the world created by men. Much of feminist philosophy has its roots in liberal philosophy, and one of its main aims is to achieve equality for women. In education, there has been a steady and largely successful campaign to increase the participation of women at all levels of education but, again, the outcomes are not all rosy. Insisting on the inclusion of women in social studies texts, for example, has resulted in an “add women and stir” approach. The test for inclusion seems to be whether any woman, however obscure, has contributed anything to the activities dominated by men. This is very different from changing the curriculum to include tasks and interests traditionally associated with women. The male‐structured curriculum remains, and women are fitted into paragraphs here and there.

This observation reminds us of a deeper, more lasting conflict. The problem was posed in the 1930s by Virginia Woolf. On the one hand, Woolf wanted to increase opportunities for women in the public world. She prescribed a “room of one's own” for women writers, and confessed to killing that obsequious creature, the Angel in the House. But she worried about the sort of world women would perpetuate if they joined the procession of educated men:

Do we wish to join that procession, or don't we? On what terms shall we join the procession? Above all, where is it leading us, the procession of educated men?…What is this “civilization”? What are these ceremonies and why should we take part in them? What are these professions and why should we make money out of them? Where in short is it leading us, the procession of the sons of educated men? (1938/1966, pp. 62–63)

Her questions still trouble us.

2. Women's Agency

Although women have suffered (and still suffer) oppression, they have also exercised agency, and historians have led the way in bringing attention to women's agency (Beard 1946/1962 ; Kerber 1997 ). In philosophy, women's agency often appears in views that develop a distinctive way of approaching social problems. Taking Woolf's questions seriously, these views seek a transformation of the society in which women will be equal partners and citizens (Offen 1988 ).

The ethic of care (Held 1995 ; Noddings 1984/2003 ) is an example of feminist philosophy that recognizes the dignity and moral importance of women's traditional work and uses it to articulate an alternative approach to moral life and thought. Relation, response to needs, familial care, and social responsibility were all elements of eighteenth‐and nineteenth‐century women's movements. Wollstonecraft ( 1792/1975 ) argued for the rights of women (particularly with respect to education), partly on the grounds that women would be better wives and mothers if they had better education. Similarly, Ellen Key (see Offen 1988 ) argued for state support for all mothers, and the great suffragists of Britain and the United States often emphasized women's sensitivity to human need as a reason to accord voting rights to women. Besides the standard suffragist arguments for extending the vote (equality, representation), advocates argued strongly that the moral orientation of women would bring a more humane and sensitive approach to public life. Most of us today reject the idea that women are morally superior to men, just as we reject the centuries‐old claim that preceded it: that women are morally inferior because of some lack in reasoning power. But, that caveat aside, it is a fact that there is a measurable gap between men and women on social issues; women, in general, do vote more liberally on social issues than men. Still, neither the utopian improvement predicted by feminists nor the rational disaster predicted by misogynists has come to pass.

Formal articulation of an ethic of care began in the 1980s—in psychology (Gilligan 1982 ), philosophy (Noddings 1984 / 2003 ), nursing (Watson 1979 ), and sociology (Waerness 1984 ). Interestingly, none of these writers seemed aware of each other's work at the time of initial writing. An intellectual history of caring and care ethics cannot be undertaken here, but it is important to note that the work was interdisciplinary from the start. By the late 1980s, scholars writing on the ethic of care recognized and drew on one another's work.

My own work was strongly influenced by the relational philosophy of Martin Buber ( 1958 / 1970 , 1965 ), and it was some time after the publication of Caring ( 1984 / 2003 ) that I became aware of feminist connections. In contrast, Sara Ruddick ( 1989 ) acknowledges the influence of many feminists, among them Jean Baker Miller ( 1976 ), Nancy Chodorow ( 1978 ), Adrienne Rich ( 1976 ), Dorothy Dinnerstein ( 1976 ), Iris Murdoch ( 1970 ), and Simone Weil ( 1977 ).

The publication of Gilligan's In a Different Voice ( 1982 ) triggered a wide range of debate. Questions were asked about the gender differences suggested by the study, and a lively debate arose over the perceived conflict between justice and caring. Both Ruddick and I explicitly stated that men are capable of caring and of maternal thinking, and Gilligan was careful to point out that, although the care‐response was discovered in interviews with women, this did not imply that it is the exclusive property of women. Some of us now think that we were too quick to downplay gender differences and that much more should be done in this area.

Current thinking acknowledges the need for both justice and caring (Katz, Noddings, and Strike 1999 ; Tronto 1993 ), but interesting questions remain. Which is primary? Must they be applied in different domains? Are they reasonably applied in phases? I have argued that caring provides the foundation for a sense of justice (Noddings 2002b ), and Okin's critique of Rawls implies a similar claim (Okin 1989 ). We can ask also whether decisions made using principles of justice leave important human concerns unfinished. For example, if the firing of a teacher is justified on principle, is there no further moral obligation to that teacher? I have argued that, in many such cases, caring picks up where justice leaves off.

A division of application by domain—public or private sphere—is not convincing. Feminist philosophers have shown both that caring is useful in the public domain and that justice is applicable in the private domain (Held 1993 ; Tronto 1993 ). The key point for application of caring‐for is direct contact between the carer and the cared‐for. This requirement limits both opportunity and obligation. If we are not in a position to receive the response of the cared‐for, there can be no caring relation. However, we can care‐about others when there is no direct contact, and this caring‐about may be guided by principles of justice. But it must be guided also by the intention to establish or maintain conditions under which caring‐for can take place.

For the past few years, a lively discussion has been conducted over the connection between care ethics and virtue ethics (Noddings 2000 , 2006b ; Sander‐Staudt 2006 ; Slote 2000 ). The two are similar in several respects. Both put little emphasis on rules and principles as guides to moral action. Virtue ethics looks to the character of moral agents; care ethics depends on an ethical ideal of caring that is constructed over years of acting as one‐caring. But a difference emerges even here. Care ethics puts emphasis on natural caring that requires no moral effort on the part of carers. In natural caring, we respond as carers because we are genuinely moved by the needs of the cared‐for and want to respond to them. Effort—sometimes great effort—may be required in meeting the needs, but no moral effort is required as motivation.

When the motivation of natural caring fails, ethical caring must be summoned, and how effectively this can be done depends on the strength of the ideal of caring present in the carer. On this, care ethics and virtue ethics agree; only the terminology differs. However, another difference appears. An agent acting on ethical caring may act as though she would act in natural caring, but she has an additional task and that is to exercise whatever virtues are needed to restore conditions that will support natural caring. Virtually all of us prefer to be cared‐for, or treated well, out of love or concern. We are made uneasy by generous acts done out of duty or righteousness. Ethical caring is admirable, even necessary, but it poses a risk to caring relations. The carer's attention is too concentrated on herself.

Both care ethics and virtue ethics recognize caring as a virtue, but care ethics anchors the virtue in the caring relation. Someone who regularly establishes caring relations may be said to exhibit the virtue of caring. He or she may rightly be said to be a caring person. In a caring relation, both carer and cared‐for contribute. The cared‐for must recognize the efforts of the carer as caring in order to complete the relation. No matter how great the carer's efforts, if the cared‐for does not recognize those efforts, there is no caring relation. This does not mean that the would‐be carer deserves no moral credit for her efforts. It means that something has gone wrong; it may be the fault of the carer, of the cared‐for, or of the situation in which they find themselves. In teaching, the situation is often at fault. Teachers try to care, and students claim that they want care, but there are no caring relations (Noddings 2006b ). I'll return to this problem in the last section, when we look at the contributions of philosophy of education to feminist philosophy.

Care ethics and virtue ethics also agree that it is impossible for any moral agent to care for everyone. An early criticism of my version of caring claimed that it was provincial, too tightly tied to the inner or family circle. This arose mainly through a misunderstanding. I said—and still insist—that we cannot care‐for everyone; caring‐for requires direct contact, some means of receiving a response of recognition from the cared‐for. But this does not mean that we cannot care‐about strangers and people at a distance, and I believe that we often have an obligation to care‐about others. Slote ( 1998 ) approaches this difficult problem by prescribing “balanced caring”—caring‐for (and caring‐about) those close to us and also for distant others whose needs have come to our attention. Care ethics speaks of caring‐for in direct encounters and caring‐about in cases where no direct encounter is possible. But once again, care ethicists are guided by the perceived need to work toward conditions under which caring‐for can flourish. It is not enough, for example, to pay for food that may or may not reach the hungry. We must somehow evaluate the effects of our efforts, and even getting food to the hungry is not enough; we have to ask what might be done to establish conditions under which fewer such emergencies will occur. Probably, virtue and care ethicists are largely in agreement on this.

Some critics argue that care theory needs to say more about the obligation to care (Engster 2005 ). This is true, but it must be done with caution. Slote ( 1998 ) handles this problem carefully in his discussion of balanced caring. Attempts to define the distribution of our caring duties more closely may actually warp the underlying conception of care. Caring as a moral orientation, described phenomenologically, contains an embedded concept of obligation—to respond to those who address us. It is—like every thoughtful conception of obligation—loaded with conflicts, and these should be discussed, but there can be no formula (within care theory) to eliminate them.

Recently, some writers have argued that caring should be redefined as a practice. As such, it can be said to have particular aims (Engster 2005 ). This strikes some of us as dangerous, because what is actually done by carers differs not only across cultures but, more basically, across situations and individuals (Okin 2003 ). In the attempt to redefine caring as a practice instead of a moral orientation, the deepest contributions of care theory may inadvertently be lost. Caring may be reduced to caregiving or caretaking.

This move—to describe caring as a practice—may indeed aggravate fears expressed earlier by feminist critics who worried that an emphasis on caring valorizes a genderized virtue and may thus lead to the continued exploitation of women. This objection to care ethics was raised early on at an APA symposium on Caring. Thoughtful comments along these lines were made by Claudia Card, Barbara Houston, and Sarah Hoagland (see the account in Hypatia 5, no.1 [Spring 1990 ]). It seemed to be answered by clarifying caring as a moral orientation, not simply a series of caregiving acts. But another answer is to teach boys as well as girls to engage in the practices associated with caring so that the orientation may develop in both. Feminist philosophers rightly want to avoid an Aristotelian position on virtue—one that separates male and female virtues, elevating the male over the female. This concern illustrates again a persistent difference between liberal feminism and the more radical feminism of care theory. With Virginia Woolf, we are ambivalent about joining the procession of educated men without changing the destination of the procession.

Part of the debate between virtue ethics and care ethics appears in discussions of Confucianism. Again, there are striking similarities. Both put great emphasis on relationships (Herr 2003 ; Star 2002 ). But the requirements of caring in Confucianism are governed more by formal relationships than by the encounter, address, and response of care ethics. Daniel Star notes “that Confucian ethics is better thought of as a virtue ethics than a care ethics” ( 2002 , p. 98). He argues strongly for the distinctiveness of care ethics. In contrast, Chenyang Li ( 1994 ) supports some virtue ethicists in analyzing care ethics as a type of virtue ethics. Henry Rosemont ( 1997 ), too, declares that Confucian ethics is compatible with feminist ethics, primarily because of their common interest in social relationships. Probably most care theorists agree with Star that the difference in approaches to relationships makes the two ethics distinct.

One important similarity between Confucian and care ethics is their emphasis on the motivational importance of emotion or feeling. The work of Mencius underscores the basic role of commiseration in moral life. His famous example of the response of observers to the plight of a child about to fall into a well is meant to illustrate how “good” human beings react directly to perceived need. They do not consult principles, nor do they refer to formal relationships; they leap to save the child.

3. Critiques and Applications in Philosophy of Education

Philosophy of education should be an ideal domain for the analysis and application of feminist philosophy. As Dewey pointed out years ago, there is a sense in which philosophy is philosophy of education, and he also suggested that our schools should be mini‐societies that reflect our best conception of what our larger society should be. For an introduction to feminist philosophy of education, readers might consult the volume edited by Lynda Stone ( 1994 ). This collection of classic pieces includes work on self and identity, education and schooling, knowledge and curriculum, teaching and pedagogy, and diversity and multiculturalism.

Woolf's concern about joining the procession of educated men is especially pertinent in education itself. It seems clear that educators and policymakers have addressed the concern with an enthusiastic endorsement of women's inclusion in the affairs of men. Most of our colleges and universities are now co‐educational, and in high school girls now outnumber boys in advanced mathematics classes. These seem to be positive steps, and liberal feminists see much to celebrate. Radical feminists and care theorists, however, express some reservations.

Liberal feminists are concerned, of course, by the continuing wage gap between women and men, and they deplore the paucity of women at the highest levels of business and government. They are also troubled by the sexism and violence suffered by women in the military. Their basic mission is to achieve equality in the man‐made world.

Feminist philosophers of education have raised questions about the single‐minded drive for equality. When the curriculum is constructed entirely around the knowledge arising from male experience, women are excluded even if they are allowed to participate (Martin 1982 ). The traditional activities and concerns of women do not appear in the curriculum. Where, for example, do we find parenting, making a home, love, marriage, and caregiving? Educators have long regarded such topics as nonintellectual—things to be learned with ease at home—but feminist philosophers of education have pointed out that these topics can be as intellectually challenging as any others and have the added merit of addressing the problems of real life (Noddings 1984 / 2003 , 2003 , 2006a ). We are not even close to achieving a gender‐inclusive curriculum.

How should gender be treated in educational theory and practice? (On this question, see the probing analyses in Diller, Houston, Morgan, and Ayim, 1996 .) A gender‐blind approach would, by default to the status quo, be an approach constructed by and for males—technically open to both males and females without discrimination. Thinking of this sort led to questions about why women lagged behind men in mathematics and science. The accepted answer was discrimination , and the remedy was to encourage—even push—young women to take more math and science courses in high school and college. Policymakers and educators, eager to escape the charge of discrimination, did not think to ask what young women are interested in, what they want to do. At the secondary‐school level, the goal has been accomplished; more girls than boys are taking advanced math classes. However, girls still score significantly lower on the math SAT, and they now score somewhat lower on the verbal SAT as well.

A worry arises that girls are being pushed into subjects that may not hold great interest for them and discouraged from following occupational lines at which they might excel. This is not a simple matter. Thoughtful people welcome expanding opportunities for girls, but “opportunity” sometimes becomes “coercion.” It is one thing to encourage girls who are interested and talented in mathematics; it is quite another to suggest that intelligent girls are “too good” for literature, early childhood education, or social work.

A fundamental problem, as Morwenna Griffiths ( 2006 ) has pointed out, is a hegemonic masculinity. That hegemony continues to dominate educational thought and practice, as it dominates all of public life. Consider, for example, the everyday matter of dress. It is entirely acceptable today for a woman to wear pants suits in professional settings. It is close to unthinkable for a man to appear at the office in skirt, blouse, pearls, and high heels. It is more acceptable for a woman to act like a man than for a man to act like a woman. The goal should not be to reverse this hegemony, nor should it be to forge a gender‐neutral society. The philosophical problem is to analyze attributes of both traditions, identify what is humanly excellent in each, and suggest ways in which we can learn from one another. Some work along these lines has been discussed by Rhoads and Calderone ( 2007 ) with respect to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students, but not with respect to women as a dominated group.

Seeking a healthy convergence, we might return to concerns about the career opportunities proffered to high school students. Policymakers worried that girls were “lagging behind” boys in mathematics, but they expressed no concern that boys rarely choose careers in the so‐called caring professions. Nor is there great concern that salaries in those professions continue to lag behind those in the traditionally male professions. The issues here are complicated, but the initial impetus for feminist studies in academe—solidarity with our sisters—seems to have been lost or, at least, weakened. Now it is to the advantage of successful women to have poorly paid women clean their houses and care for their children.

A problem that can be identified in much of the preceding discussion is the conundrum of difference. Physical differences exist. But gender , in contrast to sex, is a social construct, and difference in the context of gender has always been defined as difference from the masculine norm. Difference, as Catherine MacKinnon ( 1987 ) has so forcefully argued, is a sign of and a product of dominance. However, there are gender differences that are products of centuries of cultural evolution, and some of these—extended maternal love, for example—are rooted in biology. Thus, it might be wiser to work toward the elimination of unfounded hierarchy in discussions of difference than to ignore difference entirely. When a difference is identified, it is beneficial to ask whether each element has its place or whether one is likely to contribute more to human well‐being. MacKinnon is right that, historically, gender differences have been decided a priori in favor of males. Not nearly enough work is being done by philosophers of education on the conceptual problems associated with gender differences.

Feminist philosophy of education has had some influence through care ethics on moral education. It might be expected that because of the similarities between care ethics and virtue ethics, moral education from the care perspective would have much in common with character education (Noddings and Slote 2003 ). The potential is there (see Slote, this volume). What stands in the way is character education's longstanding practice of trying to teach the virtues directly. First, since the time of Socrates, doubts have been raised about the possibility of doing this. But, second, care theory probes beneath the surface of the named virtues to find what supports them. For example, I have asked the question: Are the virtues always virtuous? (Noddings 2002a ). Slote ( 1992 ) is also interested in what lies behind the various virtues, but his purpose is primarily to develop a stronger foundation for virtue ethics. We agree (I think) that the underlying test for a virtuous act is its intention, coupled with its effect in bringing harm or good to other people.

One model of moral education based on care ethics involves modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation (Noddings 1984 / 2003 , 2002a ). The first element, modeling, is common in most schemes of moral education. Teachers must show , in their own conduct, the ways in which they want students to behave. Dialogue has several purposes. It is through dialogue that teachers come to know their students, and it is in dialogue that teachers raise questions, suggest possibilities, and guide students toward moral thinking. Practice gives students opportunities to employ the moral knowledge and skills discussed. Dialogue and practice working together may be considered acts of induction as Martin Hoffman ( 2000 ) has described it. The purpose is to develop a capacity for empathy (see Slote, this volume) or, as expressed by care theorists, for engrossment or receptive attention. Finally, the care model posits confirmation , a teacher's continuing efforts to help students realize their own best selves.

The first three elements have been widely accepted in moral education (Charney 1992 ; Stengel and Tom 2006 ; Watson 2003 ), but confirmation is rarely mentioned. I have described confirmation as “one of the loveliest ideas in moral life” (Noddings 2006a , p. 113). To recognize in another a better self struggling to realize itself is indeed a lovely act. But confirmation cannot be done by formula; it is not a strategy. To confirm another, we need to know that other reasonably well. It requires the establishment of caring relations. Philosophers of education are now giving considerable attention to the importance of relations in teaching (Bingham and Sidorkin 2004 ; Johnston 2006 ; Sidorkin 2002 ; Thayer‐Bacon 2000 ).

Summing up what we have reviewed in feminist philosophy and philosophy of education—and with the understanding that reasonable people may differ on what they see in looking at the field—it seems that feminists are concentrating now on upgrading “first generation” ideas on liberal feminism and equality. Radical feminism and agency are still discussed, but much attention seems to be directed at equality in professional life, multicultural problems, and problems of sexual minorities. This is much needed work, but the trend is reminiscent of what happened to mid‐nineteenth‐century feminists: a morally driven delay in the development of feminist ideas that might transform the whole social/political domain.

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12.14: Reading: Feminist Theory on Education

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Feminist Theory

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Like many other institutions of society, educational systems are characterized by unequal treatment and opportunity for women. Almost two-thirds of the world’s 862 million illiterate people are women, and the illiteracy rate among women is expected to increase in many regions, especially in several African and Asian countries (UNESCO 2005; World Bank 2007).

Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. In fact, it wasn’t until the establishment of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 that discriminating on the basis of sex in U.S. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn. A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011). Similar trends are seen among salaries of professionals in virtually all industries.

When women face limited opportunities for education, their capacity to achieve equal rights, including financial independence, are limited. Feminist theory seeks to promote women’s rights to equal education (and its resultant benefits) across the world.

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What’s the point of education? A feminist perspective

From the 1960s onwards, feminist sociologists highlighted the following gender inequalities in society. Feminists argue that the education system is just a primary preparation for leading into the future work force. They argue the gender differences in subject choice in schools come is evidence of a patriarchal society. Colley (1998) reviewed this idea and found that despite all the social changes in recent decades, traditional definitions of masculinity and femininity were still widespread as evident below.

Gender and education – Feminist perspectives focus on gender inequalities in society. Feminist research has revealed the extent of male domination and the ways in which male supremacy has been maintained. From a feminist viewpoint, one of the main roles of education has been to maintain gender inequality.

Gendered language – reflecting wider society, school textbooks (and teachers) tend to use gendered language – ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’, ‘man’ and ‘men’ when referring to a person or people. This tends to downgrade women and make them invisible.

Gendered roles – school textbooks have tended to present males and females in traditional gender roles – for example, women as mothers and housewives. This is particularly evident in reading schemes from the 1960s and 1970s.

Gender stereotypes – reading schemes have also tended to present traditional gender stereotypes. For example an analysis of six reading schemes from the 1960s and 1970s found that:

• boys are presented as more adventurous than girls
• as physically stronger
• as having more choices
• girls are presented as more caring than boys
• as more interested in domestic matters
• as followers rather than leaders

Women in the curriculum – in terms of what’s taught in schools – the curriculum – women tend to be missing, in the background, or in second place. Feminists often argue that women have been ‘hidden from history’ – history has been the subject of men.

Subject choice – traditionally, female students have tended to avoid maths, science and technology. Certain subjects were often seen as ‘boys’ subjects’ and ‘girls’ subjects. Often girls subjects had lower status and lower market value

Discrimination – there is evidence of discrimination against girls in education simply because of their gender. For example, when the 11-plus exam was introduced in the 1940s, the pass mark was set lower for boys than for girls to make certain there roughly equal numbers of boys and girl sin grammar schools. In other words girls were artificially ‘failed’ so boys could ‘succeed’.

Further and higher education – traditionally the number of female students going on to further and higher education has been lower than for boys. There is evidence that teachers often gave boys more encouragement than girls to go to university (Stanworth, 1983).

Feminist perspectives – an evaluation – Feminist perspectives have been valuable for exposing gender inequality in education. Partly as a result of sociological research, a lot has changed – for example, much of the sexism in reading schemes has now disappeared. Today, women have overtaken men on most measures of educational attainment. Their grades at GCSE and A level are significantly higher than those of male students. And more women than men are going on to higher education. The concern now is the underachievement of boys rather than discrimination against girls. Please read through the PowerPoint below further details.

Understanding the differences between these perspectives is key to grasping this module. So before you move onto the next lesson take some time to complete the test in the slideshow below. The answers follow every question. So work through each question individually and then compare your answers.

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Interesting views,but what strides did they make for the girl child in education?

by all measures our children are living shorter than the pre feminist era. our schools are full of female pedophiles, who get slaps on the wrists compared to men. other 1rst world countries are doing at education. FAIL and these are FACTS!

Reblogged this on sexyparisienne.com .

Thanks for reblog 🙂

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• Credentialism
• Cultural Capital
• Grade Inflation
• Hidden Curriculum
• Social Placement

Theoretical Perspectives on Education

• Define manifest and latent functions of education
• Explain and discuss how functionalism, conflict theory, feminism, and interactionism view issues of education

While it is clear that education plays an integral role in individuals’ lives as well as society as a whole, sociologists view that role from many diverse points of view. Functionalists believe that education equips people to perform different functional roles in society. Conflict theorists view education as a means of widening the gap in social inequality. Feminist theorists point to evidence that sexism in education continues to prevent women from achieving a full measure of social equality. Symbolic interactionists study the dynamics of the classroom, the interactions between students and teachers, and how those affect everyday life. In this section, you will learn about each of these perspectives.

Functionalism

Functionalists view education as one of the more important social institutions in a society. They contend that education contributes two kinds of functions: manifest (or primary) functions, which are the intended and visible functions of education; and latent (or secondary) functions, which are the hidden and unintended functions.

Manifest Functions

There are several major manifest functions associated with education. The first is socialization. Beginning in preschool and kindergarten, students are taught to practice various societal roles. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), who established the academic discipline of sociology, characterized schools as “socialization agencies that teach children how to get along with others and prepare them for adult economic roles” (Durkheim 1898). Indeed, it seems that schools have taken on this responsibility in full.

This socialization also involves learning the rules and norms of the society as a whole. In the early days of compulsory education, students learned the dominant culture. Today, since the culture of the United States is increasingly diverse, students may learn a variety of cultural norms, not only that of the dominant culture.

School systems in the United States also transmit the core values of the nation through manifest functions like social control. One of the roles of schools is to teach students conformity to law and respect for authority. Obviously, such respect, given to teachers and administrators, will help a student navigate the school environment. This function also prepares students to enter the workplace and the world at large, where they will continue to be subject to people who have authority over them. Fulfillment of this function rests primarily with classroom teachers and instructors who are with students all day.

Education also provides one of the major methods used by people for upward social mobility. This function is referred to as social placement . College and graduate schools are viewed as vehicles for moving students closer to the careers that will give them the financial freedom and security they seek. As a result, college students are often more motivated to study areas that they believe will be advantageous on the social ladder. A student might value business courses over a class in Victorian poetry because she sees business class as a stronger vehicle for financial success.

Latent Functions

Education also fulfills latent functions. As you well know, much goes on in a school that has little to do with formal education. For example, you might notice an attractive fellow student when he gives a particularly interesting answer in class—catching up with him and making a date speaks to the latent function of courtship fulfilled by exposure to a peer group in the educational setting.

The educational setting introduces students to social networks that might last for years and can help people find jobs after their schooling is complete. Of course, with social media such as Facebook and LinkedIn, these networks are easier than ever to maintain. Another latent function is the ability to work with others in small groups, a skill that is transferable to a workplace and that might not be learned in a homeschool setting.

The educational system, especially as experienced on university campuses, has traditionally provided a place for students to learn about various social issues. There is ample opportunity for social and political advocacy, as well as the ability to develop tolerance to the many views represented on campus. In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement swept across college campuses all over the United States, leading to demonstrations in which diverse groups of students were unified with the purpose of changing the political climate of the country.

Functionalists recognize other ways that schools educate and enculturate students. One of the most important U.S. values students in the United States learn is that of individualism—the valuing of the individual over the value of groups or society as a whole. In countries such as Japan and China, where the good of the group is valued over the rights of the individual, students do not learn as they do in the United States that the highest rewards go to the “best” individual in academics as well as athletics. One of the roles of schools in the United States is fostering self-esteem; conversely, schools in Japan focus on fostering social esteem—the honoring of the group over the individual.

In the United States, schools also fill the role of preparing students for competition in life. Obviously, athletics foster a competitive nature, but even in the classroom students compete against one another academically. Schools also fill the role of teaching patriotism. Students recite the Pledge of Allegiance each morning and take history classes where they learn about national heroes and the nation’s past.

Another role of schools, according to functionalist theory, is that of sorting , or classifying students based on academic merit or potential. The most capable students are identified early in schools through testing and classroom achievements. Such students are placed in accelerated programs in anticipation of successful college attendance.

Functionalists also contend that school, particularly in recent years, is taking over some of the functions that were traditionally undertaken by family. Society relies on schools to teach about human sexuality as well as basic skills such as budgeting and job applications—topics that at one time were addressed by the family.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theorists do not believe that public schools reduce social inequality. Rather, they believe that the educational system reinforces and perpetuates social inequalities that arise from differences in class, gender, race, and ethnicity. Where functionalists see education as serving a beneficial role, conflict theorists view it more negatively. To them, educational systems preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience.

The fulfillment of one’s education is closely linked to social class. Students of low socioeconomic status are generally not afforded the same opportunities as students of higher status, no matter how great their academic ability or desire to learn. Picture a student from a working-class home who wants to do well in school. On a Monday, he’s assigned a paper that’s due Friday. Monday evening, he has to babysit his younger sister while his divorced mother works. Tuesday and Wednesday, he works stocking shelves after school until 10:00 p.m. By Thursday, the only day he might have available to work on that assignment, he’s so exhausted he can’t bring himself to start the paper. His mother, though she’d like to help him, is so tired herself that she isn’t able to give him the encouragement or support he needs. And since English is her second language, she has difficulty with some of his educational materials. They also lack a computer and printer at home, which most of his classmates have, so they have to rely on the public library or school system for access to technology. As this story shows, many students from working-class families have to contend with helping out at home, contributing financially to the family, poor study environments and a lack of support from their families. This is a difficult match with education systems that adhere to a traditional curriculum that is more easily understood and completed by students of higher social classes.

Such a situation leads to social class reproduction, extensively studied by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He researched how cultural capital , or cultural knowledge that serves (metaphorically) as currency that helps us navigate a culture, alters the experiences and opportunities available to French students from different social classes. Members of the upper and middle classes have more cultural capital than do families of lower-class status. As a result, the educational system maintains a cycle in which the dominant culture’s values are rewarded. Instruction and tests cater to the dominant culture and leave others struggling to identify with values and competencies outside their social class. For example, there has been a great deal of discussion over what standardized tests such as the SAT truly measure. Many argue that the tests group students by cultural ability rather than by natural intelligence.

The cycle of rewarding those who possess cultural capital is found in formal educational curricula as well as in the hidden curriculum , which refers to the type of nonacademic knowledge that students learn through informal learning and cultural transmission. This hidden curriculum reinforces the positions of those with higher cultural capital and serves to bestow status unequally.

Conflict theorists point to tracking , a formalized sorting system that places students on “tracks” (advanced versus low achievers) that perpetuate inequalities. While educators may believe that students do better in tracked classes because they are with students of similar ability and may have access to more individual attention from teachers, conflict theorists feel that tracking leads to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations (Education Week 2004).

To conflict theorists, schools play the role of training working-class students to accept and retain their position as lower members of society. They argue that this role is fulfilled through the disparity of resources available to students in richer and poorer neighborhoods as well as through testing (Lauen and Tyson 2008).

IQ tests have been attacked for being biased—for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask students what instruments belong in an orchestra. To correctly answer this question requires certain cultural knowledge—knowledge most often held by more affluent people who typically have more exposure to orchestral music. Though experts in testing claim that bias has been eliminated from tests, conflict theorists maintain that this is impossible. These tests, to conflict theorists, are another way in which education does not provide opportunities, but instead maintains an established configuration of power.

Feminist Theory

Feminist theory aims to understand the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education, as well as their societal repercussions. Like many other institutions of society, educational systems are characterized by unequal treatment and opportunity for women. Almost two-thirds of the world’s 862 million illiterate people are women, and the illiteracy rate among women is expected to increase in many regions, especially in several African and Asian countries (UNESCO 2005; World Bank 2007).

Women in the United States have been relatively late, historically speaking, to be granted entry to the public university system. In fact, it wasn’t until the establishment of Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972 that discriminating on the basis of sex in U.S. education programs became illegal. In the United States, there is also a post-education gender disparity between what male and female college graduates earn. A study released in May 2011 showed that, among men and women who graduated from college between 2006 and 2010, men out-earned women by an average of more than $5,000 each year. First-year job earnings for men averaged $33,150; for women the average was $28,000 (Godofsky, Zukin, and van Horn 2011). Similar trends are seen among salaries of professionals in virtually all industries.

When women face limited opportunities for education, their capacity to achieve equal rights, including financial independence, are limited. Feminist theory seeks to promote women’s rights to equal education (and its resultant benefits) across the world.

Grade Inflation: When Is an A Really a C?

Consider a large-city newspaper publisher. Ten years ago, when culling résumés for an entry-level copywriter, they were well assured that if they selected a grad with a GPA of 3.7 or higher, they’d have someone with the writing skills to contribute to the workplace on day one. But over the last few years, they’ve noticed that A-level students don’t have the competency evident in the past. More and more, they find themselves in the position of educating new hires in abilities that, in the past, had been mastered during their education.

This story illustrates a growing concern referred to as grade inflation —a term used to describe the observation that the correspondence between letter grades and the achievements they reflect has been changing (in a downward direction) over time. Put simply, what used to be considered C-level, or average, now often earns a student a B, or even an A.

Why is this happening? Research on this emerging issue is ongoing, so no one is quite sure yet. Some cite the alleged shift toward a culture that rewards effort instead of product, i.e., the amount of work a student puts in raises the grade, even if the resulting product is poor quality. Another oft-cited contributor is the pressure many of today’s instructors feel to earn positive course evaluations from their students—records that can tie into teacher compensation, award of tenure, or the future career of a young grad teaching entry-level courses. The fact that these reviews are commonly posted online exacerbates this pressure.

Other studies don’t agree that grade inflation exists at all. In any case, the issue is hotly debated, with many being called upon to conduct research to help us better understand and respond to this trend (National Public Radio 2004; Mansfield 2005).

Symbolic Interactionism

Symbolic interactionism sees education as one way that labeling theory is seen in action. A symbolic interactionist might say that this labeling has a direct correlation to those who are in power and those who are labeled. For example, low standardized test scores or poor performance in a particular class often lead to a student who is labeled as a low achiever. Such labels are difficult to “shake off,” which can create a self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton 1968).

In his book High School Confidential , Jeremy Iverson details his experience as a Stanford graduate posing as a student at a California high school. One of the problems he identifies in his research is that of teachers applying labels that students are never able to lose. One teacher told him, without knowing he was a bright graduate of a top university, that he would never amount to anything (Iverson 2006). Iverson obviously didn’t take this teacher’s false assessment to heart. But when an actual seventeen-year-old student hears this from a person with authority over her, it’s no wonder that the student might begin to “live down to” that label.

The labeling with which symbolic interactionists concern themselves extends to the very degrees that symbolize completion of education. Credentialism embodies the emphasis on certificates or degrees to show that a person has a certain skill, has attained a certain level of education, or has met certain job qualifications. These certificates or degrees serve as a symbol of what a person has achieved, and allows the labeling of that individual.

Indeed, as these examples show, labeling theory can significantly impact a student’s schooling. This is easily seen in the educational setting, as teachers and more powerful social groups within the school dole out labels that are adopted by the entire school population.

The major sociological theories offer insight into how we understand education. Functionalists view education as an important social institution that contributes both manifest and latent functions. Functionalists see education as serving the needs of society by preparing students for later roles, or functions, in society. Conflict theorists see schools as a means for perpetuating class, racial-ethnic, and gender inequalities. In the same vein, feminist theory focuses specifically on the mechanisms and roots of gender inequality in education. The theory of symbolic interactionism focuses on education as a means for labeling individuals.

Section Quiz

Which of the following is not a manifest function of education?

• Cultural innovation
• Social placement
• Socialization

Because she plans on achieving success in marketing, Tammie is taking courses on managing social media. This is an example of ________.

• cultural innovation
• social control
• social placement
• socialization

Which theory of education focuses on the ways in which education maintains the status quo?

• Conflict theory
• Feminist theory
• Functionalist theory
• Symbolic interactionism

Which theory of education focuses on the labels acquired through the educational process?

What term describes the assignment of students to specific education programs and classes on the basis of test scores, previous grades, or perceived ability?

• Hidden curriculum
• Self-fulfilling prophecy

Functionalist theory sees education as serving the needs of _________.

• the individual
• all of the above

Rewarding students for meeting deadlines and respecting authority figures is an example of ________.

• a latent function
• a manifest function
• informal education
• transmission of moral education

What term describes the separation of students based on merit?

• Cultural transmission
• Social control

Conflict theorists see sorting as a way to ________.

• challenge gifted students
• perpetuate divisions of socioeconomic status
• help students who need additional support
• teach respect for authority

Conflict theorists see IQ tests as being biased. Why?

• They are scored in a way that is subject to human error.
• They do not give children with learning disabilities a fair chance to demonstrate their true intelligence.
• They don’t involve enough test items to cover multiple intelligences.
• They reward affluent students with questions that assume knowledge associated with upper-class culture.

Short Answer

Thinking of your school, what are some ways that a conflict theorist would say that your school perpetuates class differences?

Which sociological theory best describes your view of education? Explain why.

Based on what you know about symbolic interactionism and feminist theory, what do you think proponents of those theories see as the role of the school?

Further Research

Can tracking actually improve learning? This 2009 article from Education Next explores the debate with evidence from Kenya. http://openstaxcollege.org/l/education_next

The National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest) is committed to ending the bias and other flaws seen in standardized testing. Their mission is to ensure that students, teachers, and schools are evaluated fairly. You can learn more about their mission, as well as the latest in news on test bias and fairness, at their website: http://openstaxcollege.org/l/fair_test

Education Week. 2004. “Tracking.” Education Week , August 4. Retrieved February 24, 2012 ( http://www.edweek.org/ew/issues/tracking/ ).

Godofsky, Jessica, Cliff Zukin, and Carl Van Horn. 2011. Unfulfilled Expectations: Recent College Graduates Struggle in a Troubled Economy . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University.

Iverson, Jeremy. 2006. High School Confidential . New York: Atria.

Lauen, Douglas Lee and Karolyn Tyson. 2008. “Perspectives from the Disciplines: Sociological Contribution to Education Policy Research and Debate.” AREA Handbook on Education Policy Research . Retrieved February 24, 2012.

National Public Radio. 2004. “Princeton Takes Steps to Fight ‘Grade Inflation.’” Day to Day , April 28.

Mansfield, Harvey C. 2001. “Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 47(30): B24.

Merton, Robert K. 1968. Social Theory and Social Structure . New York: Free Press.

UNESCO. 2005. Towards Knowledge Societies: UNESCO World Report . Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

World Bank. 2007. World Development Report . Washington, DC: World Bank.

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The Feminist Perspective on Education (UK Focus)

Liberal Feminists celebrate the progress made so far in improving girls’ achievement. They essentially believe that the ‘Future is now Female’ and now that girls are outperforming boys in education, it is only a matter of time until more women move into politics and higher paid, managerial roles at work.

Radical Feminists , however, argue that Patriarchy still works through school to reinforce traditional gender norms and to disadvantage girls – Add in details to the notes below.

Some Radical Feminist Sociologists see concern over boys’ relative underachievement as a ‘moral panic’. Boys have still been improving their achievement in the last thirty years, just not as fast as girls. The Feminist argument is that the focus on education at the moment on ‘raising boys achievement’ reflects a male dominated system panicking at the fact that old patriarchal power relations are starting to break down.

Despite improvements in girl’s education – subject choices still remain heavily gendered, and girls do not seem to be ‘breaking the glass ceiling’.

Feminists would also draw on the above research which suggests that traditional gender norms are reinforced in schools, to the disadvantage of girls.

Recent research suggests that despite girls doing well at school – girls are increasingly subject to sexist bullying, something which is becoming worse with the ‘normalisation of pornography’. Read the extract from Kat Banyard over page for more details and consider how common such incidents are today. Read the extract provided for details

While girls are discouraged from using their bodies on the sports field, they often find their bodies at the centre of another unwelcome kind of activity. Chloe was one of the many women and girls I heard from during the course of my research into violence at school. ‘I had boys groping my en masse. It wasn’t just at break times – in class as well. Sometimes they used to hold me down and take it turns, it was universally accepted. Teachers pretended they didn’t notice. I would regularly hang out in the toilets at break time. I felt pretty violated; it made me hate my body.’ Having now left school, Chloe can pinpoint exactly when the sexual harassment began. ‘When my breasts grew. I went from an A to an E cup when I was fourteen.’ It became a regular feature of her school day, mostly happening when the boys were in groups. ‘People would randomly scream ‘’slut’’. One boy told me that he has a fantasy that he wanted to tie me up and viciously rape me. He was a bit of an outcast. But when he said that all the boys were high-fiving him. He got serious street-cred for saying it.’’ Classrooms are training grounds for boys aspiring to be ‘real men’ and girls like Jena and Chloe are paying the price. Humiliating and degrading girls serves to highlight just how masculine boys really are. And so, sexist bullying and sexual harassment are an integral part of daily school life for many girls.

Hayley described to me how some of the boys at her secondary school were using new technologies to harass girls. ‘They try and take pictures with their camera phones up you skirt while you’re sitting at your desk. Nobody knows what to say. They wouldn’t want to provoke an argument.’ Boys also access internet pornography on school computers. Hayley said, ‘in year seven and eight it’s quite common. Even the boys you wouldn’t expect you see getting told off by teachers for it.’ Similarly Sarah remembers pornography being commonplace at her school; ‘Every student was asked to bring in newspaper articles. Many boys saw this as a great opportunity to bring in newspapers such as the Sun, Star, Sport etc and make a point of looking at, sharing and showing the countless page-three-style images. Sarah was ‘extremely upset on a number of occasions when boys who sat near me in class would push these pages in front of me and make comments. Most of the time all the forms of harassment went completely unchallenged; I don’t think (the teachers) ever paid any attention to sexual harassment.’

The consequences for girls who are sexually harassed or assaulted at school can be devastating. Depression and loss of self-esteem are common. If girls experience repeated sexual harassment they are significantly more likely to attempt suicide. In fact the trauma symptoms reported by adolescent girls subject to sexual harassment have been found to be similar to those descried by rape victims. Yet despite the fact that sexual harassment is shown to have a more damaging impact on victims than other forms of school bullying, teachers are less likely to intervene in incidences of the former. Why? The sexual harassment of girls is viewed as ‘normal’ behaviour for the boys. And it is precisely this naturalising of the act, this insidious complacency it elicits, which has enabled sexist bullying and harassment to flourish in classrooms across the world.

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Education Is Under Attack. Here’s 13 Feminist Educators on How to Fight Back

Teaching is an act of love and struggle. when the road forward seems dangerous, collective voices for transformative learning emerge..

Ms . Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs  for our series, ‘ Banned! Voices from the Classroom .’ Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to  Ms . contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at  [email protected] . Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis.

Educators advance the spirit of teaching by encouraging inquiry, engagement and investigation of diverse perspectives. Many carry the torch forward by addressing critical issues affecting our lives and communities. Education challenges entrenched thinking—not by telling students what to think, but by offering lessons on how to think critically. That is why education is under attack. 

Here’s an inspiring sample (in alphabetical order) of wise women cultural critics, philosophers, theorists, scholars and professors from among many who inspire social justice education.

Elizabeth Alexander

In The Trayvon Generation (2022) Elizabeth Alexander writes, “Sometimes we forget that remembering people, and making their work and legacy available, indelible and strong, is hard work. The scholars, teachers, artists, meaning-makers and family storytellers, work against forgetting.” Art and history, she writes later, “outlive flesh… offer us a compass or a lantern with which to move through the wilderness and allow us to imagine something different and better.” 

Gloria Anzaldúa (1942-2004)

Gloria Anzaldúa challenges either-or thinking in Borderlands / La Frontera (1987) and describes a nonbinary in-between state of identity as cultural collisions originating from colonial conquests. She outlines the nuances of navigating two worlds where negotiating the “ choque ” [clash] means gaining skills and a sharp intelligence for survival. An opportunity for genuine exchange of gifts and resources can emerge from an understanding of polarities. 

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the concept of critical race theory (CRT) in 1989. She sought to challenge the role of structural racism in the law, and to rethink the ideological effects of discrimination and deficit-informed research stemming from the legacy of slavery. To explain how race intersects with other identities such as gender and class, she coined the phrase “intersectionality.”

As co-founder and executive director of the African American Policy Forum , Crenshaw counters censorship of teachers and librarians with joint initiatives like the “Freedom Readers Campaign” bus tour that delivered thousands of banned books to more than two dozen cities from Minnesota to Florida. 

Angela Y. Davis

Angela Davis champions the interconnections of human rights issues and the need for unity among the different calls for justice and equity to heal a wounded and divided society. Davis recognizes the power of the arts as a transformative process. In Abolition. Feminism, Now . (2022) written in collaboration with other scholars, Davis makes the case that linking the past to the present with a collective response that interconnects critical issues to resolve lingering inequities opens the pathway to freedom. 

Jessica Hoffmann Davis

Jessica Hoffmann Davis promotes interdisciplinary collaboration of ideas and projects with arts at the core. Davis advocates for non-arts educators to value arts education which is steeped in scholarship, culture, history and vital learning opportunities that other subjects don’t provide. She argues, because of their processes, “their ongoing redefinition, and even their outsider status that arts deserve a central place in education.”

Davis’ books and essays, notably Ordinary Gifted Children (2010) and Why Our High Schools Need the Arts (2008) emphasize narratives and storytelling where students learn to express emotion, feelings and empathy to stimulate imagination, leading to invention, agency and self-discovery.

Eleanor Duckworth

Eleanor Duckworth plays with learning material as phenomena full of wonder, surprises and excitement. The Having of Wonderful Ideas and Other Essays on Teaching and Learning (1996, 2006) addresses critical exploration through noticing, listening and valuing process and complexity. Her approach as a cognitive psychologist to learning and teaching is influenced by her early work as a student of and assistant to Jean Piaget, known for his theory of cognitive development, and researcher/translator for developmental psychologist Bärbel Inhelder.

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones challenges opposition to academic freedom. From her experience in a high school class on the African American experience, she writes, “Sitting in that class each day, I felt as if I had spent my entire life struggling to breathe and someone had finally provided me with oxygen.”

In “ The 1619 Project ” series in The Times Magazine (2019), podcasts of the series (2020), the anthology of essays, poems, photography and short stories, The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (2021), and a six-episode TV docuseries (2023), Hannah-Jones explains, “Much about American identity, so many of our nation’s most vexing problems, our basest inclinations, and its celebrated and unique contributions spring … from the contradictions and ideological struggles of a nation founded on both slavery and freedom.”

bell hooks (1952- 2021)

bell hooks counters the rise of white supremacy in the U.S. by showing the power of art to inspire dialogue. In her book Art on My Mind: Visual Politics (1995), she states, “Art constitutes one of the rare locations where acts of transcendence can take place and have a wide-ranging transformative impact… In a democratic society art should be the location where everyone can experience the joy, pleasure and power.”

She blends liberatory education and art with antiracism, feminism, nonbinary sexual identity, Black-Christian-Buddhist thought and activism rooted in the hopefulness of seeking knowledge in Teaching Community: A Pedagogy of Hope (2003). 

Robin Wall Kimmerer

Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, botanist and environmentalist, delivers the antidote to profit-driven “extractive” technology. Through traditional Native stories honoring the earth combined with ceremonies of reciprocity, Kimmerer fosters a mutual respect for other beings past, present and future.

In Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (2013) and Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults (2022), Kimmerer contrasts Indigenous philosophy and wisdom with Western practice in agriculture.

Kimmerer notes the inaccessibility of most Western scientific study and how “this has serious consequences for public dialogue about the environment and therefore real democracy, especially the democracy of all species. For what good is knowing unless it is coupled with caring?”

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Gloria Ladson-Billings shifts the research narrative advocating for culturally sustaining pedagogies, culturally responsive teaching, culturally relevant pedagogy in The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children (1994, 3rd edition 2023).

Excellent teaching can counter the damaging effects of trauma and gaps in educational opportunities. Honoring the “education debt” the system owes students who are poorly served means acknowledging systematic racism and economic inequalities. Her work, notably Justice Matters (2024), explores the roots of interconnected societal injustices and offers ways to champion social change. 

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot pioneered the social science research methodology called portraiture, blending art and science, capturing complexity, and undermining stereotypic thinking. The Art and Science of Portraiture (1997) co-authored with Hoffmann Davis, demonstrates a search for “goodness” through a constructive vision reflecting the possibility of transformation and healing rather than emphasizing deficits and pathology.

“In portraiture, the voice of the researcher is everywhere: in the assumptions, preoccupations, and framework … questions … data … choice of stories…language, cadence, and rhythm…”

Lawrence-Lightfoot promotes nuanced storytelling by accepting ambiguity and multiple meanings for interpretation. 

Eve Tuck (Unangax̂)

Eve Tuck (Unangax̂) presents Indigenous social thought and perspective on trauma and resilience and the effects of settler-colonial power in North America. She proposes “rematriation” of curriculum studies by identifying harmful practices. She suggests ( 2011 ) re-storying deeply embedded knowledge by “uncovering the quiet thoughts and beliefs of a community; mapping the variety of ideas … available to other generations using home languages, … engaging in the flow of knowledge… that reflect epistemology/cosmology and relationships to land.”

She is an enrolled member of the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, Alaska, and contributing writer and editor of Who Decides Who Becomes a Teacher? Schools of Education as Sites of Resistance (2019). 

Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson parallels the rigid caste and race systems of India, the United States, and Nazi Germany in Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (2020), made into the film “ Origin ” (2024) by Ava Duvernay. Caste details the inordinate preoccupation with white supremacy in the US and exposes the creation of complicated decrees, laws, policies, statutes, and customs that justify mob violence, lynching, dehumanization of one group of people over another, showing how stereotyping media depictions can distort our mentality.

In the book The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (2010), Wilkerson gleans stories from interviews with hundreds of Black migrants who fled the South of the United States from 1915-1970 during the Great Migration. 

Teaching is an act of love and struggle. When the road forward seems dangerous, collective voices for transformative learning emerge, generating healing exchanges to build an equitable, hopeful future. 

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Rewriting Herstory: Proposing an AP U.S. Women’s History Course

Florida: Where Learning Goes to Die

U.S. democracy is at a dangerous inflection point—from the demise of abortion rights, to a lack of pay equity and parental leave, to skyrocketing maternal mortality, and attacks on trans health. Left unchecked, these crises will lead to wider gaps in political participation and representation. For 50 years, Ms . has been forging feminist journalism—reporting, rebelling and truth-telling from the front-lines, championing the Equal Rights Amendment, and centering the stories of those most impacted. With all that’s at stake for equality, we are redoubling our commitment for the next 50 years. In turn, we need your help, Support Ms . today with a donation—any amount that is meaningful to you . For as little as $5 each month , you’ll receive the print magazine along with our e-newsletters, action alerts, and invitations to Ms . Studios events and podcasts . We are grateful for your loyalty and ferocity .

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Teaching Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God in First-Year Composition

• Samantha Prillaman Conner + −

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My teaching note explores how to teach Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God in first-year composition classrooms. I discuss the demographics of my classroom in a rural public university, and my students' reactions to reading the novel. This article highlights the successes and challenges of my classroom discussions and activities relating to reader comprehension and code switching. In addition, I explore ways to implement antiracist and feminist pedagogies while keeping students out of the "panic zone."

Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be an Antiracist. One World, 2019.

Samu-Vissar, Diana. “Challenging and Caring for Learners in DEI Classrooms.” HR Spotlight, McLean and Company, 2022, https://hr.mcleanco.com/research/challenging-and-caring-for-learners-in-dei-classrooms .

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License .

Copyright (c) 2024 Samantha Prillaman Conner

Samantha Prillaman Conner (she/her/hers) is a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Radford University in Radford, Virginia. Her research focuses primarily on feminist pedagogy and teaching composition.