Intervening in the Debate about
Boys' Education in Germany
Thomas Viola Rieske
Universität Potsdam
ETUCE Project
„Teacher trade union actions challenging gender stereotypes and gender
segregation in the labour market“
Peer Learning Activity, Brussels, 9 May 2012
I. Introduction: The Debate about Boys &
Education
II. Disadvantaged Boys?
III. Feminised Education?
IV. Masculine Pedagogies?
III.Alternatives
Introduction: Discourse around
Boys and Education
• New Perspectives on Gender & Education
since the 1990s in Industrialized Countries
• Girls as catching up with or overtaking boys in
formal education, boys are at risk
• Education as feminised and disadvantaging
boys
Introduction: Discourse around
Boys and Education
 Boy-turn of research and policy attention
 Discourse of Boys’ Crisis reorganises our
knowledge of gender, education and inequality
Disadvantaged Boys?
• Girls get better grades, drop out less often,
start to overtake in tertiary education
• Girls do better in literacy, more and more they
equal boys in mathematics & science
• Boys more often appear as problematic within
school
Feminised Education?
• High proportion of women in education
• Lack of male role models in kindergarten and
schools
• Cultural feminisation of teaching and
behaviour rules
• Privileging of girls and femininity because of
feminism
More Masculine Pedagogies?
• Adjusting to boys’ interests
• Accepting and fostering boys’ behaviour and
identities
• More men as role models, figures of
identification, authorities for boys
Disadvantaged Boys
1. Is it a new phenomenon?
Disadvantaged Boys
2. Disadvantaged in all dimensions?
Disadvantaged Boys
3. Which boys?
Boys‘ problems with education
Boys are differently at risk
Specific constellations get out of sight
Other problems of boys are neglected
Disadvantaged Boys?
4. (For whom) does education pay off?
Studying when eligible in %
100
90
80
70
60
50
Men
Women
40
30
20
10
0
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2003
Is attainment a good indicator for
successful education?
• Women more often than employed under
precarious conditions
Education is more than formal education and
„skills for life“
– self-esteem, strategies of pursuing one’s needs &
interests, career choices
– Experiences of discrimination, recognition, support on
the ground of gender norms, racism, social
inequalities
Alternative Description
Still, gender determines what kind of education
someone is offered, can accept and can benefit
from.
This leads to an unequal distribution of skills,
grades, experiences of support and discrimination,
payment, power resources amongst girls and boys.
More boys than girls show problems in relation to
formal education and those skills that are
associated with femininty.
Feminised Education?
1. Too many women?
Association of teacher‘s gender and
educational attainment
• Contradicting results – mainly no support of
the hypothesis
• Boys‘ relative distance to schooling was
known when teachers were predominantly
male
Gender is more than male-femaleproportions
Gender is more than male-femaleproportion
• Women‘s proportion is biggest in positions
with low acknowledgement, low payment, low
power
Children experience a world (at schools),
where men tend to be responsible for
decisions and knowledge, women tend to be
responsible for nurture and daily routines
Feminised Education?
Too much femininty?
Too much femininity?
• Research on teaching materials:
heteronormativity, gender stereotypes
• Why is working in groups, restricting movement,
or the rejection of physical violence declared
feminine?
• Is feminisation no problem for girls??
Masculine Pedagogies?
Adjusting to boys?
Adjusting to boys‘ typical interests and
habits?
• Naturalising and Strengthening gender
differences and stereotypes
• Neglecting shared interests of boys & girls
• Lowering educational aspirations?
Alternatives
Offering spaces of development and
challenges to boys (and girls)
Alternative problematisation
Boys (and girls) experience gendered expectations
and the pressure to become employable. These
„impulses to normalize“ can be contradictory and
produce conflicts.
Alternative problematisation
Boys experience conflicts between „doing student“
(accepting rules, working on their intellectual skills,
asking for help) and „doing masculinity“ (being
autonomous, strong, dominant and trusting their
gifts):
Alternative problematisation
“The hegemony of the ‘effortless but successful’
male image puts boys under considerable pressure
to ‘pass’ as non-conforming; many devote
considerable effort to strategising around
remaining accepted by peers, which often means
underperforming while in school.”
Lynch 2009 (NESSE report)
Alternative problematisation
Not being masculine means to loose (the hope of)
privileges and a sometimes important means to
gain recognition and belonging.
Alternative Orientations
• Criticising inequality of life pathways
• Reflecting one‘s own view on gender and
gendered practices
• Allowing for diversity and intersectionality
• Gender-senstive pedagogy as a critical
exchange about the impulse to normalize
„Mädchen und Jungen in der Schule“
Tagung der DGLS 08./09.04.2011
Alternative Orientations
After 37 years of trying to be male and over
eight years of trying to be female, I’ve come
to the conclusion that neither is worth all the
trouble.
Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw, 1995
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