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Women Fall Behind Men in Education

by A Special Correspondent
WOMEN have made substantial gains in higher education, with female enrollment sometimes surpassing that of men.
One such country Is the United States, where there are 110 women per 100 men enrolled in colleges and universities
Nevertheless, gender Inequality continues to blight the American school system, according lo the American As sociation of University Women (AAUW).
A report released early this year by the AAUW has shown that because of sexual bias, girls and women are not getting as much out of schooling as their mate peers.
Although they show roughly the same ability to team as the Swhen they start school, are found a decade or so to have fallen behind in key areas such as higher level mathematics and measures of self-esteem.
"Whether one looks at achievement scores, curriculum design or student-teacher interaction. It's clear that our schools are shortchanging America's girls." says the report. Prepared for AAUW by the Weltesly College Centre for Research on Women, the report Is a synthesis of all available research on the subject.
With the "wealth of data" presented by the report. It Is hoped that policy-makers will be prompted to pay attention to gender equality, which AAUW says continues to be neglected in the debate on educational reform.
"Neither the National Edu cation Goals Issued by the Na lional Governors Association in 1990 nor America 2000. the 1991 plan of the President and the US Department of Educa tion to move every community In America toward these goals, makes any mention of providing girls equitable opportunities in the nation's public schools," says the report.
Federal law has prohibited sexual discrimination in taxpayer-funded schools since 1972. Believing that the problem has been eliminated, the Education Department proposed last January the scrapping of the only federally funded programme designed to promote gender equality in education.
But the AAUW report gives enough evidence to the contrary. Among Its major findings are: girls get less attention from teachers than boys, female contribution and experience is ignored, and sexual harassment of girls Is on the rise.
One study found that boys
tended to respond to questions eight times more often than girls, and were more attentively listened to and encouraged School activities, notably sports, centred more around boys than girls
Another study involving eight-year olds found that 51
per cent of the boys had used a microscope, compared to 37 per cent of the girls.
The situation can be even more difficult for African-American girls — they have fewer Interactions with their teachers than white girls although they put in more ef-fort to initiate such exchanges.
Girls are less likely than boys to take up scientific and technological courses even if they are good in math and science, the report adds.
Although the gender gap in math achievement Is small and Is narrowing, girls in high school are still less likely than boys to take the most advanced courses and be in the top-scoring math groups In science, such gap "is not decreasing and may tn fact be increasing.*
Another point: when scholarships are given based on the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, boys are more likely to receive scholarships than girls who get the same or slightly better grades i
An alarming practice — largely unchecked because authorities "too often treat It as a joke" — is sexual harassment, found by the researchers to be on the increase.
In a survey of two California schools, virtually all of the 150 high school and junior high school stiidents Interviewed said they have experienced, witnessed or taken part in sexual harassment. Common complaints involved behaviour like poking girls' private parts with a pencil or calling female breasts melons.
Frequently the victims did not do anything as they- were afraid any reaction would make things worse. In one case, a group of boys taunted a girls with suggestive remarks, eventually forcing her to leave their computer class. "The teacher had no control at all.
And the other girls were scared to stick up for me, (scared) it would happen to them," said the girl.
In terms of teaching content, the AAUW report says that many textbooks fail to recognise the contribution and achievements of women.
The National Women s History Project (NWHP), which supplies educational materials related to US women's history, says only 15 per cent of America's 205,000 schools — or less than one in six — buy any such material. Of those that do, the average purchase is only US 840.
This, despite NWHP's efforts to promote women's history through consultations with the State Offices of Education and through workshops.
Education on health and sexuality also remains inadequate despite such problems as teen pregnancy, the AIDS crisis and Incidence of sexuality-transmitted diseases among adolescents.
Adding to the gender handicap Is low socio-economic status. Says Alice McKee, president of AAUW Educational Foundation : "Women and children are swelling the ranks of the poor, at great cost to society. Yet our education policy-makers are failing to address the relationship between education and the cycle of poverty. Girls are systematically discouraged from courses of study essential to their future employability and economic well-being."
— Depthnews Asia