Gender Segregation in Education

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Gender Segregation in Education

Many people think only of African Americans when the phrase segregation in education is spoken, but how often do we think of women? Women have gone through tremendous struggles to receive the same rights as men to an equal education. The following pages will explain many aspects of the history of the women’s struggles for desegregation, accomplishes made for desegregation, and the affects of sex or gender segregation still present in today’s educational system.

In the early colonial times, women’s roles were very defined. Men and society expected women to have children, raise those children proper, and be the best homemaker of all time. In the beginning, women were educated for the sake of family and society: the new republic needed educated mothers to produce reasonable, responsible male citizens. (Kaminer 1998) They were taught knowledge so they could pass that on to their daughters. Most of this knowledge included the skills on how to be the best homemaker to her husband and children.

Women all over the world and throughout centuries have fought numerous battles for every accomplishment that has been made. One such accomplishment is the following. The first women received a baccalaureate, a high school leaving exam, in 1861. (Bessis 2000) This feat started a chain reaction of events throughout Europe and Asia. The first female University was opened in Japan in 1900.

The push for educational equality and desegregation in the United States began in the early nineteenth century. In 1819, Emma Willard attacked the segregated school system of New York.(Salomone 1986) New York’s state government ignored her, so she opened one of the first female seminaries.

The major impacts on women’s segregation in education took place in the middle twentieth century. This was the time that many of the newly formed women’s groups or leagues found their voices. Many of the energies of these groups were directed towards discriminatory issues in the educational system such as, academic admissions, instructional offerings, guidance and career counseling, athletics and employment opportunities.

All of these battles for desegregation were, in a sense, won with the Education Amendment to the fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution. The fourteenth amendment not only laid open the new guidelines for civil righ...

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...n and discrimination in various aspects of everyday life. Such things as the workplace and occupations are segregated. People think women can only do certain jobs or they think women should be the educators and men should be the administrators. How can some schools become desegregated when the higher areas of education are still segregated? Most women are expected to stay educators but as teachers not principals or superintendents.

Our nation still has a long way to go when it comes to desegregation, but we have traveled a milestone since the colonial times. Women are not always thought of as inferior. Many views of today’s world find women in equal positions. Lets just hope it only gets better as time goes on.

REFERENCES

Bessie, Sophie(2000, June). One Battle after Another. Unesco Courier, 18-20

Hawley, Richard(1996, January). Boys Schools Reconsidered: Good News in Troubled Times.USA Today, 76-79

Kaminer, Wendy(1998, April). The Trouble with Single-Sex Schools. Atlantic Monthly, 22+

Salomore, Rosemary C.(1986).Equal Education Under Law. New York: St. Martins Press, Inc.

Schroeder, Ken(2001, October). Single-Gender Schools. The Education Digest, 67(2),71-73

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