High school and college are both important institutions in many peoples' lives. These academic institutions are seen as places where identities are forged, friendships are made, important basic lessons are learned, and ideally, plans are made regarding both near and distant futures. High school and college are toted as places where post-pubescent adolescents are supposed to find out what exactly they want to do with their lives – a period of four to eight or more years where the groundwork for the rest of your life out in the “real world” is laid out. Whether you want to be a social worker, a chemical engineer, or a teacher, high school and college are the places where you can learn about what you are interested in as well as where you can receive a basic education.
High school and college are also the places where gender roles and stereotypes, especially in academics, begin to become glaringly obvious. In high school and especially in college, more of the curriculum is geared towards individual interests than in previous schooling environments. These specialized programs allow students to pursue things that they feel genuinely interested in, as well as allowing them to avoid those subjects that don't like. If someone is interested in taking an arts or a social studies class rather than an additional English class, they can usually do so without much trouble. In many cases, during the high school and college years, it is a widespread phenomenon that girls tend to lean more towards the “softer” subjects, such as English, art and social studies classes, while boys tend to lean toward science and mathematics. How do stereotypical gender stratifications affect the types of classes that members of each gender take? Do these ...
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It seems that single-sex education perpetuates gender stereotypes and promotes gender bias among students (Taylor). Gender-separate education requires schools and teachers to create gender-oriented courses, facilities, and learning environment. As a result, sing-sex schools exacerbate sexist attitudes and “feelings of superiority toward women” (Guarisco). It is fair to argue that the best way to achieve gender equality is to promote rather than eliminate interaction among girls and boys. However, girls in the sex-mixed class receive less attention from teachers than boys, which may lead to gender bias. More precisely, boys always have disciplinary issues, such as interruption; teachers have to pay more attention to boys’ behaviors in order to proceed the lecture more smoothly. Girls may feel less important and supportive in male-dominated classes; boys may think that males are smarter and far superior than females. Single-sex schools can address both girls’ and boys’ issues of gender stereotypes directly and accordingly. Male students may be freer to engage in some activities they have not considered before in mixed schools. For example, boys feel pressure to follow some non-macho interests when girls stay around them; however, the all-boys schools eliminate their pressure toward gender stereotyping to pursue music, dance, and drawing. Single-sex schools would help boys explore and develop themselves. Also, girls in sex-separate schools show more confidence and power (Guarisco). They could receive full attention from teachers and express their opinions in science classes without worrying about the boys’ banter. They may realize that they are as important as boys. Hence, both girls and boys can be free from gender stereotypes and benefit from a same-sex learning
Throughout the years, males have dominated the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) with very few females finding their way in the mix (Steinberg, Okun, & Aiken, 2012). Those females enrolling in the STEM majors soon find themselves questioning why they have, and many quickly change their majors to more female-accepting professions (Steele, James, & Barnett, 2002). The view that women lack the intellect to succeeded in STEM disciplines has been a prevailing one for much of history (Cadinu, Maass, Rosabianca, & Kiesner, 2005). Many researchers have questioned whether it is social stigma impeding female success or indeed basic biological differences that make males are more successful in these fields than women (Smith, Sansone, & White, 2007).
There is a long history of single-sex schooling, in which males and females attend specific classes or schools only with members of their same sex. This separation of genders may be done for educational purposes or in combination with other factors, such as social interactions that occur between male and female students. There is some support for the idea that single-sex schooling can be beneficial, especially for outcomes related to academic achievement and more positive academic aspirations (Lee, 2008). Although, there are many benefits of children attending single-sex schools, evidence shows that sex segregation can also gender stereotyping and legitimizes institutional sexism (Kennedy, 2000).
In today 's society, there are multitudes of pressure high school students face. One of the biggest pressures put on high school students is the decision of going to college. From the moment students enter into a secondary education, they are constantly asked questions about their future plans. Teachers and parents expect students to perform their best, while giving them no chance but to look towards college. In some cases, however, college might not be the answer. Other options exist as alternate avenues after high school, however, these are not as often expressed as the idea of a four year university. Although a college education and degree is most often more impactful than a high school diploma, there is too much pressure
Making the transition from middle school to high school is a huge stepping stone in a teenager’s life. High school represents both the ending of a childhood and the beginning of adulthood. It’s a rite of passage and often many teens have the wrong impression when beginning this passage. Most began high school with learning the last thing on their mind. They come in looking for a story like adventure and have a false sense of reality created through fabricated movie plots acted out by fictional characters. In all actuality high school is nothing like you see in movies, television shows, or what you read about in magazines.
Sadker, Myra, David Sadker, and Susan Klein. "The Issue of Gender in Elementary and Secondary Education." Review of Research in Education 17 (1991): 269. JSTOR. Web. 14 Mar. 2012.
“Gender disparity” refers to the differences between the percentages of men and women obtaining college degrees. Hulbert coveys the different ways in which young boys and girls process information. Women tend to be better at reading, writing, and verbal skills, while men tend to better at math and sciences. By sixth grade, young boys tend to lose interest in literature and are often struggling in subjects such as English and reading, while young girls are often losing interest in math and science by sixth grade. Boys perform consistently below girls on tests of reading and verbal skills. By high school, girls tend to score in the middle or average; however, boys tend to score either really well or rather poorly.
You go three years of high school preparing for college and at the same time having fun. Until you are in your senior year of high school that’s when you realize and start asking your self what college do I want to go to? Or what college career I want to pursue? That’s when you notice you have but so little time to answer these questions. Me I’m in my last year of high school and I though I already knew what career I wanted to pursue, but its now that I notice that not even I know what I’m going to do with my life? All I’m sure of its that I’m going to graduate out of high school with a diploma and that I’m going to college. But what happens after that? What major did I study? Or where did I go to accomplish my goal?
The completion of high school is the beginning of adult life. Entitlement to public education ends, and young people and their families are faced with many options and decisions about the future. The most common choices for the future are pursuing vocational training or further academic education, getting a job, and living independently.
“The bias of gender in the STEM field has discouraged women from taking jobs in math and science. Studies show that when asked to view two identical résumés, the only difference being the gender of the candidates, people were more likely to pick the male. The male candidate, John, was also more likely to be offered a higher salary than the female candidate, Jennifer” (Davidson). People also tend to underestimate a woman’s performance in mathematics, resulting in less qualified men going into jobs that a woman could perform better in. Gender and racial biases are constantly influencing society, and its effects are detrimental to women and people of color. When women are not in the workplace to actively participate, everyone misses out on the benefits of having more diverse opinions. A simple way to reduce the influence of gender and other biases is to remove information about race, gender, and age when making important hiring decisions for available jobs in a company. Jobs should not be biased towards a gender or race, and should only focus on how capable each person
Numerous academic studies have cited the continuing underrepresentation of women in science and technology. In a 30-year study for Intelligence journal, Jonathan Wai et al. cite that despite perceptions that performance in science and mathematics has relatively equalized among the sexes, males still tend to score better on standardized tests – both the SAT and the ACT - than females. His study cites that “[t]he male-female ratio in the top 0.01% of mathematical ability on the SAT-M rapidly declined from 13.5 to 1 in the early 1980s to roughly 4 to 1 in the early 1990s” (417). He goes on to explain that the 4 to 1 ratio achieved in...
School plays an important role in our lives. Many people will spend more than fifteen years at school in order to get the qualifications that are required to work in a specific field. Those years are broken down into several levels, some of them being more enjoyable than others. Two very important levels that people go through are high school and college. Even though some think that these levels are almost the same, there are significant differences between them. The cost of high school is not the same as the cost of college. Also, some differences apply from an academic point of view. Typically, the social environment also differs from high school to college, which can be related to the question of freedom versus responsibility.
Education itself is one of the single most important factors when it comes to stereotyping, especially with gender. It is said that women usually lean towards social sciences, health services, and education, while men on the other hand are more likely to fall to engineering and business (Sax & Harper 672). The interesting concept is that “woman usually earn equal to higher grades than men...
Girls are seen as caring, nurturing, quiet, and helpful. They place other’s needs above their own. Girls get ahead by hard work, not by being naturally gifted. Boys are seen as lazy, but girls are seen as not capable. In class, teacher will call on boys more than they call on girls. Boys are seen as better at math and science; while girls are better at reading and art. This bias is still at work even out of the classroom. There are more males employed at computer firms than women. The ratio of male to female workers in STEM fields is 3-1. In college, more women major in the humanities than in the sciences. In education, women are often seen as lesser than; even though 65% of all college degrees are earned by women. Women are still often seen as needing to be more decorative than intellectual, as represented by the Barbie who included the phrase, “Math is hard!” and the shirt that JC Penneys sold that said, “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me.” While there was a backlash on both items, it points out that there is a great deal of work to do on the educational gender bias to be
Schooling is a very important aspect in our lives and one must go through many steps to gain a higher education. Two of these steps are high school and college. Although high school and college students aim for the same goal, which is acquiring an education and graduating, the demands, expectations, and social atmosphere extremely contrast.