More on schools
www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/revealed-eight-ways-sexism-taking-place-schools
The report, Opening Doors, says that in some cases secondary school pupils were deterred from choosing subjects traditionally associated with the opposite gender because they feared homophobic bullying.
It outlines a series of gender stereotyping issues in schools, including:
Timetabling constraints inadvertently reinforcing gender stereotypes. “Subjects were often offered in blocks, and these were usually constructed in a way that reinforced gender stereotypes.
While most schools tried to accommodate students who wanted to make choices outside that structure, there was a strong message about the types of courses that are taken by boys and girls.”
Many schools gave “little consideration” to gender representation in school displays. “It was common for them to display gender bias and reinforce gender prejudices.”
Setting by academic ability often resulted in male-dominated lower sets, which could result in an increase in poor behaviour.
Schools used alternate “boy-girl” seating, which was “effectively using the girls as buffers to keep the boys apart". The report says that girls "noticed and resented this policy".
Staff had observed casual sexism in class, such as cat-calling, sexist jokes and derogatory language. Often senior leaders would assert that there was no problem with sexist language at their school but students would report it as an “everyday reality”. In extreme cases this language “verged on bullying”.
Very few teachers had received diversity training.
A large number of pupils, both male and female, reported living with a daily barrage of sexist “banter”. These pupils "were aware that some of their behaviours and subject choices are heavily gendered, and often driven by peer pressure".
“Girls and boys routinely felt that bad behaviour is tolerated more for girls than for boys, whereas for violations of the dress code it is the other way around.