OK for school to reinforce stereotypes?

[NumptyNu]

DS's school has invited the 'dads' in for a special science-themed day. I'm shocked to say the least. What kind of message does this send to the kids?

A. Science is for boys?
B. It's usual for dads to be out at work, hence the need for a special day for them. Mums do not work, they stay at home and bake cakes for the PTA?

I can see the logic of trying to reach out to the dads, but really? What do you think?

I agree with Callooh in that it is better to have dads in doing any activity than not at all. A lot of dads may be put off taking that first step into engaging more with school in this way because it is typically a 'mum' thing. It may be the same social anxiety that puts me off going into the weights room at the gym because i'd probably be the only woman. Mumsnet is full of tales of playground cliqueyness, and the thought of being a newbie in that environment would make anyone think twice.

The fun and messy aspect may appeal, particularly to dads who might be undecided but that could have been achieved with a cooking day or art day for example.

I do agree that a mums only day should be planned to balance it out and ensure that it wasn't a traditional wimmins topic such as ICT, Design Technology, PE etc

I have to say that at our primary (in quite a rough area, not leafy middle class) there is a really good turnout of Dads at school events.
We have times when you can come in and do an activity, when you can come in a watch a class assembly, when you can come and see work etc, and it is a good balance of mums and dads

I am sure it was done with good intentions, but I'd be annoyed too. I'd definitely ask some questions, not in an aggressive way but just to encourage them to think about the kind of message they are sending out to their pupils.

Do you really have such low opinion of men?

This comes across as 'aw, poor men, they need excitement to care about their kids' education'.

I'm sure there are bad parents out there, but I am very uncomfortable with the idea that men can't be expected to do more than a grudging bare minimum.

Scientist mum here. I would be fuming if i get a letter for a science day for dads not mums.

No reason why they can't accept feedback so they do it even better next time, is it?

Hence big worries when girls do better than boys, but less concern when boys outperform girls.

That's not right, Buffy. The concern with boys and literacy is because boys vastly underperform versus girls in English at GCSE. Last year 53.8% of boys got A*-C in English, where 69.7% of girls did. That's a massive difference. In maths the figures were 62.5% and 62.3%. The issue in maths for girls is not underperformance but lack of take-up post-16. Girls who perform equally well as boys choose to drop STEM subjects.

In my ds's school, which has a very high %age of low and middle ability children, the top sets for maths are pretty much equal girls and boys. English - more than 75 girls. And the lack of literacy skills in the boys stops them accessing huge swqthes of the curriculum. I agree with you about the expectations for boys to outperform girls and the panic when they don't. But the boys and literacy thing is real and huge.

Wow - some great debate here.

I certainly do appreciate that the school is making an effort to engage the dads here, and certainly do not want to sabotage their efforts, or discourage them at all.

The 'dads week' is an annual event, and there is nothing separate for mums. I'm not sure there should be either - shouldn't all parents be invited to everything?

I'm also struggling to feel sorry about any dads who would put discomfort at playground cliques ahead of wanting to show up for their children. I can see that it might be a touch intimidating, if you're that way inclined, but no more intimidating than it is for a mum who might also feel disconnected from school activities because she also happens to work full time, or a mum who works in a heavily male-dominated environment?

It's so old-fashioned, and I'm not sure there's a place for it in today's society. The longer we pander to these kind of concepts, and make excuses for them, the longer it will take for gender bias to disappear, surely?

Callooh - it's like Buffy said: getting dads to read with children is about breaking down a stereotype, inviting them in to do science (and not inviting mums) is about reinforcing a stereotype. I'm a professional research scientist - I would be apoplectic with rage if DS's school did this (thankfully they wouldn't because it is the sort of school where the teachers engage their brains before planning things).

If you really think it doesn't matter, google stereotype threat. Simply drawing children's attention to their sex, or race, at the start of the lesson, even in a way that is totally unconnected with the subject matter of the lesson, leads to a measurable and statistically significant drop in test scores at the end of the lesson compared to control groups of children who've been treated equally. In fact, it's such a powerful psychological effect that children who are told at the start of the lesson that, e.g., kids with blue eyes can't spell as well as kids with brown eyes demonstrate stereotype threat in a spelling test at the end of the lesson.

I'd so much rather people overthought things than underthought them........

Who's 'apoplectic'?

And, callooh, honestly, if you can't be arsed doing your job, why would you be a teacher? Most teachers I know (including me) quite like doing the bits of their job that might really make a difference. They don't strop like toddlers and say 'wah, but, I want to carry on doing it the other way because ... because I say so!'

Stepping: I was one of those 11+ takers who had to achieve a higher result to get into grammar school than the boys. It was the 1950s. The authorities wanted to achieve a 50/50 ratio of boys and girls and if they had the same pass mark it would have skewed the ratio unacceptably towards girls.

Interestingly, the 11+ was a "sudden death" exam that, allegedly, boys are better at according to the current ''wisdom", which states girls are better at doing course work because it rewards conscientiousness etc.

Kinda blows that belief out of the water

Jeanne - I'm the one who said she would be apoplectic in these circs, with good reason!

But it would appear Callooh would rather get cross about my reaction than read the stuff I suggested about stereotype threat. I am thanking my lucky stars DS has a good teacher who cares about this stuff.

Thanks lurcio - couldn't see it, not that it was a criticism of you saying it. I just didn't know who she was replying to.

Grimble - ah yes, the old "boys thrive in 3 hour exams" thing... along with the "more boys are geniuses and dunces" trope. Was always used to justify why men got a disproportionate number of 1sts and 3rds and women got a disproportionate number of 2nds. My undergrad physics tutor (woman FRS) campaigned for years to get anonymous marking introduced for finals. When she finally got her way, lo and behold, the discrepancy in proportions of degree classes disappeared. (Incidentally, there is a school of thought which would go "but, but, but... surely with maths and science you're either right or wrong? How can marker's interpretation come into it?" Anyone who can't see how this might happen has never marked a maths or science paper. There is considerable latitude for marker interpretation in how much credit to give for an answer where the student has made a mistake early on, but then tried to struggle on applying the correct method thereafter to a solution that's gone belly up about 1/4 of the way through).

Oh, yes, I love those tropes.

Everywhere except Oxbridge has now got women getting equal numbers of firsts, FWIW.

I didn't know about the bell curve change, Lurcio, thanks.

Hmmm
Interesting the coursework thing - I (female) bombed every exam that needed coursework - I just didn't do it...(had stopped going to school really) -I am really glad that some were just the exam - I just turned up and managed to pass a couple....probably could have done better -but did well enough for it not to be a complete disaster...
(I have a science doctorate -got later in life - I think we need to look more at why a lot of females leave science when they have children - why I felt like I couldn't do both and then why after DCs I am more or less unemployable in my field...and I am far from the only SAHM female Dr locally (live near a university)...a waste of money on education and a waste of talent...but that's another topic )
I think the school are very much damned if they do and damned if they don't...
I've just been with two separate groups discussing upcoming fundraisers... and how we can get more dads involved - both of them are going to have a sporty/active/competitive approach...
The normal summer fair type of event (at the weekend) does get a few families but actually still usually mums ...most events do, even if both parent's work FT - slightly more success at getting the dads to things in the pub (quizz etc) or if we need someone to do a bbq ...
It is the dads attitude rather than the school/other organisations that are the 'problem' ....
And as to getting more girls into certain subjects...my 14 yo DD has to make choices soon. At a school event there were mini of 'stalls' of different subjects she could so - a wall length of engineering/graphic design/computing. Earlier I had noticed they were exclusively manned by male pupils ...although by the time we got there most were unmanned.
We were reading the info and DD was interested in an engineering design type subject. A boy came over and started talking to us about it -all good - DD interested. Then some other parents walked past - he obviously knew them from outside school and said hello etc - then he asked if their daughter was going to do it -the parents both laughed (like it was an outrageous idea, a joke) and the boy said that's a shame we need girls in the group - we don't have any at the moment'. DD suddenly lost interest.... I don't know how you tackle that - but I was really shocked by the parents' attitude ...

(maybe they need to introduce short blocks of mandatory classes for all younger pupils - with no initial boy/girl split they probably would get more girls after the choices?)
Having said that when I did A level physics 30 yrs ago we started the year with 4 girls in a class of 30 by the time I dropped out completely (Easter) I was the only one left...if any of the girls were stuck on something the teacher would tell us it was because girls couldn't do physics - if a boy was stuck he would sit them down in class and explain it to him - but I am seriously hoping that guy would be sacked in this day and age...

Buffy here are the GCSE results by subject and gender for the last few years

www.bstubbs.co.uk/gender/male-g.htm
www.bstubbs.co.uk/gender/fem-g.htm

They have to take both maths and English so there's no chance of under performers simply disappearing from the data. In the English results this year there appear to be about 200,000 missing students if you compare against the entries for maths. I suspect that they were switched to IGCSE as a result of the speaking and listening debacle, but if you look at the grade breakdowns over the years they are pretty consistent.

Interestingly for maths, if you look at the results over the years, girls were outperforming boys at A*-C until 2009, where boys started doing better than girls. 2009 was the first exam year where coursework was abolished in maths, which does lend some support to the notion that coursework was a disadvantage for the boys.

Boys perform slightly better in maths at the A*/A end, and it seems that more boys than girls take additional maths. The additional maths figures have plummeted in recent years, which I suspect is due to the introduction of AQA's further maths course which doesn't seem to be included in the figures as it isn't a GCSE.