5.4

• Gender


  The socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for men and women
• Education


  Interpreted in a broad sense to cover both formal and informal aspects, including pre-school, primary, and secondary education; families and youth cultures inside and outside schools; adult community, further and higher education; vocational education and training, media education; and parental education
• Social scientists and educational researchers paid relatively little attention to issues of gender and education until the 1970s, when questions emerged concerning equity in girls' and women's access to education across the world
• Researchers documented a link between increasing rates of female education in developing countries and a subsequent decline in fertility rates
• Increasing female representation in primary and secondary education was cited as an important factor in promoting national economic development, and therefore seen as a vehicle for social change
• Historical overview of women and men in education


  • Women's education: Aimed at teaching how to fulfill women's "natural" roles (good mothers and partners for their elite husbands)
  • Men's education: Classroom, private studies, tutoring and colleges (Philosophy, Mathematics, Rhetoric, training in self-discipline, other academic subjects) - Upon the graduation of colleges they took places among the ruling class as ministers, lawyers and other professional job
• Social reproduction


  Wide range of tasks related to housework, food preparation, care for the sick (usually more time-consuming in developing countries than in the industrialized world)
• Biological reproduction


  Childbearing and early nurturing of infants (only women are physiologically capable of performing)
• As women move to cities, become better educated and find new opportunities for work and self-development outside the home


  The birth rate tends to fall
• Explanations for fertility transition


  • Mortality reduction of infants and children
  • Higher costs of raising children and reduced economic contributions from children as years in school increase
  • Opportunity costs of childbearing for parents, especially mothers
  • Transition from extended to nuclear families leading to changing values and gender roles
  • Traditional societal support for large families declines with modernization
  • Improved access to contraception and abortion
  • Later marriage
  • Increased spread of ideas and practices which encourage lower fertility
• Educational outcomes


  • Educational participation and attainment
  • Educational achievement
  • Field of study
• Educational participation and attainment


  • Historically, men in Western countries have tended to have higher educational attainment levels than women
  • Currently, among the adult population (that is, those aged 25 to 64), men are found to have more years of schooling and are more likely to reach upper secondary education (or higher) than women in two out of three developed countries
  • If only the youngest age-group is considered (that is, those aged 25 to 34), the historical pattern is reversed with female attainment levels higher than male rates in two out of three countries
  • Currently, upper secondary graduation rates are higher among young women than young men in most countries
• Educational participation and attainment in the industrialized world


  • There were virtually no gender differences in literacy
  • Women had the lowest adult literacy rates in West Africa and South Asia but more women than men were enrolled in tertiary education in most countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Middle East
• Educational participation and attainment in developing countries


  • Women achieve lower levels of education than men because of distance between home and school and lack of transport, which may make it dangerous for girls to travel to school
  • The costs of school in terms of the loss of the child's labour at home and the financial burden of paying for school supplies, suitable clothing such as uniforms, school fees and bribes to teachers also means that parents may decide not to educate daughters
• Educational achievement


  • Ability test results indicated significant gender differences in verbal, quantitative and spatial ability: girls scoring higher in tests of verbal ability, boys achieving higher scores in relation to quantitative and spatial ability
  • Women are more likely to obtain a 'good' undergraduate degree (that is, at least an upper second class honors award), men are more likely than women to achieve the highest award, that of first class honors
• Field of study


  • Engineering courses at upper secondary level tend to be predominantly male
  • Health/welfare, arts/humanities, education courses and social science/business courses are disproportionately female
• Gender issues/trends


  • Grant, M. J., and J. R. Behrman. 2010. Gender Gap in Education
  • Buchman, C., T.A. DiPrete, and A. McDaniel. 2008. Gender Inequalities in Education
  • Paqueo, V. B., and Orbeta A. C., 2019. Gender Equity in Education
• In educational institutions, gender inequality has been experienced. Girls have been discriminated against in terms of various aspects as compared to their male counterparts. The primary aspect in terms of gender inequality has been experienced is in participation
• Factors causing gender inequality in education


  • Condition of Poverty
  • Discriminatory Treatment among Girls
  • Occurrence of Criminal and Violence Acts
  • Child Marriage
  • Education of the Parents
  • Occupation of the Parents
• Gender gap in education

  The discrepancy in opportunities, status, attitudes, etc., between men and women
• Historically, Filipino males were somewhat more educated than females. Now the males are lagging behind the females and the education gender gap is widening
• There should be greater clarity about the meaning of the gender equality objective in education for situations where boys are lagging behind girls
• How to achieve this more inclusive objective also needs to be clarified
• Gender equality remains unfinished business in every country of the world. Women and girls have less access to education and healthcare, too often lack economic autonomy and are under-represented in decision-making at all levels.
• The progress that has been made towards gender equality over the past quarter of a century, though slow and incremental, does however show that change is possible.
• Strategies that have made a difference and should be scaled up


  • Legal reform
  • Strengthening gender-responsive social protection and public service delivery
  • Quotas for women's representation
  • Support for women's movements
• Gender equality


  A "relational process" through the educational systems, norms and values are institutionalized within them
• Three components of gender equality


  • Rights to Education
  • Rights within Education
  • Rights through Education
• Rights to Education


  Describes gender parity - the equal participation of boys and girls in different aspects of education
• Indicators of gender parity in education


  • The numbers of boys and girls enrolled in education and at intake in grade one
  • The numbers of boys and girls who survive up to grade 5 (and thus the numbers that drop out)
  • Regularity of attendance of boys and girls
  • The numbers of girls and boys who repeat years of schooling
  • The average years of schooling attained for boys and girls
  • The transitions of boys and girls between levels of education (pre-school-primary; primary-secondary; secondary-high school/ vocational)
  • The number of female and male teachers
  • Literacy levels of boys and girls, men and women
• Rights within Education


  Refers to the right of men and women to non-discrimination in educational opportunities
• Main focus of rights within education


  • Learning content
  • Teaching method and process
  • Subject choice
  • Assessment modes
  • Management of peer relationships
  • Learning outcomes
• Rights within education measure equality & quality
• Educational institutions should function in ways that do not impose or maintain gender stereotypes or promote institutional barriers to the range of possibilities that boys and girls, men and women can enjoy in relation to the education offer.
• Rights within education relates to equality of treatment, which in turn is reflected in quality of outcome
• Girls may be vulnerable to sexual harassment in schools and so may jeopardize their marriage potentials.
• In rural schools facilities, especially sanitation, are often poor and there are few women teachers, making such schools especially unattractive to girls.
• For adult women it may be hard for them to attend adult literacy classes because of the demands of their reproductive tasks. Without literacy women may not be aware of their legal rights and may be unable to benefit from opportunities for further training.
• Rights through Education


  The importance of focusing on this becomes significant particularly when we review evidence of the inequalities which continue to face women in the world of employment, work and political representation-the public arena.
• In 2011, 73% of women aged 15-64 were employed. Women occupy 40% of parliamentary seats and 40% of board seats in listed companies.