1. Jordan R. Archibald
“Education imparts skills that create options for individuals in
economic, social, and political life” (Sapiro 141).

2.  What does education mean to you?
 Do you think education exists both inside and outside of traditional
classrooms?

3.  What are examples of jobs or career that exist both inside and outside of
traditional classrooms?
 Do we consider these as actual jobs, or are they things that coexist with our
roles in society?

4.  Relatively few people had any formal education until the 19th century.
 Most people learned their trades and professions through apprenticeship or
from their parents or other relatives.
 Sapiro 141

5.  Mothers and fathers passed their skills and knowledge to their daughters and
sons.
“Women taught women what they
needed to know; men taught men
what they needed to know.”
 Sapiro 142

6.  Formal education was largely restricted to the wealthy and well connected,
generally men of the upper class.
 It was considered irrelevant for most free citizens.
 It was considered dangerous for men of lower status and for women.
 It was considered illegal for enslaved Black people.
 Sapiro 142

7.  What might be the only textbook people of the 19th century needed to read?
 A. The Bible
 B. How to be a Millionaire
 C. The Declaration of Independence
 D. Introduction to Chemistry
 E. None of the above

8. Anne Hutchinson
 The most famous dispute over
women’s education during the
colonial period was waged between
Anne Hutchinson and the religious
authorities of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony (Sapiro 142).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
 He argued that men should be
educated in reason and
independence to enable them to
carry on the major work of society
(Sapiro 142).

9. By the end of the 19th century, the education
of immigrants and their children became a
concerns of school administrators, other
government officials, and a variety of
women’s groups, including those in the new
profession of social work.
G O A L: to make immigrant women good American wives and mothers.

10.  English competency to run their households properly and to teach their
children.
 Courses in household arts or home economics to make proper American homes
and learn budgeting to avoid poverty.
 Americanization to control their children and to ward off juvenile delinquency.
 They also needed to be taught appropriate trades for women to avoid being drawn
into “white slave trade” (prostitution) before they got married.
 Sapiro 147

11.  When the first American colleges opened their doors in the 17th century
(Harvard in 1636, William and Mary in 1693), they barred women.
 In 1821, Emma Willard opened the Troy Female Seminary, offering a
curriculum similar to that of men’s colleges, although her main goal was to
makme her students good American mothers or teachers.
 Sapiro 144

12.  The period from the 1970s into the 21st century witnessed tremendous
growth and transformation of women’s education due to the actions of
advocacy groups, changes in law and eventually, development of cultural
values that now created expectations that women would enter the labor
market and needed to be prepared.
 Sapiro 149

13.  Title XI of the Education Amendments Act 1972: “No person in the United States
shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be
subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial
assistance.”
 1974 Women’s Educational Equity Act (WEEA): provided funds and infrastructure to
create new programs to promote women’s education.

14.  Research shows, that to earn the same amount of money as men, women
need more
education than men. Sapiro 150

15. d i f f e r e n c e s.
 The law requires that all children attend school from age five or six to age
sixteen.
 Roughly the same number of girls and boys participate in early education programs.
 Boys outnumber girls by a very wide margin, in special-education programs for the
mentally retarded, speech impaired, emotionally disturbed, and learning disabled.
 The law does not require students to finish high school.
 There are gender differences in dropout rates, but these depend on race.
Women now constitute a majority of the recipients of BAs and Mas.
Sapiro 151

16. boys girls
 Some studies show that teachers give more attention to boys than to girls.
 This may be partly because boys initiate more interactions with teachers than girls
do.
Girls are more likely to wait to be called on, rather than volunteering as boys do, especially in
subjects like math.
It is important to emphasize that teachers’ gender-based actions are often not conscious or intentional, and they may be unaware of the
gender-based dynamics of their classrooms.
Sapiro 152

17.  Schools and school curricula are designed in part to teach fundamental
cultural values, including gender norms.
 In a gendered world, schools cannot help but teach about gender.
 Sapiro 154

18. the overt curriculum.
 The lessons teachers consciously
and explicitly try to teach.
the hidden curriculum.
 Things that may be taught
consciously or unconsciously but
are not part of the apparent lesson
plan.
If lessons in school include coverage of matters that directly involve and
concern men but not women, the hidden curriculum indicates, through its
silence, what and who is not important. Sapiro 154

19. Understanding the role of social institutions
such as schools in sex/gender systems requires
understanding that the gendered messages
children receive are not simple.
* In fact, they are often contradictory.
On the one hand, children are told that in a democracy all children
are given an equal chance, and that math, science, and technology
are important in the modern world. However, schools blunt these
encouraging messages by suggesting (often in subtle ways) that men
are more fit for these roles.

20. think about it…

21. Children learn at a young age that some
subjects are “masculine” and some are
“feminine,” that girls and boys are interested
in different things and have different abilities.
Sapiro 156

22. children’s narrative writing ideas
b o y s.
 Sports
 space
mythical creatures
 adventure
 animals
g i r l s.
 friends

 family
 pets
 the mall
 dance lessons

23.  Although the gender integration of many subjects advanced, sometimes
dramatically, over the final quarter of the 20th century and beyond, males and
females still make somewhat different choices as they face more options in
high school, college, and beyond in their studies. Sapiro 156
Why do you think this is?

24.  Do girls and boys and women and men have the fullest possible opportunity
to get the education they choose?
What are your thoughts?
Research suggests that they do not. Subtle and not-subtle messages still track
students according to gender. Sapiro 167

25.  Research shows repeatedly that education does not “pay off”
for women in the same way it does for men. Sapiro 168
 Why do you think this is the case?
 Will things change?

26.  Most educators probably believe that education must continue to change;
the dilemma is how to accomplish this.
Sapiro 168

27. Questions&
Ideas