Sexism And Inequality In School Education

Sexism and inequality in school education

Sexism according to Silvia Chauvin is introduced to our society through culture, each establishes a series of ideas, speeches, practices and social representations that attribute a series of specific characteristics to men and women. This symbolic construction is called the genre, which conditions and regulates people’s behavior;Through the constitution of the genre, society builds the ideas of what is supposedly innate, own or inherent in each sex.

From the family environment, the education of boys and girls is governed under the ideals of patriarchal societies, a division is revealed where men take responsibility for the economic issue and women of domestic roles.

Throughout the 80s sexism in schools takes place, although before the sociology of education was not interested in this inequality, because it was not considered that this institution discriminates and it was also seen as the best way to guarantee equal opportunities, but sociological research showed that the school produced inequalities between social groups and that it also did not contribute to equal opportunities.

The school is an institution which reproduces female and male stereotypes (by action or omission), these have been developing socio-culturally and have given rise to gender inequality. Although it is not the institution that contributes the most to this inequality, if it is the most who could help achieve gender equity and equality.

Sexism is negative for both women and men, since it limits the possibilities of both and are denied certain behaviors that can be considered "feminine" or "male". For example: "boys do not cry", "girls should not speak like this" … with these behaviors it is indicated that individuals must adopt differentiated and specific behaviors by the fact of belonging to one sex or another. In this sense, the sexist erroneously attributes social differences between women and men to biology and thus try to justify discrimination and domain.

Research shows that sexism is not a social problem related to biological but is related to a sociocultural construction problem;Because if the skills and capacities attributed to both sexes vary according to context and society, this shows that they are not established by biology but that their determination is social;This issue must be resolved through education, where school has a fundamental role for this change.