What is the relationship between these effects and the issues of social justice, equity in schools?

Considering gender and education in the classroom I come to conclusion that as time goes everything remains the same. All the things happening nowadays in the classroom connected with ''gender gap'' are vestiges of the past or at least a simple continuation of what was happening at the beginning of schooling but grew into something modern, contemporary and hardly eradicating despite different laws. The issue of gender inequality is directly connected to the issue of social justice and equity.

As far as I understand, social justice is a question concerning different aspects of fairness and appreciation in a society, in this examining case between both sexes in the classroom.

Social justice implies that society is equal, everybody is equal and our relationship towards the whole population (it doesn't matter whether you are male or female) should be equal. Respect towards everybody – here's the main point of social justice. It is also the point of arguing between all the members of a society who are involved in different spheres such as politics, religion, education etc. The question of social justice in schools is a burning issue for some reasons, which is related straight towards the issue of ''gender gap''. The last one emerges because of the absence of equity in schools, which flows into inequality between girls and boys. It gives us reasons to believe that social justice is the main essence of it. If all the pupils/students were equal we would might not think about social justice, especially of equality between everybody. The last thing a fish notices is the water in which it swims. So, if we have something it doesn't indicate that we will evaluate it. Consequently, from one point it is very good to have disadvantages (inequality in schools) so that you begin to realize that there's something you can change or have try to do it- improvements create our life. But from another point, being unequal make people feel uncomfortable and reasonable amount of population talk about it but no strong actions are taken.

Talking about equity I'd say that it is a notion that goes ''inside'' social justice. I mean that equity is a part os social justice as well as equality. The matter is that the differences between these 2 definitions are not so clear. Equality is ability not to divide males and females into these categories even if it is obvious to think that there's a clear devision. It is something that allows us to think that everybody has the same rights, no privileges to men more than women etc. We can observe this tendency in schools nowadays: there’s no discrimination, everybody are treated the same. But there are no ‘’visible’’ differences of gender separation. It’s a kind of veiled problems, which occur in schools. For example, differences in treatment of being good enough in math, science, etc. Boys get more praise than girls and it is proved. The same concerns attention from a teachers’ side. Boys are in their advantage here.

What could be said about equity, is that everybody has a right to be considered as a personality with his own preferences and interests. Equity is something that correlates with fairness and honour between man and women. Male and female should be treated fairly. However, it isn’t stated, that there are written ‘’fringes’’ in fairness. Everybody should be equal, but in different ranges of tolerance, as they depend on people. It emerged long ago, that women are more ‘’housy’’ than men. I mean, that education for them isn’t a big deal, as a family should be stated at the 1^st place. Consequently, some rules for women were ‘’prescribed’’ long time ago, lacking the opportunity to be well-educated too. Somebody consider women as housewives, what is quite inappropriate and insulting for females. And from this point fringe of ‘’fairness’’ begins.

I read in a blog that a term ''equity'' isn't so liked by authors in discussions about educational equality and equity. ''Children should have roughly equal prospects for educational success, but there are all sorts of limits on what we can, and all sorts of limits on what we are permitted to, do to achieve this, and it is very hard to articulate or get agreement about exactly what those limits are'' (http://crookedtimber.org/2009/03/31/educational-equity-and-educational-equality/).

Mostly, they use ''equity'' for explaining ''equality'' which isn't the same actually. It vagueness makes the question of equity an urgent problem/point in the educational system. Fairness above everything. Equality follows from it then. It means that schools must have a well-organized system of social justice, where you can find a place for equity and equality – for a simple understanding that we are people and should be treated properly (fairly) and that everyone needs to have equal opportunities towards everything (education in particular) in spite of differences we have.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-29