|
Lydia Lui
The Gender Matters Group in the Hong Kong Institute of Education(香港教育學院性別關注小組) had put great effort in translating a very useful booklet on gender and achievement into Chinese months ago. The booklet is called "Addressing Gender and Achievement: myths and realities", published by the UK government. Its purpose is to identify and dispel(v.消除) some of the current unhelpful myths about gender and education and to counter them with (v.phr.反駁)an evidence-based rationale.
I am lucky to have gained access to the original English copy. I would like to share them here for your information and inspiration. I have the clarification items modified, re-ordered and roughly classified for easy understanding. I am presenting the first two parts below and the last part in the next article. Bear in mind that the English below is discussed as their first language. English in Hong Kong could be an even more complex issue.
Part 1: Talent, Style and Performance
Myth 1: Girls are naturally better at reading and writing.
Reality 1: Girls in general do perform better than boys at English(as a first language), and the gap between boys' and girls' performance in Primary 4 to 6 is much larger in writing than reading.
Myth 2: Boys are naturally different to girls, and learn in different ways.
Reality 2: There is little evidence to suggest that neurological (adj.神經上的) differences result in boys having different abilities/ways of learning to girls. Recorded patterns of difference are slight, and widely debated. Neurological research remains in its infancy(n.發展初期), and even proponents(n.支持者) of neurological gender difference caution that there is more within sex difference in abilities than between sex difference.
Myth 3: Boys and girls have different learning styles, which teaching needs to match.
Reality 3:Learning styles as a concept are highly contested. There is no evidence that learning styles can be clearly distinguished one from another, or that these learning styles are gender specific.
Where learning practices and preferences may be gendered(e.g. girls enjoy group work etc), such preferences may be due to social norms.
Myth 4: All boys underachieve(v.成績低於正常水平), and all girls now achieve well at school.
Reality 4: Many boys achieve highly, and conversely many girls underperform.
Analysis of the attainment data shows that other factors or a combination of factors, such as ethnicity and social class, have a greater bearing on educational achievement than gender considered on its own.
Myth 5: Boys underachieve across the curriculum.
Reality 5: Boys broadly match(v.敵得過) girls in achievement in Maths and Science.
Boys continue to outperform(v.表現較好) girls in Maths in Primary 4 to 6 and at higher level Maths but there is a large gender gap favouring girls in English.
Part 2: Boys' Preferences
Myth 6: Boys prefer male teachers.
Reality 6: For the majority of boys and girls, the teacher's gender has no bearing on their preferences for a teacher.
Studies have shown that the vast majority of boys and girls prioritize(v.優先考慮)a teacher's individual ability as a teacher and his/her level of care for the students, rather than the teacher's gender.
Myth 7: Boys prefer non-fiction (n.非小說類散文).
Reality 7: Boys who prefer to read non-fiction are a minority.
Of the small minority of children who choose non-fiction as their favourite kind of reading material(roughly 10%), the majority are boys, but this group is very small in comparison to those boys who choose fiction. This is a consistent finding in all the large-scale datasets. It is safer to say that boys who read, read fiction.
Next time, we will look at policy, pedagogical(adj.教學的) practices and their effects on achievement. To be continued. ■lydialuieng@gmail.com
|
