Hegemony in Education

Hegemony in Education

Introduction

Hegemony is the act of a particular section of society asserting its dominance on another. This can be either through leadership, manipulation and or control of the relatively inferior social group. Hegemony in itself can be based on a variety of factors. In the family, it could be based on birth order or gender. Beyond the family, hegemony can be subject to factors such as race, academic credentials or qualifications, race, ethnicity, religion, skill level or profession among others.

Hegemony as a phenomenon manifests itself in education systems. This is usually a direct effect of the culture of the surrounding community or society from which the scholars are drawn from. Majority of the world’s societies are patrilineal. This is to say that the male members are considered superior in a variety of ways. In such societies, reasons given for this practice include the physical strength of the men and ideas that have been passed down from their ancestors through the generations. It is important to note that in a hegemonic society, the dominance imposed by the group deemed superior is not applied by force. As a matter of fact, it is widely consented among those who are being dominated(Woods, 2011).

Hegemony in Education does not operate in a vacuum; it is witnessed in a system that is constructed by both the learners and teachers. No one party can exclusively receive credit or blame for the issue of male dominance in the education system. Teachers propagate it primarily in a subconscious manner that seldom crosses their minds when they are dealing with the students. School authorities too have a major role to play in the whole matter of hegemony. The cultures from which the pupils are sourced from also plays a crucial role in moulding the children into young people who believe that the hegemony that is in force in the education system is something very normal rather than an issue that requires immediate action to rectify the situations.

Given the fact that males are the ones that have often been receiving the upper hand in hegemonic education systems, it is highly possible that the two genders get affected differently by the present hierarchy.  The effect is bound to touch on how they relate with one another, the type of subjects that they choose to proceed with, their performance in school, participation in extracurricular activities and also their enrolment in further levels of education among others.

The effect of Hegemony in Men

From a very early age, hegemony in education manifests itself in the way male students communicate. Their main aim in communication is to assert themselves and gain some sort of status.  They soon discover that communication itself offers a very narrow field of opportunity for this goal. This leads the male students to participate in a number of activities that are not necessarily academic. These could be sports, theatre or the arts(Stone and Boldt, 1994).

The direct manner with which the males communicate their thoughts also gives birth to a new challenge in the form of communication with the females. The different socialization processes that they will have undergone will make the boy inclined to have a bad attitude towards the girls who may be viewed as rather indecisive.

The dominance and superiority that is assigned to males who are in the education system that shows clear signs of hegemony often results in early detection of possible learning difficulties that a boy-child may have. This is because the teachers are inclined to pay more attention to the male students. This means that such challenges get to be addressed at an early stage and hence enabling males with learning disabilities to get the much needed remedial help that has the effect of boosting such a student’s performance. These students alternatively get to be directed towards the right subjects such as arts which they have a higher chance of excelling in than conventional academic subjects.

Still on the matter of subjects, hegemony in the education system has been mentioned as being a key contributor to the male tendency to select and excel in subjects such as maths, science and also chemistry among other technical subjects that are on offer in schools. This has to do with the gender roles that are associated with different academic subjects. Teachers at times contribute to these views by suggesting that these subjects are tougher. By tougher they mean that the subjects can only be well managed by the male students though this message is often delivered in subliminal undertones that the teachers themselves may be scarcely aware of (Kumaraswamy, 2009).

The effect of hegemony on women

In the education system, women seem to be receiving the short end of the stick in regard to the opportunities that present themselves in the education system. Since the teachers often expect the male students to perform better in their class work, females with potential can be very easily overlooked by instructors. This leads a huge number of promising female candidates to waste away and get comfortable in performing below their potential. In the incidences when these girls’ strengths are discovered, it is usually at a late stage when the impact of intervention will have limited impact.

Another way in which females are affected by hegemony is that they tend to shy away from the so called ‘technical subjects’. These include mathematics and physics because of the perception that they get regarding how difficult these subjects are. The issue is further compounded by the fact that such subjects are predominantly taught by male teachers. An effect of this is the low enrolment levels of female students in engineering courses in the university. This is despite the best efforts of the campuses that put a lot of effort into encouraging girls to apply for such courses. This is often a case of ‘a little too late’ since at high school level, many of the girls targeted by these promotions have already made up their minds (Woods, 2011).

Women are easily taken advantage of and even violently or sexually abused by their male counterparts whether it is within the education system or once they are out. Since the education system emphasizes the idea of male superiority, women feel obligated to yield to the men’s slightest whims whether sensible or not.

In some cases, girls receive only basic education and at times none at all since their parents are usually more eager to marry them off. This condemns them to a life of illiteracy just because the society felt that boys are more valuable hence worth the effort of educating(Kumaraswamy, 2009).

Ethical issues associated with hegemony

Hegemony is likely to bring forth ethical issues such as favourism, discrimination and harassment in academic institutions and the general education systems.

Favourism may appear to be directed at male students at the expense of females despite them having an equal opportunity in the classroom. This may be seen in the chances boys and girls are given to take charge of affairs such as leading groups or answering questions in class. This can be remedied by training the teachers to employ an inclusive approach that ensures as many students as possible from both sexes.

Gender discrimination is another ethical challenge associated with hegemony in education. This may be witnessed in the allocation of school resources such as the funding of the boys’ football squad while there is no program of a similar scope that involves the girls. This in itself is a form of discrimination since it suggests the superiority of one gender. A solution to this may be to ensure that for every boy’s sport there is a concurrent girls’ extracurricular program running concurrently (Stone and Boldt, 1994).

Negative effects of hegemony on teacher effectiveness

At times standards of performance may be watered down simply because the teacher believes that different genders have different levels of understanding. Such an attitude is bound to result in low quality education being offered to students thus making them miss out on a lot of opportunities. For this to be avoided, the teachers need to learn to take the students as individuals rather than representatives of existing stereotypes.

At times the communication challenges that exist between the genders may cause friction and unnecessary conflicts when male teachers interact with female students or when female teachers interact with male students. This can lead to grave misunderstanding on each party’s intentions and needs. In the end, the students fail to get what the teacher wanted to pass across and the teachers also fail to understand the particular needs of their students.  This can be resolved through training teachers to avoid situations where gender biases come in the way of their work.

 

 

References

Kumaraswamy, N., (2009) Do we still need male dominance? Journal of Psychology and Counselling.1 (3) retrieved from http://www.academicjournals.org/IJPC/PDF/Pdf2009/May/Editorials.pdf  on March 13, 2013

Woods, C (2011) Hegemony and Education. Retrieved from http://cshondawoods.com/2012/08/hegemony-and-education/  on March 13, 2009

Stone, L., and Boldt, N., (1994) The Education Feminism Reader-Male Hegemony, Social Class and Women’s Education.  Routledge, New York.

 

 

 

 

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