Mr. Kevin Y. S. Li
"Are the gender issues context-specific?" This is the question that I bear in my mind for a quite a long time. When we look at the situation in Hong Kong, educational attainments of the youngsters have improved in the past 20 years since the nine-year compulsory education is imposed by Governor Maclehose in 1978 , , . However, the policy is not tailor-made for the general public. British Government treats it just as a welfare and human resource policy, rather than creates equal educational opportunities and increasing the upward social mobility for all social strata like class and gender, as Post (1994) perceives from Westerners' viewpoints. However, Post seems only to look at this issue on the quantity of lower class students who can enter school, rather than they really obtain equal opportunities in their schooling and education system under the influence of other social forces. Gender stereotyped education is one of major aspects that catch the attention and concern of education practitioners in recent years. Au (1993) raised an important aspect that gender division of labor displayed in primary school textbooks has a great impact on the educational and occupational attainment of female students . Tsang (1992) showed that the students of the inferior strata, like working class and female, tend to strongly influence their prospect and remain their inferiority in society. In this essay, I am going to investigate the relationship between traditional and cultural settings and gender inequalities that leads to not only the quantitative but also qualitative aspects of educational stratification and then attainment.
In the past, the females are receiving less education in their early childhood than the males, since they were sacrificed their opportunities to their brothers due to insufficient family income. After the implementation of free and compulsory education, every child got chances in school-learning irrespective of their parents' income. The direct link between the family income and gender on attainment diminished over time 1. Although the economic factor is not so important for a family to determine the daughters' education prospect, the daughters are still of inferior priority to go into academic area. This is mainly due to the traditional Chinese patriarchal values that control and socialise the females. The values are rooted very deep inside the minds of every generation, even though the younger generations are under the impact of western new trends of thought. In the recent research , on sexual division of labor of school female teachers, it shows that it is still widespread in the traditional role of females in domestic work, with the burden of work as teachers. This occurs for working females, but males do have the same dual workload. Although this may not contribute, to a larger extent, to the problem, the values carried through the whole school environment, including school organisation, teacher control, lesson content and structure, and informal teacher-student relations and student' own stereotyping 12 is shaping and reinforcing the gender role concept of each individual.
It is commonly perceived that female teachers are less competent than the male counterparts in administrative roles9. The females then tend to avoid important decisions and assume males a leadership role. Cheung8 observed that some students will recognise that important decisions are taken by male teachers. This will contribute to gender-role socialisation among students. Also, Wong's research on the gender distributions of Senior Education Administrator reveals that males are "believed" to have decision-making ability while females are perceived to be bright in articulation and inter-personal skills, which are secondary to decision-making power.
Cheung (1995) reports in greater detail the constraints the female teachers have in promotion to higher posts. A female teacher reports:
I myself am not very keen on promotion. I am not aggressive type of person. I do not like to compete with the others. I just finish the job and try my best. Whether I can have promotion is not important . If I get promoted, I have to perform well as many people are watching me.
That females should take up a large share and ultimate burden of domestic affairs is taken for granted. Chan and Ng (1994) reveal that the problem is in the family: husbands shall take more part in working together with wives, but not working more for wives. The employed married females still had to carry out the greatest share of almost all the household items. Household duties take up the female teachers' time and hinder the possible development in other parts of schools or society.
In classroom environment, Delamont (1990) in her research in British schools displayed a detailed account of gender bias classroom. Although the culture development is so different in both places, some parts of gender behaviour are quite similar. For example, there are still some model or "nice" behaviour for all girls to pursue. It is found that "a double standard between the steady girlfriend (virtuous and sexually faithful) and the "easy lay" (cheap and promiscuous)" is operated. "Girls are divided into virgins, "nice" girls who had sex when in love with a steady, responsible boy, and "lays" who would go with anyone." (Delamont, 1990) In Hong Kong, female students also bear such criteria in classification of the others' behaviour, especially when this apparently reflects on the "hot gossip" in entertainment news. Another popular criteria is the masculinity of the female, and the femininity of male students.
What directly affects the aspirations of female students on the academic achievement is the probability that enter the higher educational institutions. Nowadays, the ratio of male to female students are more or less balanced in most curriculum in universities, but for some courses 17, especially in Arts and Education subjects, females dominate the classes in those faculties. Such conditions also show the gender stereotype in the career. This genderisation of subjects is partly due to the sex of teachers in particular subjects. Recent figures 17 indicate that there are a large proportion of single sex students taking some "gendered" subjects in open examinations. For example, males dominate Design and Technology, and Electricity and Electronics, while females dominate Home Economics.
Within schools, such gender stereotype in selection of subjects is quite popular in, especially co-educational schools. However, for single sex schools, this phenomena is not so apparent. This reveals the inequality in power relationships between both sexes. In Sheung's study , the females show higher "female characters" in co-educational schools than in single-sex schools., and similar situations arise for the male students. This can be reflected in the lower preference and academic achievement in so-called "male subjects" of female students, like science and mathematics subjects. However, there is no evidence showing that females are "naturally" weaker in those subjects, because their counterpart work rather good in single-sex schools.
Interactions with opposite sex increase the polarisation of behaviour between them. Kopping 18 also reports the similar situations in PRC that because girls are more used to rote learning, and boys are not encouraged to do so, the outcome will be as an interviewee illustrated:
"I notice that in junior middle schools, some female students did pretty good, but when they entered senior middle schools they did worse and worse. In senior middle schools, there was more knowledge which you needed to understand and apply, especially in mathematics, physics. Usually male students do better than female students in that area."
I have seen a Form 5 classroom in St. Benedict Technical School (in Choi Hung Estate) with a certain extent of gender division of labour. I have observed that several groups of students doing their Chemistry experiments in laboratory. Grouping of students is based on their seating number in the class, so there is no gender differentiation among the groups. However, within some groups, the female students are passive, and let the males do the experiments. I noticed that the male teacher gave rather equal proportion of attention to both sexes, provided there are more males in the class. I have not interviewed with those female, but from some other unknown sayings, females care about their outlook and the degree of danger of the experiments. Surely, gender role models carry some importance in attributing to such act.
A lot of researches , 18 were done in universities in PRC and Taiwan on the achievement aspirations of female university students. They all reveal that female students are of lower education aspirations than males. Several reasons may account for this: marriage and family. The single females worry that they cannot find husband with higher academic qualifications, or the female students will not choose the males with lower qualifications. 'As to the probability ratio, the intention of males to continue postgraduate studies is 3.5 times that of females; their intention to obtain Ph.D.s is 6 times that of females.' (Tsai and Chiu, 1994) The married females face the difficulty of dual workload in academic and family duties. Since the academic research require very high devotion, they would rather give it up, especially for those who have children.
Besides the differential teachers' and familial expectation for male and female students, the content of textbooks and classroom teaching is the other main focus in the gender segregation of schools subjects. Au's research 5 in the gender stereotype in the primary school textbooks reflects the deep-rooted thought. Au reports that the ratio of males appearing in various textbooks is higher than female, that is, from 1.4 : 1 to 3.8 : 1. However, the population ratio of males to females in 1991 census is 1.038 : 1. Males are paid more attention to, and are more popular in the pictures and content of the textbooks. What needs attentions is that the major role of stories and the image of human beings are taken by males only. Also, females are portrayed as passive and subordinate in some textbooks. The concept of traditional division of labour, "men work outside and women work at home" (Nan zhu wai, nu zhu nei) is conveyed through the articles in some Chinese Language textbooks. Also, the gender stereotype is quite clear-cut - females only work as teachers, nurses, models, secretary and clerks, while males works as political leaders, drivers, and waiters. These various ways of differentiation affect the identity search and establishment of children, and limit their development of individual characters and achievement. Delamont (1990) 12 relates the gender stereotyped textbook to the "gendered" subject selection that 'illustrations and images familiar to boys, such as those related to the military or team sports are used in science lessons and textbooks, while literature and the humanities are depicted as being more concerned with human relationships and emotion, an area deemed more appropriate for the female sex'.
Choi (1995) mentioned one important point in the relevant researches that as students are not passive recipients, one has to consider the distance between the pedagogical messages and the perceived reality held by its users, in order to assess the long-term effects of such messages.
Gender division of labour appears not only in the selection of subjects, but also in some professions. In Hong Kong, in the researches , it is found that a large proportion of female students enter the former four Colleges of Education in 1990s. Also, females dominate the teaching jobs in kindergarten and primary schools, but this is not the case in higher educational institutions. One woman explains:
Women teachers always tell you something very specific, not, very broad in scope. Their thinking comes from the text book and they tell it to you exactly the way it appeared in the text book. But men teachers can tell you some other, different things. (Kopping, 1993)
This may echo the most frequently cited attributes that describe women: careful and attentive to detail, patient, and caring for others. In Kopping's research , women are noted to be particularly well suited for teaching, nursing, doctoring, and secretarial work. The above saying also reflect the reality that most senior forms are taught by male teachers while the lower, especially lower secondary, primary and kindergarten teaching by females. A female teacher points out:
I think it is strange for a man to teach in primary school. They should not teach in primary school. However, I would very much accept men to become lecturers in tertiary institutions. (Cheung, 1995)
What doubts myself is why girls are less common to be aware of their rights in society. I believe that some kind of values must be socialised and internalised in the mind of girls through family, work places and mass media, and the school setting must be a major factor on suppressing their needs. Needless to say, family influence is one of major that surrounds the female's mind. Mothers' images and characters of domestic care and nurturing baby, and the indoctrination of gender division of labour perpetuates their minds. Women of certain ages will think of marriage, baby-birth and family. This to some certain extent limits their development in their own interest and career, but men do not have the same problem. Also, females are reported to have lower expectation values by parents on their future prospect, since they are perceived to be deemed to marriage.
The socio-economic status of families also affects the educational opportunities of the female students. Several researches , , analyse the social structure and the 'openness' of Hong Kong. Lee's study 21 in secondary schools finds that "higher social class background enter the higher banding schools while the students with lower social class background go to the low-banding schools." Also, lower social class students "have lower self-concept than students in higher social class since they perceive themselves not able to fulfill their ideal." Such findings could be linked with the gender analysis of educational stratification. Tsang's analysis 7 finds that young females had to rely much more on the educational qualifications than females to achieve a high socio-economic status. At the same time, they experienced more severe constraints in educational attainment with regard to their father's education, the number of siblings and their father's socio-economic status. As for status attainment itself, females were again subject, to a higher degree than males, to the indirect, and total effects of all the family background variables: their father's years of schooling and his socio-economic status, their mother's years of schooling and the number of siblings.
Political participation between both sexes recently catches sociologists' eye. Tam, Lai and Ma found that the females are less willing to take part in council elections than males, but they pay more attention to election and public affairs and express more their own political stance than males with less will to vote. Although there is no research in gender stereotype in schooling with that in political participation, the research reveals that there is still very strong belief in gender differentiation and much more attention has to be paid to every detail in the making and moulding of it.
Patriarchy is the root of the gender issues. Choi 16 even indicates that education expansion and the extension of education to females are accompanied by genderisation of fields of education or training. Patriarchal domination in the form of sexual division of labour, both within and outside the family, together with its associated ideologies, is clearly in operation. Hence, such genderisation continues to preserve men's economic and social advantage. Radical feminists 'see patriarchy as rooted in women's biology - their reproductive physiology and their associated role in nursing and caring for the infant which lasts for many years before the child is independent.' As we have seen, patriarchy is found to embodied in social institutions, in culture, in social relationships and in language. It is inherent in the structure of social existence, but unless our attention is drawn to it, we remain unconscious of it.
My personal concern within education career is that as professionalisation 23 of teaching career proceeds, we should look at the possible social closure within teaching professions male dominance in higher administrative jobs and senior-form teachers, and female dominance of teaching in general. Not only has it been and still possible for men and male groups to employ 'discursive strategies' to achieve and maintain their privileges, it is also the way in which words have values attached to them, reflecting and conveying a sense of male superiority. By 'discursive strategies', it is meant that the discourse of every interaction and especially the terms in which those with power frame what they say and write, is often extremely important in the maintenance of existing relations, such as those of gender.
All in all, in the three Chinese societies - Hong Kong, Taiwan and PRC, there are several commonalties irrespective of different political systems among the three places. The problem that arise in Hong Kong is not unique and context-specific, but are common in other Chinese societies under modernisation of society. Still, the point is that any explanation of gender inequality in Hong Kong in terms of traditional Chinese Patriarchy has to address the issue of how patriarchy complements, or has been modified by, Hong Kong's brand of industrial capitalism. (Pearson & Leung, 1995 ) However, what concerns education practitioners' mind is "can all people, at their will, develop their potential in full extent?" It is very disappointing when some happenings about unequal opportunities caused by traditional gender division of labour waste human resources. Hence as education practitioners, we should not only deal with the problem of "how", but also that of "why" to find out its root and achieve real equality among the human beings.
References and Bibliography
Post, D. (1994) "Educational Stratification, School Expansion, and Public Policy in Hong Kong", Sociology of Education, 67: 121-139.
Post, D. (1993) "Educational Attainment and the Role of the State in Hong Kong", Comparative Education Review, 37: 240-262.
Pong, S.-l. and Post, D. (1991) "Trends in Gender and Family Background Effects on School Attainment: The Case of Hong Kong", British Journal of Sociology, 42: 249-271.
Mak, G.C.L. (1992) "The Schooling of Girls in Hong Kong: Progress and Contradictions in the Transition", in Postiglione, G. A. and Leung, Y. M. (ed.), Education and Society in Hong Kong: Toward One Country and Two Systems, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, Chapter 7.
Au, K.-c. (1993) A Study of Gender Roles as Defined in Primary School Textbooks in Hong Kong, Occasional Paper No. 18, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. [in Chinese]
So, S. and Lo, T., "Engendering the Schooling Experience: Critical Pedagogy and Women's Empowerment", in unknown sources, Hong Kong: The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, pp.108-115.
Tsang W.K. (1993) Educational and Early Socio-Economic Status Attainment in Hong Kong, Occasional Paper No. 23, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Cheung, K.-l. (1995) The perception of women teachers in Hong Kong, M. Ed. dissertation, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong.
Kingman-Lo, A.I.S. (1992) Hong Kong Secondary School Women Principals: a study of gender bias, M. Ed. dissertation, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong.
Wong, K.-k. H. (1994) Changing gender distribution of senior educational administrator in a government department: causes and trends, M.Ed. dissertation, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong.
Chan, K.-w. and Ng, C.-h. (1994) "Gender, Class and Employment Segregation in Hong Kong", in Lau, S.-k., Lee, M.-k., Wan, P.-s., and Wong S.-l. (ed.) Inequalities and Development: Social Stratification in Chinese Societies, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chapter 5.
Delamont, S. (1990) Sex Roles and the School, London: Routledge, 2nd edition.
Sheung, Y.-f. R. (1993) Sex-role stereotypes and academic subject preferences among Form 3 boys and girls in co-educational and single-sex Anglo-Chinese Secondary Schools in Hong Kong, M.Ed. dissertation, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong.
Tsai, S.-l. and Chiu, H.-y. (1994) "Gender and Achievement Aspirations: Case Study of Taiwan University Students", Chinese Journal of Sociology, 12: 135-168.
Chou, C. P. (1992) Gender Differences in Academic Reward System: A Nation-wide Study of University Faculty Members in Taiwan, Ph.D. dissertation, Los Angeles: University of California.
Choi, P.-k. (1995) "Women and Education in Hong Kong" in Pearson, V. and Leung, B.K.P. (ed.), Women in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, Chapter 4.
Westwood, R., Mehrain, T., and Cheung, F. (1995) "Education" in Gender and Society in Hong Kong: A Statistical Profile, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Chapter 2.
Kopping, L. J. (1993) Gender and Education: an analysis of factors influencing the Academic Participation of Chinese Women, Ph.D. Thesis, Iowa City: The University of Iowa.
Tsang, W. K. (1992) The Class Structure in Hong Kong, Occasional Paper No. 17, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Wong, T.W.P. and Lui, T.-l. (1992) Reinstating Class: A Structural and Developmental Study of Hong Kong Society, Occasional Paper No. 10, Hong Kong: Social Sciences Research Center, The University of Hong Kong.
Lee, K.-l. J. (1995) Social Class and career aspirations: a study of Form 5 students in two schools in Hong Kong, M.Ed. dissertation, Hong Kong: The University of Hong Kong.
Tam, S. M., Lai, O.-k., and Ma, S. (1996) Gender Difference in Behaviour and Perception towards Election: The Case of Shatin Youth, Occasional Paper No. 49, Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. [in Chinese]
Macdonald, K.M. (1995) The Sociology of the Professions, London: SAGE Publications.
Pearson, V. and Leung, B.K.P. (1995) "Introduction: Perspectives on Women's Issues in Hong Kong", in Pearson, V. and Leung, B.K.P. (ed.), Women in Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, pp. 1-21.