Matthews, D. J. & Smyth, E. M. (1997).
Encouraging bright girls to keep shining. Orbit , 28 , 34-36 .
Encouraging Bright Girls to Keep Shining
Dona J. Matthews & Elizabeth M. Smyth
Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto
It is unfortunate that many parents and educators have the impression that feminist concerns for gender equity have been fully addressed. Some think that women are now as likely as their male peers to use their abilities productively, and there seems to be a widespread belief that the gender issues topic is passé. Despite the rapid social changes which have occurred over the past thirty years, sex differences in career access and earning power are deep, wide, and pervasive (Linn & Hyde 1991 ). Contrary to commonly-held beliefs, the attributes, attitudes, and strength of sex stereotypes have not changed (Bergen & Williams, 1991 ). Internal (intrapsychic) and external (real-world) barriers persist, continuing to work against women's achievement. In addition, the growing political conservatism and calls for a return to "traditional values" are making many women's career explorations more circumscribed today than in the recent past.
There is considerable research documenting the ways in which schools systematically shortchange girls, and the ways in which school climates are experienced as significantly less enabling by girls than boys, encouraging girls to conform at the cost of expressing their individuality and developing their autonomy (Bailey, 1993 ; Sadker & Sadker, 1994 ; Wellesley College Centre for Research on Women, 1992 ). The research showing that many girls experience a "loss of voice"--an alienation from their authentic, spontaneous selves--at about age eleven, indicates that this is particularly dramatic and severe for those girls who had previously been the most intellectually curious and able (Gilligan, Lyons, & Hanmer, 1990).
Early adolescence is a time of heightened vulnerability for all children, but it is a particularly difficult stage for intellectually gifted girls, a time when they suffer a decline in resiliency and self-concept, and a marked increase in the likelihood of depression. Through grades one to twelve, their self-regard and self-confidence are declining while their perfectionism, hopelessness, and discouragement are rising (Kline & Short, 1991 ).
One explanation for these myriad problems is the identity conflict that gifted girls face at adolescence. High academic achievement, especially when attained in competition with boys, conflicts with prevailing gender socialization attitudes (Chodorow, 1989 ; Harter, 1990 ). Given that appearance and popularity are more important for girls, and achievement needs are more important for boys, even in the attitudes held by parents of gifted students (Jacobs & Weisz, 1994 ), subsequent sex differences in academic achievement are a logical and predictable outcome. Sex differences in career achievement, including income earnings, become even less surprising when it is remembered that academic course choices are being made during the adolescent period, and that these choices, forming the foundation for subsequent choices, can have almost irreversible implications for many academic and career decisions at later developmental stages.
A similar story can be told for racial and cultural differences. In a study of advantaged and disadvantaged seventh and eighth grade gifted students, it was observed that girls and minority group members who held shaky self-concepts shared a "persistent psychic battle of the self", with internal conflicts between loyalty to their families and cultures on the one hand, and their own achievement goals on the other (VanTassel-Baska, Olszewski-Kubilius, & Kulieke, 1994 ).
There are cultural variations on this theme, whereby in some cultures (such as African-American), females are doing generally better than males in some aspects of education and income earned, partly because they have less to gain by incorporating the cultural femininity stereotype. In the double disadvantage (being female and being black), it has been suggested that there may be a challenge that can be turned to advantage (Ward, 1990 ).
Gifted girls in general, however, like students from minority cultural backgrounds, should be considered to be at risk. They experience strong pressures at early adolescence to mask their giftedness by underachieving (Luftig & Nichols, 1991 ). While gifted boys are generally seen by their peers as funny, sociable, and creative, gifted girls are typically seen as melancholy, moody, and/or self-absorbed. Girls who are more academically able than their peers experience added developmental stress through this period, due to the conflict between their emerging feminine identity and their identity as achievers.
At particular risk, perhaps, are the girls who are not only gifted but also physically attractive. Where the potential rewards are greatest for forfeiting one's intellectual accomplishments and authenticity--that is for the girls considered most attractive--the costs of these forfeits can seem to be outweighed by the benefits; however, for those girls who do not perceive themselves as being real competitors in the attractiveness-to-boys stakes, there is less advantage in going underground, and greater likelihood of staying connected to intellectual, academic, and career goals (Gilligan, et al., 1990 ).
Girls in many jurisdictions are identified as gifted less frequently than are boys. Statistics compiled by the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training concerning gifted identification by sex show that there is a relatively small but remarkably consistent overrepresentation of boys relative to girls, in all educational categories for which giftedness statistics are kept: full-time classes, in-class service, part-time withdrawal, and across both elementary and secondary schools (figures from the most recent available academic year, 1992-93).
The major problem, however, is not that there is a nasty and explicit selection bias on the part of schools or board policies. The issues are much wider in scope than that, involving highly complex gender socialization and cultural identity issues. Solutions to the problems discussed here lie not so much in changing gifted identification policies (although these should always be analyzed for equity concerns of all kinds, including gender equity), but in considering more broadly how we think about and educate our minority students, including girls. One suggestion is to work harder at understanding diverse intellectual interests, and at engaging those interests in productive academic work. In a discussion of gender and race as they interact, Pollard (1993 ) observed that many studies take a deficit-oriented approach to behaviour, emphasizing minority students' and girls' failures to perform like white boys. Instead, we should be looking for evidence of alternative kinds of successful performance, and thinking about how to challenge and channel it.
One such direction is to devise a serious area of academic study that concentrates on various aspects of human development, including the Interpersonal and Intrapersonal Intelligences discussed by Howard Gardner (1983 ), and otherwise understood as social and emotional functioning. These courses would build on each other over time, allowing students' self-awareness and understanding of others to grow systematically, such that they would be better able to analyze important and trivial life decisions as these are encountered, and have a more principled understanding of citizenship rights and responsibilities, as well as factors impinging on their own self-concept and career choices.
This idea emerges from an observation of what is important to many students at this stage, particularly gifted girls (Gilligan, et al., 1990; Matthews & Keating, 1995 ), and perhaps offers a way of keeping high levels of intellectual engagement happening through the vulnerable early adolescent years. For exceptionally able students, and particularly those for whom there is greatest concern for academic alienation, there is a world of relevancies in the social/emotional domain that might very productively be explored through school. A "Human Development" course might include career development issues, self-awareness and self-concept factors, family and peer relationships, sexuality, parenting and family-making concerns, and human development generally. It might also include research methods, with particular emphasis on qualitative methods, which can facilitate the acquisition of many other skills, including observational, interview, technology use, note-taking, and lifestory gathering skills, as well as teamwork, writing skills, layout, and joint decision-making (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992 ).
This is a concept that many educators and developmental psychologists have recommended, from a number of vantage points. (See Goleman [1995 ] for a comprehensive analysis of many of the most important issues, and some projects in place.) The Wellesley College Center for Research on Women (1992) stated: "Schools must help girls and boys acquire both the relational and competitive skills needed for full participation in the workforce, family, and community."
The research done on declining gender gaps in high-level mathematical achievement shows that when we encourage girls and facilitate their interest, educators can make a difference, and suggests that this principle can be applied to other kinds of achievement differences, such as race and culture-based (Goldstein, Stocking, & Godfrey, in press ). Students need to be "armed with a strong sense of self as a resourceful individual capable of assuming new challenges...a philosophy of life that allows for the evolution of a healthy self-concept to emerge over time." (VanTassel-Baska et al., p. 190)
Educators, parents, and advocates can make a difference in how well gifted girls survive adolescence. Recommendations from the research literature have been synthesized to prepare a list of practical strategies that can be employed to help keep bright girls shining through the years when they are all too prone to become tarnished. And while our focus here has been on gifted girls, it can be seen that these suggestions have benefits for and can be easily adapted for the diverse range of students attending Ontario's schools.
What Educators Can Do to Increase Academic Engagement in Gifted Girls (and Others):
Some Practical Strategies from the Research Literature
- Check that course content, classrom practice, and all school-related materials reflect the experience of both male and female students. If female (or race) issues are excluded from course content, a publication, or display, ask yourself why. Make sure that the reasons are justifiable and/or made explicit to all students.
- Strive for inclusive language. At the very least, masculine pronouns should not be used routinely to refer generically to all people. Ask your students to help the class monitor this.
- Try to observe and make sure that you are not rewarding boys predominantly for their intellectually challenging displays, or girls for their "appropriate and conforming" behaviours. Again, ask your students to help with it; they will!
- When nominating students for special programs and opportunities, both within the school and in the community, review criteria to ensure that females have equal opportunities.
- Along the same lines, make sure that leadership and following roles are spread out equitably, and variably.
- Ensure that both male and female students see by course content and by positively reinforced school experience that it is possible to be feminine (or an actively loyal minority group member), attractive, intelligent, and a high academic achiever, all at once. Mentorships and group explorations of media, business, community, and personal role models can help with this.
- Help your students develop the ability to see and think critically about media-reinforced stereotypes. Encourage them to develop a respect for and a complex view of individual differences, and to understand the richness in diversity.
- Make sure that those providing guidance and psychological support services in your school and community understand that gifted girls have special needs and stressors.
- Design learning projects with your students that engage their interest. Consider the social/emotional domain as a rich mine of potential topic areas that can be meaningfully explored in academically rigourous ways.
- Work to ensure that all students are helped to consider appropriately challenging educational and career goals, with as wide a scope as possible. Advocate for gifted girls (and others) who need support in doing this. It might make a good classroom project to compile a Careers Resource Guide, including descriptions, educational requirements, and interviews with practising professionals.
References
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Bergen, D. J., & Williams, J. E. (1991). Sex stereotypes in the United States revisited: 1972-1988. Sex Roles, 24, 7/8, 413-423.
Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (1992). Qualitative Research for Education: An introduction to theory and methods (2nd ed.) . Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Chodorow, N. J. (1989). Feminism and psychoanalytic theory . New Haven, CT.: Yale University Press.
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Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1994). Failing at fairness: How America's schools cheat girls . New York: Scribner.
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Ward, J. V. (1990). Racial identity formation and transformation. In C. Gilligan, N. P. Lyons, & T. J. Hanmer, Making connections: The relational worlds of adolescent girls at Emma Willard School. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Press. (pp. 215 -231)
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