UNIT: EDU20003

Contemporary perspectives of learning

and development

Assessment 2:
Report
1. Executive summary

In the 21st century, gender inequality is an important issue. It not only affects

children’s learning in school and their development socially, but also has an

impact on educators’ teaching practices. To deal with this current issue

which exists in Australian education setting, relevant policies need to be

established, and teacher’s strategy and practises should be changed to

achieve better gender equality. Nowadays, more and more theories

promote the contemporary construct of the competent and capable child.

However, this construction is affected by various factors and potential

effects on learning and development.

2. Table of Content

Content Page number

1. Executive summary 2

2. Table of Content 3

3. Introduction 4

4. Finding 4

4.1. Key point of the current issue 4

4.2. Factors contributing to the issue 6

4.3. Potential effect of the issue in relation to children

learning and development relation to competent and 9
capable child

5. Conclusion 10

6. Reference 11

3. Introduction
 Gender is a part of people's identity. Human beings define their gender according to
gender characteristics including biological sex, sex-based social structure, and gender
identity. The majority is defined by the two sexes (male and female), and the rest are
defined as transgender, androgyne, bigender and so on (Connell, 2002) One’s
construction of gender is influenced by many different factors, including culture,
family, social environment, and relationship. Also, people's views and expectation of
gender performance have evolved over time (O'Brien, 2019). Due to the gender
difference from a biological perspective, the various way people are to view gender,
people's individual belief and experience, results in many gender issues like gender-
unequal pay, employment discrimination, and gender stereotypes all around the
world (Connell et. al., 2013). Gender stereotypes usually include four aspects:
appearance image (such as females are petite and weak, males are tall and mighty),
personality characteristics (such as females are emotional and inferior, male are
sensible and self-confident), role behaviour (such as female caring for children, male
fixing a house), and occupation. Gender inequality is one of the current issues that
affects children’s learning and development in Australian education setting (Vardon,
1996). It leads to unequal relationships within families and female students’
educational opportunities, which further affect children’s learning and development
relation to the competent and capable child. Those issues are mentioned by
Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological theory, Vygotsky sociocultural theory and Queer theory.

4. Findings

4.1. Key point of the current issue

Australia is a multi-culture country, where people come from different background
and race, therefore people’s views about gender vary. In many cultural background
girls and boys are considered having different gender roles, therefore they are taught
specific skills separately to better fulfil their gender roles in adulthood, girls are
trained to take care of the household, such as cooking, cleaning and taking care of
elders and children, and the boys are sent to schools to learn knowledge and skills,
which will support them to receive a well-paid job to support their families in the
future (O’Brien, 2019). The research shows that men tend to earn more than women
all around the world. This wage gap can enhance gender differently, especially in
individual households, because female earn less, thus they always are recognized to
having more responsibility to take care their family and asked to stay home to do the
childcare and aged care (Kane, 2012). This phenomenon and stereotype could result
in school-aged girls losing the opportunity to receive a formal education because
they are only expected to do household duties, because learning other skills and
knowledge are considered useless to girls. Unequal gender stereotypes have a
negative effect on the girls, even damage girls' learning and development, and stop
girls from becoming competent and capable.

Furthermore, there is gender discrimination in the career decision, many people

think that it is not ideal for the female gender to work in a male dominated field,
such as engineering, industrial work, instead of working in nursing, teaching and
mass communication. Therefore, the female gender is more likely to lose the
opportunities to learn as much knowledge as a man, the female is not expected and
allowed to work a particular career although they are interested in it, this might
restrict girls form releasing their potential and strength, which has a negative impact
on girl’s learning and development. (Arowolo, Zakari, Lbrahim, 2010). People have
stereotype that assume that men are good at ‘rational thought’ subjects like Maths,
physics and computer science are compared to girls. The female is generally
considered more intuitive and social than boys, and more verbally fluent, so boys are
recognized as’ smarter’ than girls. So, more males are trained to work as engineers
because they are thought to be good at Maths, and the females are trained to work
as educators or nurses. In Australia, the engineer gets higher pay than educators and
nurses (PayScale, 2019). For this reason, gender stereotype increases the gender-
unequal pay, and employment discrimination issues.

Due to the employment discrimination, the feminisation of the teaching force is

dominant in the Australian education setting, this phenomenon disadvantages boys
educationally and has a negative effect on boys due to ‘lack of male model’ , even
harm the development of inner manhood (Alsop et.al., 2002). However, there are
higher percentage of male principals than female principal. This shows a problem
that female is under-represent at school leadership level, and female generally has
less opportunity to become a leader (Connell et.al., 2013).

Moreover, apart from female and male there are other gender type exist around the
world, including transgender, androgyne, bigender and so on. Those minor groups of
people are suffering from loneliness and discrimination since they are young,
especially from school-age, because that is their first time interacting with many
peers (Wu, 2016). The majority of the ‘normal’ children may not understand the
other gender, if they are not taught by parents and teacher, so the ‘normal’ children
might likely to isolate the ‘abnormal’ children, because the ‘normal’ children might
do not know how to treat the, even be the target of a great deal of hostility. This
make the minor gender group difficult to be understood socially, which damages
children’s gender construction, and feel disappointed and depressed about gender
different, which cause damage on children’s learning and development

4.2. Factors contributing to the issue

Culture, family, social environment and relationships have an impact on children’s

gender construction. They are the factors that contribute to some gender issues like
gender-unequal pay, employment discrimination, and gender stereotypes exist all
around the world.

Gender as socially constructed happen at home, school, workplace, community, and

politics, people ornament and dress boys and girls differently, teach them to behave
differently, provide them different education opportunities, and treat them
differently (Kane, 2013). In family education, parents will pass the gender rule of the
adult world to children and shape children’s behaviour to meet the social norm.
Therefore, the results of gender stereotypes are not caused by biological gender but
caused by the social and culture environment (Our Watch, 2018). According to
research, children appear to begin gender role stereotypes at about the same time
that they develop gender identity, at the age between three and four, most children
are asked questions by adults about activities appropriate for girls and boys, thus the
gender stereotypes are passed down to the future generation (Advert Enticement,
2011). So, it is important to parents and teacher to teach children a positive and
equal gender role stereotype at that age, it helps to achieve gender equally and
reduce the gender inequality happen, further create an equal and gender respect
environment for children’s healthy learning and development.

Children's cultural background influences their development of perspective about

gender, and effect children's growing and learning. Children who come from a
patriarchal family culture background potentially believe that male is superior than
female, because their family show more care and love to male rather than female. At
the same time, the girls come from a patriarchal family feel challenge to learn many
skill and knowledge without any support from family members. These might lead
those girls struggling in loneliness, and result in a negative effect on girls' wellbeing
development and make them feel they are valueless and ignorable just because of
their gender. According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, He states that children
learn skills and knowledge from others, they watch what others do, and think about
it which changes the behaviour of children, and they start imitating and doing wrong
things (Lindon, 2012). So, children born and grow up in a patriarchal culture
background, they are more likely to build an gender stereotype that females are
'useless', because they Watch parents' separate treatment between son and
daughter, so those children imitate parent's misbehaviours and treat female in the
same ways without respect. Also, the female who had taught under those culture
stereotypes are more likely to suffer from gender discrimination at home and
workplace. They are used to people's gender inequality treatment and have little
awareness and courage to fight for their right.

Furthermore, relationships are one of the essential factors that influence children’s
gender construction, learning, and development. Parents are the most important
people in children’s early stage of development, they play an important role to build
children’s view about gender identity and gender role. A trusting and equal
relationship between father and mother are a good model to teach children how to
construct their gender awareness, both female (mother and daughter) and male
(father and son) should be treated in an equal manner. In these family, positive and
equal gender perspective taught by parent’s and teacher, have positive influence on
children’s gender construction and reduce gender inequality stereotype. Otherwise,
gender discrimination and gender stereotype will continue to damage children’s
learning and development. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory states that children’s
relationship with self, the relationship with others and the relationship with
curriculum influences children’s behaviours, including children’s behaviours toward
gender stereotype, gender inequality and gender career discrimination within family,
school and the society (Doherty &Hughes, 2009). If the children, especially girls
develop a strong and safe relationship between parents and children, they can get
parent’s recognition, and make them feel proud and confident as being a female. A
strong and equal family relationship provides children opportunities to explore their
interested and learn what they want to learn and give girls the courage to overcome
some gender discrimination even fight against it.

Moreover, the social environment is one of the factors contributing to the gender
issues. Social environment not only affects people’s psychological development
indirectly through physiological maturity, but also directly affect people’s
psychology, and promotes different socialization processes of people of different
gender. Therefore, social environmental factors should be the decisive area the
Critical theories, the feminist critics believe that the current civilization is pre-
dominantly patriarchal, and the concept of gender as a cultural construct, is affected
by the omnipresent patriarchal biases of our civilization (Appleman, 2007). The
existing power relations and social structure are being criticized by the critical
theories, which states that gender and sexuality are socially constructed, however
this way of social construction may reinforce the existing inequality (O’ Brien, 2019).

Due to separation of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex

(LGBTI)community that, many people are suffering from isolation and discrimination.
Queer theory is one of the gender theories which aims to reduce the inequality and
violence experience for the children and adults (Carroll, 2012). Many people are
suffering from gender discrimination, especially the people who cannot be simply
defined by female and male. So it is important for the educators to learn about the
queer theory, and promote its ideas and belief to the children and the parents, so
make people understand how gender is constructed, in order to move beyond the
narrow confines of heterosexuality, and encourage people to gain knowledge about
other types of sexuality like homosexuality and show more understanding and
acceptance to this minor group of people.

4.3. Potential effect of the issue in relation to children learning and

development relation to competent and capable child
Gender inequality is one of the important root causes of children’s poor
development in the early years, it has negative potential effect on children’s learning
and development. According to the safe school’s program, most LGBTI students
suffer from gender discrimination, misunderstanding by peers, and even endure
taunts about sexuality. This results in higher risk of bullying and suicide. To better
avoid those risks happening, school communities, parents and teachers should work
together to create a safe and inclusive learning environment for children, in order to
nurture the children to be competent and capable (Victoria state government2018).
However, ILGBTI students are not the only victims of gender inequality, but also the
female students. Sometimes, teachers ask students to work together to solve some
problems. If the students have strong gender stereotypes that girls are ‘dumb’ to
solve Maths questions, the male students might refuse to work with girls and isolate
them. This could damage girl’s confidence on learning Maths, even making them
believe the stereotypes that boys are ‘smarter’, which further stop girls continuing
learning in the particular subjects. To better solve gender inequality issues, teachers
should deliberately play down the gender in classrooms, through addressing the
class as ‘children’, instead of ‘boys’ and ‘girls, encourage children to ignore the
gender boundaries and gender isolation. As all the students in the class are treated
equally, everyone starts keeping gender equality in their mind (Connell et.al., 2013).
Therefore, the potential effect of gender inequality could be reduced, and the
children are more likely to be competent and capable learners.
 5. Conclusion

In conclusion, gender inequality is one of the contemporary issues impeding

development in 21st century. It involves gender stereotype, gender career
discrimination and unequal treatment based on gender. It causes negative effects on
children’s learning and development and restricts children to from being competent
and capable children. Many factors like culture, family, social environment and
relationships contribute to this issue, and has potential effects on learning and
development. Therefore, it is important for more people to know about gender
inequality, and take action to change their stereotype and discrimination towards
gender

6. Reference
Advert Enticement. (2011 January 20). Gender Roles-Interviews with Kids [YouTube video].
Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VqsbvG40Ww

Appleman, D. (2007). Critical Theories defined. Retrieved from

https://apps.carleton.edu/people/appleman/talksworkshops/workshop_handouts/c
ritical_theories/

Arowolo, A., Zakar, A., & Ibrahim, A. (2010). Historical factors that influences curriculum
development in Industrial Technical Education in Nigeria, Retrieved from
file:///C:/Users/bonni/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_8wekyb3d
8bbwe/TempState/Downloads/HISTORICAL_FACTORS_THAT_INFLUENCES_CURIC
%20(1).pdf

Alsop, R., Fitzsimons, A. & Lennon, K. (2002). Theorising Gender. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Carroll, R. (2012). Feminism, Queer theory and Contemporary Fiction. Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/swin/detail.action?docID=932466

Connell, E., Welch, A., Vickers, M., Foley, D., Bagnall, N., Hayes, D., Proctor, H., Sriprakash, A.
& Campbell, C. (2013). Education, change & society. Sydney: Oxford University Press

Connell, R. W. (2002). Gender. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press in association with Blackwell.

Doherty, J & Huaghes, M. (2009). Child development: theory practice 0-11. Retrieved from
https://commons.swinburne.edu.au/file/4c1c721b-03af-4231-83c8-
c3870deeb21d/1/992436097.pdf

Kane, E & Jones, P. (2012). Rethinking Gender and Sexuality in childhood. Retrieved from
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/swin/detail.action?docID=1080403

Lindon, J. (2012). Understanding child development:0-8 years-Linking theory and practice.

Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/swin/detail.action?
docID=967142

O’Brien, S. (2019). Modula 7. EDU20003 Contemporary perspectives of learning and

development [ lecture note].Retrieved from
 https://swinburne.instructure.com/courses/14793/pages/1-dot-3-childhood-
through-history?module_item_id=922537

Our watch. (2018). Challenging gender stereotypes in the early years: the power of parents,
Melbourne, Australia: Our Watch. Retrieved from
https://www.ourwatch.org.au/getmedia/e42fe5ce-8902-4efc-8cd9-
799fd2f316d7/OUR0042-Parenting-and-Early-Years-AA.pdf.aspx?ext=.pdf

PayScale. (2019). Majors and careers: Women vs. men, engineering vs. teaching, high pay
vs. total compensation. Retrieved from https://www.payscale.com/career-
news/2007/06/majors_and_care

Vardon, C. (1996). Gender equality: A framework for Australian school. Retrieved from
http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/documents/Report
s%20and%20publications/Archive%20Publications/Gender%20Equity/Gender
%20Equity%20Framework%201997%20Complete.pdf

Victoria state government. (2018). Department program-safe schools. Retrieved from

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/about/programs/Pages/safeschools.aspx?
Redirect=2Wu, K. (2016). Between the (Gender) Lines: The Science of Transgender
identity. Retrieved from http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-
science-transgender-identity/