ABSTRACT
There had been much discussion in our staff room of late, about equal opportunities and the use of construction toys. Some of us had attended a course at another first school, where Chris Brown had suggested positive discrimination in favour of the girls (see Brown 1990). Of course, we said, it’s obvious! Boys are much keener and more able to use and construct models. Given the highly motivated and articulate nature of many of our girls, why should this be so? The results of an initial survey indicated that many of the girls had experience of using construction toys at home. Indeed, the girls seemed to share skills and motivation equally with the boys when engaged in directed technology tasks (such as card junk, woodwork and clay models). Inequality, though, was an idea that I was aware of, as we worked through the following weeks. There were two things in particular about this sequence of events that made me stop and think:
• In the first one and a half weeks that we were using the newly acquired giant construction kit, all the users had been boys. Why boys only? The boys and girls had equal opportunities to use the kit. Was it that the boys had more confidence? Did they regard construction toys as ‘boys’ toys’? Did the girls perceive this gender bias too? Once settled to their task with the kit, did the boys dominate the space and equipment, thus excluding the girls?
