ABSTRACT
It is generally acknowledged that teaching is a woman’s profession (Apple, 1982, 1985; Benz, 1996; Regan & Brooks, 1995; Stone, 1994). Since the 1960s, the context of education has been one of various functional approaches toward persistent problems in public education: problems of instruction and curriculum; of classroom and schooling organization; of relationships of teachers, students, parents, and the larger community; of positionings of race, class, and gender; and so forth. The lives of women are related to all of these. What underlies these considerations is that in spite of continual efforts at reform (some with considerable effect on improvements in student achievement and teacher empowerment), educational patterns of inequality continue. Some students learn and some do not, some progress and some do not, some earn diplomas and other credentials of schooling and some do not. Although many students do prosper as scholars and human beings, many more do not. Many who do not are girls and women. This chapter continues the focus on patterns of inequality begun in the last chapter by using the work of feminists as another form of organizational literacy to read and interpret these patterns. Feminists argue for school organizations to be founded on an ethic of care for all members of the school community. As the following story illustrates this is not an easy task-gender role socialization runs deep in our culture.
