Abstract
Historically, the American educational public school system is a bureaucratic institution in which maintenance of the status quo and the teachings of social norms are priorities (Apple & Christian-Smith, 1991; Freire & Shor, 1987; Giroux, 1989). In other words, students learn that they must conform passively to the rules of the social order (known as the hidden curriculum) in order to succeed in school and by extension, in life. Teachers and principals have control and authority over students both socially and academically and therefore, “students soon learn that ignoring the hidden curriculum is a sure way to failure in school, both socially and academically” (Massialas, 1989, p. 121). Because we live in a patriarchy, a society in which men hold the economic and political power and women are excluded from sharing that power equally, and because public schools operate within the same sexist structure, girls in public schools experience gender division, oppression and marginalization, not only because of the pressures of the hidden curriculum but also from the materials from which teachers are required to teach and students are required to learn. In American history textbooks and curriculum, women have been assigned inferior status and therefore are not equally represented (de Saxe, 2012; Frederickson, 2004; v Shrewsbury, 1997). This is just one of the myriad of ways in which the formal curriculum works in tandem with the hidden curriculum to support gender discrimination and oppression in the public schools. In order to mitigate the obstacles blocking gender equity inherent in the current school systems, lesson plan units that underscore gender equity are essential. It is vital to integrate women’s experiences into high school history curriculum because seeing oneself reflected in what one is learning, positively contributes to one’s self-identity, especially as adolescent girls move into adulthood. Young women, in order to form healthy self-concept, need to feel that they are “part of something larger than their own lives and that they are emotionally connected to a whole” (Pipher, 1994, p. 285). This paper and project will use feminist theory and feminist pedagogy through which to evaluate gender equity in education. Using a feminist analysis lens is important for two reasons. First, teacher training programs across the nation offer less than one hour of gender equity training for those seeking their teaching credential (Carinci, 2007). Second, even teachers who consider themselves non sexist and believe that they do not discriminate through gender based preferential treatment in the classroom, have been shown to regularly, albeit unconsciously, give boys more attention than girls in class (Richarson, 2015; Sadker & Sadker, 1995). The review of relevant literature includes an exploration of scholarly articles on sexist oppression in education and the effects of gender bias in high school history classes. The project, a series of lessons geared toward teaching students about gender oppression both in vi society and in their textbook, is an attempt to correct the imbalances of gender representation in the public school system.