Commissioned Research Article
Title : Gender and Citizenship
Education
Authors : Hilary Claire and Cathie
Holden
Produced by citizED
(supported by the Training and
Development Agency for Schools)
AUTUMN 2006
More information about the series of
Commissioned Research Articles can be
found at www.citized.info
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
Gender and Citizenship Education
Hilary Claire and Cathie Holden
CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Gender in Society
3. Gender in Schools
4 The content of the citizenship curriculum: what should we teach?
5. Teaching citizenship – do girls and boys respond differently?
6. Teaching citizenship skills: are there gender issues to consider?
7. Monitoring and evaluation to ensure positive changes
8. A summary and checklist:
Appendix A- An extract from the 2006 UN report on the Millenium Development Goals
Appendix B - The UN reaffirmation of the Beijing Declaration, 2006
Appendix C – Starters for the Classroom
References and suggested further reading and websites
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
Child 3: We should get rid of Tony Blair and have a new prime minister.
Child 1: No, two prime ministers: a woman and a man.
Child 2: Women are more, they don’t just go straight in to wars.
Child 3: And they do think.
Child 2: They don’t like wars so they wouldn’t start one.
Child 3: Yeah, if they do need to have a war they would but like they don’t really start
them.
Child1: I think there should be a man president and a woman president, that way it's fair.
Gender and politics: children aged 9, June 2004.
1. Introduction
1.1 Citizenship Education is about the pedagogy and curriculum necessary to ensure children
and young people’s positive identities, willingness and competence to engage effectively in
public and community life, and to promote values which support harmonious, democratic,
peaceful and equitable relationships within local, national and global communities. The
secondary citizenship curriculum and the primary guidelines are based on the Crick report
(1998). This cites moral values, community engagement and political literacy as the necessary
content of citizenship education. The ILEA (1980) concepts underpinning political literacy: are
still helpful for teachers organising their thinking about how and what to teach: power and
authority, the division of labour, social control, conflict, interdependence, cooperation, tradition
and social change
Virtually every set of statistics, whether local, national or global, demonstrates that in terms of
power, economic well-being and status, men outrank women. In addition, certain instances of
human rights abuse are gendered. It follows that addressing gender inequalities in the political,
social, economic and community contexts must be central to the agenda of Citizenship
Education in that these go counter to human rights and effective participation in democratic
decision making.
1.2 In recent years, ‘gender’ has come to be used as a synonym for biological sex (for example
in statistics). This linguistic elision effectively depoliticises, veils and marginalises the original
meaning of ‘gender’, which refers to the social construction and societal judgements of roles,
expectations and experience related to people’s biological sex. The importance of resurrecting
the original meaning of ‘gender’ is that it draws attention to the ways in which inequalities
between the sexes are based on social constructions and not on biology and are thus open to
challenge and remediation. Furthermore, ‘gender’ in its original meaning, includes gays and
lesbians and reminds us of particular discriminations affecting these groups.
1.3 Much recent academic writing emphasises the impossibility of treating ‘gender’ as a
homogenous concept, without regard for cross-cutting ethnicity, class and disability (eg Claire
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
2004). In this article we recognise the different experiences and conditions affected by these
dimensions.
1.4 Citizenship education is about equipping young children with the skills and knowledge to
become active, responsible citizens, able to make a difference to society. Of all the school
subjects it is probably the one with the most potential for addressing gender issues, since it
embraces contemporary problems facing society. Yet, ironically, in the same way as some
maintain that race has been marginalised (Osler and Starkey, 2005) there is also very little
explicit reference to gender in the National Curriculum programme of study for citizenship.
There is no acknowledgement that citizenship education might directly address the issues and
tensions associated with gender inequity in society. For the teacher wanting to help young
people understand issues of equity and justice from a gender perspective there are
opportunities but they have to be sought out.
This article thus aims to help you understand why effective citizenship education should include
perspectives on gender and provide you with strategies for investigating gender and citizenship
in both the primary and secondary classrooms. We look first at why gender issues are still a key
concern for society. We then discuss different approaches to citizenship education and relate
this to gender, both in terms of content and appropriate pedagogy.
2. Gender in society
When we look at gender we are struck by two contrasting situations: girls appear to be
outperforming boys in schools but boys still ‘outperform’ in terms of earning power and
dominating the ‘top’ jobs. Why is this - and does it matter?
As we said earlier, citizenship education addresses human rights and must therefore address
social justice and inequality. It is also about the kind of society that we hope to attain. When we
introduce gender issues into the citizenship curriculum we have two different concerns for our
pupils:
 to know about and understand the national picture - how society is structured, where
discrimination and inequalities lie and how powerful groups and hegemony operate to
maintain the status quo;
 to be in an informed position to consider possible changes and how to make progress
towards greater equity.
Thus a citizenship curriculum which aims to help students look at the kind of society they want
in the future must allow for the discussion of gender, human rights, power and the capacity to
act for change.
2.1 The implications of statistics about gender inequity for citizenship education
Confronted with some of the national statistics relating to gender inequality, our students learn
about the political, social and economic contexts of the society they are already part of, and
which they will also enter in new roles, as adults. In order to play a full part in society, it is
important that they understand something about the barriers which might prevent them reaching
their potential. They are then in a position to consider how to address them effectively and
indeed, how far they may be colluding with a discriminatory status quo.
On the one hand, the intention is that girls’ and boys’ aspirations in life, willingness and ability to
participate fully in society are not constrained by gender. This is perhaps the domain of ‘careers
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
advice’. However, the statistics are highly relevant to citizenship education, because they show
that the main power bases in society, including in parliament, and the best paid jobs, are
currently occupied by men; the lowest paid and those with least power and status are
dominated by women. It follows that girls and young women – as well as boys and young men need to ask questions as part of citizenship education about why this situation prevails, what the
consequences for independence, power and authority are, recognize the importance of
challenging stereotypes about what they can and can’t do. They need to question why so many
women are not just in low paid work, but in part time work, which is also poorly paid. In the
interests of an equitable society, they need to consider what might be done to remedy the
inequalities. As they do so, they automatically enter the domains of political literacy and political
action.
2.2 What do the statistics tell us about the current situation in Britain?
From the 2006 EOC statistics we learn that there are

24 million households in Britain and 7 million families with dependent children. These
include 5.2 million families headed by couples, 1.6 million headed by a lone mother and
180,000 headed by a lone father. The latter ratio is 9:1

2.3 – 3.2 million gay, lesbian or bisexual adults which is between 5 and 7% of the adult
population

42% of women in work vs. 9% of men are employed part time

Pay:
In 2005, average hourly earnings for women working full-time were
£11.67, and for men were £14.08. This gave a full-time gender pay
gap of 17.1%.
Part-time women earned £8.68 on average, and comparing this
figure with men’s average full-time earnings of £14.08 gives a
part-time gender pay gap of 38.4%.

19.5% of MPs in 2006 were women

Occupational segregation by pay in 2005 (EOC 2006):
Highly paid jobs (highest salary at top)
% of women
Directors, chief execs of major
17
organisations
Medical practitioners
37
Financial managers/chartered
32
secretaries
Solicitors and lawyers; judges &
47
coroners
Managements consultants,
30
actuaries, economist, statisticians
ICT managers
21
Marketing & sales managers
29
% of men
83
63
68
53
70
79
71
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Low paid jobs (lowest pay at top)
Bar staff
Waiters & waitresses
Kitchen & catering staff
Retail cashiers & check out
operators
Cleaners & domestics
Sales & retail assistants
School midday assistants
receptionists
60
74
73
67
40
26
27
33
76
72
96
95
24
28
4
5
These statistics indicate current inequalities. They are here as background information for
teachers but could also be used in the classroom. For example students could be given the
above two grids with the percentages omitted and asked to estimate the statistics. After being
shown the real figures, they could be asked:
 Why do you think these differences exist?
 Why does it matter?
 What could be done to change them? (short-term?) (long term?)
3. Gender in schools
Much of the current discourse on gender in schools assumes that there is no longer a problem
with girls - and that boys’ underachievement is now a cause for concern. If this is the case then
how is it that the achievement of girls is not reflected in their earning power, their position in the
world of work and in the political world?
In part, the reasons relate to the structure of society (for example: childcare, prejudice, women’s
choices). These can and should be a matter for citizenship education, since they are not fixed in
stone and young people can be encouraged to take action to address these inequalities.
Some of these unequal outcomes can be addressed in school through consideration of the
implications of subject choices. At GCSE girls and boys take similar subjects and their
achievement is roughly equivalent. However, at A level there are marked differences, which
reflect the kinds of Higher Education that girls and boys will be equipped for, and thus where
they enter the job market:
A level results 2005 (EOC 2006):
English
Mathematics
Computer
studies
Physics
Girls (%
exam
entries)
71
40
27
Boys (%
exam
entries)
29
60
73
24
76
As with the above example in 2.2, pupils can be asked for their estimates on these figures and
then why the differences matter and what might be done to change things.
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Pupils can then explore the consequences of conventional and sometimes unambitious
attitudes, and ‘accepting the system’.
3.1 Recent research about gender relevant to citizenship education
Gender inequality in the classroom affects both boys and girls; and a gender perspective in
citizenship education must, of course, be about educating young men as well as young women
to contribute fully to society. The current focus on the underachievement of boys raises
questions for citizenship: if the educational system creates disaffected boys it is likely that they
will be disaffected citizens and that they too need strategies to engage them in society. The
issues for citizenship are thus around engaging boys whilst at the same time ensuring that girls’
voices are heard and that they are given the confidence to participate.
Evidence from the classroom shows that boys dominate classroom interaction more than girls,
and are evaluated both more positively and more negatively (Howe 1997). Further, Jackson
argues that some boys ‘actively participate in their own underachievement by rejecting the
school approved middle class culture, associating it with inferior wimpishness’ (Jackson 1998, p
80). What is interesting from a citizenship point of view, is that children recognise these
stereotypes and are very open to discussing causes and solutions. In a recent study on gender
and underachievement, whilst the teachers thought that gendered behaviour was caused by
situations outside school and was a ‘given’, the children indicated that such expectations were
an important part of school culture and that the pressures to conform were far greater in school
than outside (Holden, 2002). However, the openness of these children to talk about behaviour
and about what they felt to be the unfair treatment of some teachers towards boys (endorsed by
Pickering 1997) does suggests that there is scope in citizenship education for in-depth
discussions between children and teachers about school culture, gender identity and the
harmful effects of some stereotypical behaviour.
3.2 Black boys, masculinity and power
It is important for teachers and young people to consider how specifically gendered and
racialised choices of identity may disempower some pupils, as Phoenix indicates:
Many Black young men find themselves constrained by a construction of masculinity that
gives them power in their local situations, but contributes to their relative lack of power in
society as a whole because it helps to produce poor educational qualifications.
(Phoenix, 2004, p.38)
The teachers’ task must be to help students acknowledge how through such choices of
masculine identity they might be shooting themselves in the foot with respect to their futures. It
is not easy (as Phoenix acknowledges). She suggests that a way forward is to help boys
understand the broader implications of their current choices. Citizenship education which openly
addresses power relations may provide this opening.
3.3 Gender and learning how to be dominant and powerful
The dynamics between boys and girls in classrooms and playgrounds are not just about how
teachers maintain control. As Becky Francis (Francis 2004) points out, the well known situations
in which boys dominate teachers’ time, or take more physical space, reflect the ways in which
learned gendered power is exercised between pupils. Power, as we have said above, is a
central concept in the organisation of society and this is why these dynamics are a matter for
citizenship education. If girls and boys are implicitly learning, in their classrooms and
playgrounds, who is dominant and who will be submissive, they will be laying the foundations
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for situations in which girls find difficulty in speaking out in public or challenging agenda which
don’t represent their interests.
3.4 Harassment – a consequence of inequality and power relations
The following extract from Becky Francis draws attention to the prevalence of harassment.
Pupils are probably well aware of this situation, but it may be up to the citizenship teacher to
draw attention to the ways in which such harassment and bullying go beyond PSE or the local
school-based context, and are mirrored in the wider world. They then become a matter of public
concern through the Gender Equity Duty and the Sex Discrimination Act.
Physicality is not restricted to interaction between boys. As several researchers have
reported, boys sexually harass girls, and sometimes women teachers. Such harassment
can be verbal as well as physical, and, as I discuss below, homophobic verbal
harassment is also rife. Clearly though, the effect of this physical dominance in the
classroom is to subordinate and constrain the girls’ interactions and those of less
physically confident, assertive or aggressive boys.
…..playground activity is highly gendered. Firstly, it tends to be gender segregated: either
children impose such segregation themselves, or sometimes they are actually given
separate play spaces by the school…..This segregation is by no means ‘natural’ or
unproblematic. It reflects power differences and struggles, and often psychological or
physical enforcement. Research about playtime and playground interaction, including the
youngest children, documents a myriad of pernicious issues, ranging from boys’
domination of the physical space, to teasing and sexual harassment.
(Francis, 2004, pp 43-4)
4. The content of the citizenship curriculum: what should we teach?
The Crick Report, on which much of the citizenship curriculum and guidance was based,
promoted the ‘civic republican’ aim of an engaged, active citizen working towards a better
society. But simultaneously (and confusingly) there is an assumption that citizenship education
is actually about working within the status quo – eg learning about the law, about the
parliamentary system, how to vote etc. How should we understand these two extremes?
McLaughlin (1992) described citizenship as a continuum, with conservative acceptance of the
status quo at one end, where students learn to fit in (minimalist), and at the other an engaged
radical position, where students are encouraged to critique existing systems, challenging
inequities and working towards social justice (maximalist). So the first question that teachers
concerned with gender equity in the citizenship curriculum need to ask themselves is where
they fit into this spectrum. Do they want to teach about society, accepting the status quo, or do
they wish to work at the radical ‘maximal’ end of the continuum, teaching about gender
inequities and encouraging their students to question and to challenge?
If the second interpretation of citizenship education (the maximalist position) is accepted, then
teachers will not avoid the subject of gender discrimination and inequity is society, but actively
seek to explore with their students social, economic and political circumstances in which
gendered attitudes and practices lead to inequalities.
This means actively seeking out gender issues when planning each unit of work, ensuring that
the content covered and the resources chosen raise issues of inequality or injustice, and
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
challenge students’ thinking. The curriculum content for citizenship education has been left
deliberately ‘light touch’ ie the areas to be taught are listed but the content is largely left to the
teacher, which leaves scope for such an approach.
The following suggestions indicate how key areas of the citizenship curriculum can embrace
gender equity:
4.1 Globalisation and global citizenship
Citizenship education encompasses the local, the national and the global. So a curriculum
which is concerned with gender equity needs to look at the situation and experience of women
in different parts of the world, as well as at home.
Why might gender inequality in the wider world, be relevant to citizenship education in the UK?
A variety of recent official papers set out the ways in which global issues need to be part of
citizenship education (eg DfID, 2005). In this section we set out some information about
women’s inequality globally, and actions to redress this situation. This information might be
used in the citizenship classroom in different ways:
 to give our students the language and concepts to think about power, empowerment and
challenges to inequality
 to broaden the domain in which our students feel empowered to take action for change;
 to appreciate how our own society helps perpetuate inequalities globally;
 to help students appreciate the ways in which people are challenging discrimination and
inequality in the wider world;
 to learn about feminist ideas of co-operation and solidarity.
In particular, depending on their age and experience, pupils might learn about :
 how the British public is implicated in exploitation of workers – usually females – in
producing goods and services (for example ‘Looking behind the logo’,
www.Oxfam.org.uk/Coolplanet; ‘Trading away our rights: women working in global supply
chains: Oxfam, 2004, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/trading_rights.htm
)
 the recent rise in trafficking for the sex trade which is now a cause of international concern
 a study of the rise of ICT and the internet including the rise of chat rooms which has created
new forms of exploitation of young women
 Specific projects where women have been empowered to take their destiny into their own
control
The next section provides some more information about global initiatives with regard to gender
equity, which teachers’ may find useful background information, and which older students can
work with directly. Appendix A contains some useful statistical information extracted from recent
UN reports and Appendix B provides more detail about the Beijing Declaration.
a) The Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2000)
Britain signed this declaration, and the Gender Equity Duty, which comes into force in April
2007 is a direct consequence. The G.E.D places an obligation on all public bodies to promote
gender equality and eliminate discrimination.
The third of eight Millennium Development Goals was ‘We ….resolve: to promote gender
equality and the empowerment of women as effective ways to combat poverty, hunger and
disease and to stimulate development that is truly sustainable”. (United Nations Millennium
Declaration 2000)
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b) The Women’s World Conferences:
These have taken place roughly every five years since 1976. The most important is probably
the Beijing Women’s Conference in 1995 which produced the Beijing Declaration and Platform
for Action (confirmed by Beijing+5 in 2000, and Beijing+10 in 2005). This set out the parameters
of women’s inequality round the world and their demands for change and has been ratified by
the United Nations General Assembly.
The women’s demands in the Beijing Declaration were
 full and equal participation in political, social and economic structures in society
 access to resources
 education, employment and improved working conditions
A more positive aspect of globalisation is to consider how women’s capacities can be promoted
in response to their needs. Pupils can consider the implications of the UN’s concern to educate
women, in order to raise the quality of life throughout a nation, and about specific initiatives like
the United Nations Development Fund for Women to fund women’s projects and Fairtrade
initiatives to support women to become self-sufficient; the success for example of Grameen
Bank which was the 2006 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, along with its founder Muhammed
Yunus. 96% of the poorest people funded by Grameen Bank are women (see
http://www.grameen-info.org/bank/BeggerProgram.html)
4.2 Economic inequalities.
Learning about ‘how the economy works’ is a specific area of the citizenship curriculum.
Teaching this with an awareness of gender issues would include pay, jobs, conditions of work
(including unpaid work in the home), poverty of women-headed single parent families
(compared with two-parent families), the imbalance of gender in ‘top jobs’ and the ‘glass ceiling’.
Natasha Walter’s recent book, The New Feminism (1999), points out that economic inequalities
remain the greatest source of gender inequity, despite many positive changes since the
Women’s Movement of the 1970s and1980s challenged male dominance. There is scope for
looking at how women are affected by child care policies, their membership and status within
trade unions and inequalities within pension provision.
4.3 Human Rights and gender
The Citizenship curriculum acknowledges that learning about and expecting to promote human
rights are fundamental to citizenship education. One does not have to look outside Britain to
realize that Human Rights issues relating to gender are on our very doorstep, for example in the
sex trade where young East European women are tricked into coming to Britain and the
treatment of other young women brought in as servants and then virtually enslaved. Further
afield, the incidence of rape and violence against women in conflict zones has been reported
(Bunch, 1995). Madeleine Arnot indicates the range of human rights issues which relate to
women:
The international human rights community, according to Bunch (1995), has begun to
recognise "gender-based violations as pervasive and insidious forms of human rights
abuse". However the mass violation of women's human rights through such genderbased violence is not generally considered an appropriate topic for citizenship education
in schools. The battery of women, their physical and psychological imprisonment in the
home, the violent entrapment of women in
prostitution, pornography and domestic service, compulsory pregnancy, rape,
female infanticide and the malnutrition of girls are human rights violations
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that demand urgent attention (Arnot, 2005).
4.4 Political knowledge and engagement
The children talking at the opening of this chapter show that even primary pupils are interested
in politics and gender, and that there are opportunities for exploring the inequities within politics
from an early age. The citizenship curriculum requires that children know about how democracy
works, how parliament operates and about voting and elections. In order to understand this
there is scope for looking not only at the gender imbalance in Parliament (for example) but also
why it is that women are so under-represented. Students can look at representation in public
institutions from the local council to political parties, and the work, during the 1990s of the ‘300
group’ to get more women into Parliament. The use of women-only short lists is always a topical
controversial issue. Other areas include the difficulties of putting women’s issues on the agenda
in some public fora and the difficulties faced by women who might wish to take an active role in
various groups like trade unions and local councils. Here there are opportunities to explore just
how democracy works: why is it that so few women have a voice in such institutions? Is it
because of male assumptions about women’s ability to act effectively, is it because of lack of
confidence, or is it because of the necessity to be at home with young children?
Compounding the issue is the fact that research shows that boys tend to know more about the
political system than girls and be more interested. Thus bringing gender into politics may be one
way of engaging girls’ interest and showing them that decisions made by politicians do affect
them and that they can make their voice heard. Children can bring in newspaper articles related
to current issues in the news affecting girls and women and decide what should be done about
it and which minister they should write to. There is even a website to contact MPs. (Clough and
Holden, 2002).
4.5 Identity and gender
Citizenship education is concerned with identity and belonging within different communities;
thus there are opportunities to address situations where women are marginalised, deprived of
certain rights as citizens or treated as less than equal in public settings. In the contemporary
climate in which alienation from Western values by political Islam, and Islamophobia are
perhaps the most serious causes of civil breakdown, it is important to remember that some
women and girls are subject to discrimination and bullying simply because of what they look
like. Under the heading of challenging racism and discrimination, students should be
considering the experience of some minority ethnic women, particularly where they are
stereotyped as ‘not British’ because of clothing or religious affiliation. Although the effects of
Islamophobia, which is at the heart of such treatment affect men too, Muslim women in hijab
and/or niqab are more visible and vulnerable than men, whose religious affiliation is less
apparent.
4.6 Gender, class and ethnicity
Gender equity is never divorced from class and ethnicity. Few people nowadays take a
simplistic view of gender as an homogenous package – one size fits all. The work of the black
women’s movement from the 1970s and 1980s and subsequently (for example the Southall
Black Sisters), made it very clear that black or minority ethnic women did not have the same
agenda as middle class white women, who shared much of the privilege enjoyed by their
menfolk. Writers like Diane Reay (2001) and Sue Lees (1986), have pointed out that working
class women, whether black, from ethnic minorities or white, also do not share the same
experiences and may suffer from very different discriminatory practices. The challenge, then, is
to help students understand that discrimination comes in all shapes and sizes and the dangers
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of stereotyping. It is also to get students to consider a situation from many angles, not just
gender but also race and class.
4.7 Community
Learning about and being involved in the community is central to citizenship and yet it is one of
the areas teachers find most difficult. This is partly because many teachers live outside the
school community or inhabit very different worlds from their children and partly because there
are no ‘packs’ about community: each is different with different issues. And yet research shows
that children are very aware of what is going on in their community- indeed it is the backcloth to
their lives (Claire 2001; Holden 2006). They know about the lack of safe places for women in
the community, lack of things for girls to do (skate parks are mainly used by boys) and the no-go
zones. Older pupils can also discuss provision for women’s refuges, child care facilities,
trafficking and issues around prostitution. There are also gender issues for boys, who find
themselves stereotyped as ‘troublemakers’ and thus rejected. There are links with PSHE here
around the rise in teenage drinking and ASBOs.
4.8 Inequalities based directly on sexual mores and sexuality
This area has strong links with PSHE insofar as the personal and the public combine where
there is discussion about sexual mores and sexuality. In PSHE students might discuss current
sexual mores, for example the implicit assumptions about male sexuality being less under
control than that of females; violence and abuse against women and gays and lesbians; issues
round sex work; rape and blame for rape. Links to citizenship education come when the
students look at how communities sanction such behaviour, the legal position, the cost to
society and what can be done to bring about change. In the same way discussions about
paternal rights and responsibilities, child care and hours of work can be discussed in terms of
personal understanding but can also be looked at through the lenses of gender and citizenship.
They can, ask who benefits, what are the costs (economic and to society) and what needs to be
done to bring about change.
5. Teaching citizenship: do boys and girls respond differently?
Pupils will not respond to the content of a citizenship curriculum in identical ways, because they
are themselves ‘gendered’ in experience and attitudes. This means there has to be some
differentiation of approach to different content and contexts.
5.1 The effects of the students’ own gendered attitudes on their responses to the curriculum
Recent research on attitudes indicates that girls are in general more tolerant of minorities and
more open minded, particularly of ethnic minorities and gays than boys (with exceptions – there
is by no means a clear gender divide). Girls and boys will be the objects of patriarchal and
heterosexist attitudes themselves and this will impact on how certain important issues of social
justice are respectively dealt with by each sex. For example, girls who are aware of patriarchal
attitudes may be more concerned about women’s issues: abortion rights, women’s roles in
society, impact of attitudes to sex in spread of HIV/aids. Gay boys may be bullied more, but also
potentially more aware of how discrimination against groups and stereotyping operate, through
their personal experience. Boys and girls who have tried to break through gender stereotypes,
or know people who have, will have different attitudes than those who have more conventional
perspectives. Boys may be hostile to the introduction of some issues of gender equity, because
of their own socialisation into patriarchal attitudes. This can of course mean that material is not
seen as neutral and ‘out there’ when it is introduced into the citizenship curriculum, but may be
viewed as threatening and loaded.
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Feminist work on girls’ and boys’ affective responses and views on justice (eg Carol Gilligan
1982 and 1988, Nell Noddings 1988) alerts us to the possibility that pupils may respond to some
of the issues in the citizenship curriculum in different ways. Girls are more likely to be concerned
with relationships, to empathise with those they identify with, even if their experience is quite
dissimilar – eg the victims of natural disasters, people living in poverty. Recent research
indicates that whilst boys and girls now have equal aspirations in terms of employment and
material success it is still girls who expect to undertake the traditional roles of caring. They are
also more concerned with the environmental issues and improved local communities (Holden,
2006). Thus while many boys do show care and concern, teachers may find that their efforts to
work on empathy and relationships are less effective with boys. In consequence, ways of
engaging boys and girls coming with different perspectives and content will need to be
differentiated.
5.2 Crime and violence in society
Citizenship education engages with issues such as the law and crime, which are themselves
gendered. Boys have a higher profile than girls in some types of criminal and antisocial
behaviour and the types of punishable behaviour they engage in differs (though ‘laddish’
behaviour by girls is increasing). For example, teenage girls are more likely to engage in shop
lifting, and teenage boys more likely to get into fights involving weapons. This may mean that
different approaches to engaging boys and girls with these issues is necessary since genderbased peer-group pressure can mean some students may identify with antisocial behaviour and
be much less amenable to citizenship-related messages. In classrooms, some polarisation of
the students by sex/gender could result if teachers are insensitive to such socio-cultural
interpretations.
6. Teaching citizenship skills: are there gender issues to consider?
This section addresses process issues in citizenship education relevant to gender equality. To
start with, we need to consider in what ways girls may be disadvantaged or benefit from those
interactions and ways of working which are built into effective citizenship education.
6.1 Skills encouraged in citizenship education
 Active engagement -interactive learning styles
 Debate and discussion
 Reflexive and flexible attitudes to issues
 Conflict resolution
 Collaborative learning
 Speaking in public – advocacy
 Research and presentation skills
Girls have no difficulty with many of these skills but all the following can disempower girls in
contexts which require active participation
 Lack of confidence
 Not knowing how to participate
 Finding that their attempts to participate are not taken seriously or are blocked
 Finding that the issues they wish to raise are marginalised
 Being required to compete rather than collaborate
 Feeling disengaged and that civic affairs are nothing to do with them
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
Citizenship is about participation and voice and much of this is practised and learned in schools
through active approaches – debate, advocacy etc. These are not neutral – boys tend to
dominate in most settings and so may deny girls full participation and opportunity to exercise
their voice. Girls are often more comfortable with modes of learning involving collaboration and
discussion than being individually exposed and required to speak in public. In contrast, many
boys find collaboration and flexible debate more difficult, although they may enjoy public
speaking, advocacy and more confrontational styles.
6.2 Conflict resolution
Approaches to conflict resolution cannot be gender blind, given that girls are more likely to be
prepared to collaborate than boys. Some approaches to conflict resolution may be considered
feminine or even effeminate, by some boys. Some girls will certainly choose fighting, violence
and physical strength as conflict resolution strategies, just as some boys will choose
negotiation, but there may be a prior bias towards one or other solution which is gendered.
With respect to active citizenship, there is some evidence that boys may be more willing to
engage in active protest, including some that is violent or illegal whereas girls are more likely to
undertake communitarian and voluntary work seen as ‘helpful’ and caring.
6.3 Having a voice
The School and Class Councils may be the main fora where issues affecting students’ lives in
school can be addressed in a democratic fashion. It is important that this microcosm of
democracy does operate democratically, so that everyone gets practice in advocacy and learns
that they can experience effective, participative, active citizenship. It is essential to monitor that
different voices are represented and heard, and issues affecting all students – not just some –
are brought to everyone’s attention.
7. Monitoring and evaluation to ensure positive changes
It is important to bring all the issues outlined in this chapter into the open. As part of learning
about democracy and what active citizenship means in practice, children should not just discuss
the gender issues mentioned above, asking how we ensure that everyone gets a chance to
voice their opinion, but should become accustomed to monitoring what is happening, evaluating
their findings, and taking relevant action in a cycle of enquiry- analysis-monitoring- policy
development. Self evaluation and peer evaluation of discussions can be useful starting points
(see Claire and Holden 2005 for a self evaluation grid which has been tried and tested in
school).
8. A summary and checklist:
Content issues
 Are we addressing gender inequalities in the economy and in politics – directly- rather than
implicitly in the curriculum?
 Are we addressing gender when we look at classroom issues, the school, the community,
national and international contexts?
 Are students encouraged to look at gender along with ethnicity/religion/disability/class when
they consider discrimination and intolerance ?
 Is there a gender dimension in our work on Human Rights?
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education

Are we looking for examples from the contemporary world and also from other curriculum
areas to support understanding of gender and citizenship? (see Myers et al 2007, for helpful
material)
Process and attitudes
 Do we recognize and help our students to recognize the gendered nature of interactions
affecting discourses, participation and confidence?
 Do we monitor such participation and interactions, along with the students themselves, to
make sure that good intentions are translated into action?
 Do we provide support for students whose voice and participation is marginalised?
 Do we consider gender issues in conflict resolution, and help students work towards
positive, peaceful solutions?
Structural issues within the school
 Are girls and boys equally represented on School or Class Councils? And where they is
equality of representation, is there also equality of participation?
 Do gender issues get raised in the School or Class councils as appropriate?
Monitoring
 Have we audited the current situation with respect to gender content and participation?
 How does this translate into policy decisions?
 How shall we involve students and the wider community in this process as part of their own
education in a gender-aware citizenship education?
APPENDIX A: An extract from the 2006 UN report on the Millenium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals are monitored regularly. As the following extracts from the
Progress Report for 2006 show, considerable gender-based inequalities continue, particularly
round infant mortality and maternal health, in the developing world. The Nobel prize winning
economist Amartya Sen refers to these aspects of gender inequity in his article (Sen, 2001)
pointing out that not only does this reflect badly on equality but has substantial adverse results
for the economic prosperity and stability of the countries concerned.
While South East Asia and Oceania have moderate representation, the low representation of
women in national parliaments in Europe reflects the situation in the UK.
Given that universal suffrage and representation are supposed to ensure democracy, and are
central concepts in the way a democracy works and whose voice is heard, Citizenship
Education needs to concern itself with the whys and wherefores of this situation.
Information from the Progress Report on Millennium Development Goals (UN 2006) (Next
page)
GOAL 3 | Promote gender equality and empower women
AFRICA
ASIA
LATIN
AMERICA &
CARIBBEAN
OCEANIA
EUROPE
ASIA (IND.
STATES}
North
Sub
Sahara
East
S. East
South
West
Equal girls’ enrolment in
primary school
close to
parity
parity
parity
close to
parity
parity
parity
parity
low share
high
share
Medium
share
low share
almost
close
to parity
low share
close to parity
Women’s share of paid
employment
almost
close
to parity
medium
share
medium share
high share
high share
high share
Women’s equal
representation in national
parliaments
very low
represent
ation
low
represent
ation
Moder
ate rep
resent
ation
low
represent
ation
low
represent
tation
very low
represent
a
tion
very low
represent
tation
moderate
represent
ation
low
represent
ation
low
represent
tation
moder
ate
mortalit
y
moder
ate
covera
ge
moderate
mortality
high
mortality
moderate
mortality
high mortality
moderate
mortality
low
mortality
high mortality
moderate
coverage
low
coverage
Moderate
coverage
very low
coverage
high
coverage
high
coverage
high coverage
low
mortalit
y
high
mortality
very high
mortality
moderate
mortality
High
mortality
moderate
mortality
GOAL 4 | Reduce child mortality
Reduce mortality of undermoderate
five-year-olds by two thirds
mortality
Measles immunization
high
coverage
very high
mortality
low
coverage
GOAL 5 | Improve maternal health
Reduce maternal mortality
by 3/4
moderate
mortality
very high
mortality
low
mortality
low
mortality
APPENDIX B: The UN reaffirmation of the Beijing Declaration, 2006
In 2006 the United Nations General Assembly affirmed the Beijing Declaration (1995). and also
pointed to some new issues;
 gender mainstreaming – to promote the empowerment of women and achieving gender
equality by transforming structures of inequality,
 full realization of all human rights and fundamental freedoms is essential for the
empowerment of women and girls,
 full representation and full and equal participation of women is essential in political, social
and economic decision-making and development policies;
 the empowerment of women is a critical factor in the eradication of poverty,
 men and boys share with women and girls joint responsibility for the promotion of gender
equality;
 States must prevent violence against women and girls and provide protection to the victims;
investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of violence against women and girls.
Failure to do so violates the enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.
APPENDIX C: Starters for the classroom:
1) Who does what at home?
Activities 1 and 2 first appeared in Fisher, S and Hicks, D (1985) World Studies 8-13, Oliver
and Boyd. There is a grid with various tasks in the left hand column (eg cooking, washing
up, caring for sick child, going shopping, cleaning floors) and then three rows along the top,
the first of which is ‘my home’, the second is ‘south east Asia’ (where there is apparently
greater gender equality) and ‘my ideal’. Children then name the person in each box.
Discussion can focus on: what are the disadvantages for girls and women if they are only
allowed to do certain things? What are the disadvantages for boys and men if they are
confined to certain roles? What changes would need to take place at home if boys and girls
are to have more choice in what they do? What changes need to take place at school and in
society?
2) Jobs.
Give pupils a questionnaire on what jobs they would most like to have when they leave
school and what jobs they would least like to have. The answers are tabulated for boys and
girls and used as a basis for exploring differences in choices and gender differences in
society at large. This could be linked to the earning power of each job.
NB: you could use the pictures on p57 of Clough and Holden (2002) which show people in
different jobs. These are for diamond ranking activity : ‘whose work is most important?’
which can lead into a discussion of gender issues.
3) Advertisements for children’s toys:
Get hold of an Argos catalogue or a magazine and cut out all pages depicting or advertising
children’s toys. Get the pupils to sort into boys’ toys, girls’ toys and toys for both (you could
use a Venn diagram). What do you notice? Ask them to look at what skills and values are
encouraged by each set. In a follow on task children could design new toys for the future.
4) My town, my future
This activity (Clough and Holden, 2002, p52) asks children to design a town for the future
and the laws for making this town work. Children could be asked to design this taking into
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
account the specific needs of women. They would also have to consider gender balance
when deciding on how their town was governed.
5) Greetings cards
Get the pupils to bring in a selection of birthday cards and add some others: eg cards
welcoming a new baby. Are there gender differences? Do certain stereotypes appear again
and again? Do we all conform to these ie do all boys like football? etc. You could extend this
to look at birthday cards for grandparents: how are they depicted? Does it match the reality
of their own grandparents? They could design new cards for the future.
6) A debate about women’s suffrage
The Women’s Movement of the C19th and early C20th believed that achieving suffrage for
women would remedy many problems of gender inequality. What do pupils think now about
universal suffrage? Has it worked? If not, why not?
Most of the above will work with children from 7 to 13. Older pupils can begin to research facts
and figures about gender differences as suggested in 2.2 and 3.0 above. There are also many
photo packs from NGOs which can be used to discuss the position of women, the roles they
undertake and the possibilities of working for change.
References
Arnot, M, (2005) Gender Equality and Citizenship Education, http://www.jsse.org/20052/equality_arnot.htm publishing date: 24.02.2006
Beijing Declaration,(1995) http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/declar.htm
Bunch, Charlotte (1995) Transforming Human Rights from a Feminist Perspective.
in: Peters, Julie; Wolper, Andrea, eds. Women's Rights, Human Rights International Feminist Perspectives, New York, 11-17
Claire, H (2001) Not Aliens: Primary School Children and the PSHE/Citizenship Curriculum,
Stoke on Trent: Trentham
Claire, H (2004) Mapping Race, Class and Gender: a summary of the report by David Gillborn
and Heidi Mirza, in Claire, H (ed) Gender in Education 3-19: a fresh approach, London: ATL
Claire, H and Holden, C (2005) Effective transition KS2 – KS3, in
http://www.citized.info/?strand=0&r_menu=induction
Clough N and Holden, C (2002) Education for Citizenship: Ideas into Action. London,
Routledge/Falmer
Crick Advisory Group (1998) Education for citizenship and the teaching of democracy in
schools, London, QCA
DfEE - Department for Education and Employment / QCA - Qualifications and
Curriculum Authority (1999) The National Curriculum for England,
Key Stages 1- 2, 3-4. London
Department for Education and Skills (2005) Developing the Global Dimension in the
School Curriculum, London: DfES.
EOC (2006) Facts about women and men in Great Britain, 2006. Equal Opportunities
Commission. www.eoc.org.uk
Francis, B (2004) Classroom interaction and access: whose space is it? In Claire. H (ed)
Gender in Education 3-19: a fresh approach, London: ATL
Gilligan, C (1982) In a different voice, Harvard: Harvard University Press
Gilligan, C (1988) Mapping the Moral Domain, Harvard, Harvard University Press
Holden, C (2006) Concerned Citizens: children and the future. Education, Citizenship and
Research Article – Gender and Citizenship Education
Social Justice, 1, 3, 231-247.
Holden, C (2002) Contributing to the debate: the perspectives of children on gender,
achievement and literacy. Journal of Educational Enquiry, Vol 3, No 1, pp 97-110.
Howe C (1997) Gender in classroom interaction. Edinburgh: SCRE.
ILEA (1980) Social Studies in the Primary School (ILEA Curriculum Guidelines). London:
ILEA Learning Materials Services
Jackson D (1998) Masculine identities. In D Epstein, J Elwood, V Hey & J Maw (eds) Failing
boys? Oxford: OUP.
Lees, S (1986) Losing Out, London: Hutchinson
McLaughlin, T. H. (1992) Citizenship, Diversity and Education: a philosophical perspective.
Journal of Moral Education, 21(3), 235-250.
Myers Kate et al (eds), (2007) (forthcoming) Genderwatch: Still Watching! Stoke on Trent:
Trentham Books
Noddings, Nel (1988) An Ethic of Caring and its Implications for Instructional
Arrangements. In American Journal of Education, vol. 96 (2), 215-230.
Osler, A and Starkey, H (2005) Changing Citizenship: Democracy and Inclusion in Education.
Open University Press
Oxfam, (2000) Assessing the impact of Fair Trade,
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/gender/links/0700ft.htm accessed 30.10.06
Oxfam, 2004, ‘Trading away our rights: women working in global supply chains,
http://www.oxfam.org.uk/what_we_do/issues/trade/trading_rights.htm, accessed 30.10.06
Phoenix, A (2004) Learning Styles and Gender, in Claire. H (ed) Gender in Education 3-19: a
fresh approach, London: ATL
Pickering J (1997) Raising Boys’ Achievement. Stafford: Network Educational Press.
Reay, D. (2001) Spice girls, 'nice girls', 'girlies' and tomboys: Gender discourses, girls' cultures
and femininities in the primary classroom Gender and Education vol 13 no 2, 153-166.
United Nations Development Programme, 2006, Gender Equality statement,
http://www.cm.undp.org/gender-equality.htm accessed 22.10.06
Walter, N (1999) The New Feminism, London: Virago
Some useful further reading and websites
CitizED website: www.citized.info/
Claire, H and Holden, C (2007) The Challenge of Teaching Controversial Issues. Stoke-onTrent, Trentham.
Equal Opportunities Commission www.eoc.org.uk
Jones, S and Myhill, D (2004) ‘Troublesome boys’ and ‘compliant girls’: gender identity and
perceptions of achievement and underachievement. British Journal of Sociology of Education,
25, 5, 557-571.
Sen, Amartya, (2001) The many faces of gender inequality,
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/inequal/gender/2001/11sengender.pdf (accessed
30.10.06)
Southall Black Sisters: http://www.southallblacksisters.org.uk/
NB: a shorter and adapted version of this article will appear in Claire, H and Holden, C (2007
forthcoming) Citizenship Education. In Kate Myers (ed), Genderwatch: Still Watching! Stoke
on Trent: Trentham Books