4.3 Presentation of findings
4.3.1 Physical Science teachers’ understanding of gender, and gender equity in
4.3.1.4. Gender equity issues in science education
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Constitution’s clause very well which aims at eliminating all forms of discrimination regardless of gender, race and ethnicity. These findings fit within liberal feminism, as their focus is to ensure that there are equal opportunities for both males and females.
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issues studied, she seemed to have forgotten or not to know about them. She even claimed that she does not focus on gender issues. This is what she stated in isiZulu: “Mina angifocus ezintweni zegender” (“I don’t focus on gender issues” English translation). On the other hand, when Smanga was asked about the gender issues in education and in science education, he demanded that I give him the dictionary so that he can look for the concept in the dictionary before he answers that question. He finally responded “from my experience, before the early 90s, there was no issue with gender equity as such; there was stigma even at post-secondary level that females were distinguished”. This indicated that he had no understanding about gender issues in science education. When Muzi was asked about specific gender issues in science education, he honestly responded: “I am not sure about specific issues, especially in education.” At first, Muzi seemed to understand gender and sex as to mean the same thing. Nevertheless, he had an understanding about gender equity. Despite this, he indicated that he had no idea about gender issues in education.
In my view, this poses a serious problem for the education system because teachers are seen to be change agents. If a teacher is not aware of gender issues in education, how can he address gender inequity at a school level?
Three teachers understand gender equity issues in science education as encouraging and bringing more females and girls to do sciences. In other words, they understand gender as the proportion of girls to boys. These teachers think that in terms of numbers, girls are almost equal to or are above the number of boys in high schools. They also understand gender issues in terms of male dominance in science education. About three of the participants had little understanding of gender issues in education and the other three had no idea on specific issues on gender equity. Overall, these results show that a significant proportion (about half, which is 3) of the teachers in this study have no understanding of gender equity issues in education. This is likely to impact negatively on their contribution to the achievement of gender equity in education.
Devine (2003) asserts that inequality in education is an infringement of the rights of women and girls as a result, this will impede social and economic development (UNICEF, 2003). In recent studies, gender and science have gained much attention. However, with all this attention, girls and women continue to be underrepresented in the sciences. In other words, very little has changed for girls and females in science related fields and careers. The literature still reports about women still lagging behind males in Science, Mathematics and Technology (SMT) education; persisting
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gender stereotypes in education; continuation of females to enrol in feminine careers such as nursing and social work; and male domination in the hard sciences (Masanja, 2010, Chikunda, 2010). This level of understanding of gender equity issues of the participants in the study is somehow a problem because the current literature highlights that science education is in crisis in South Africa. If participants in the study have little understanding of gender equity issues in science education, this will accelerate the problem instead of addressing it. These teachers are expected to see the underrepresentation of girls in science education and gender inequity as serious gender issues. This would mean that teachers need to be sensitised about gender equity issues in science education and should be aware of some of the factors that impede the success and access of girls in science. This study found that participants have some basic understanding of gender equity issues in science education. However, they do not focus on gender equity issues in general, education, and science education in particular because they indicated that before the interviews, they did not see gender equity as an important topic or something that needs to be discussed.
One of the key findings of this study is that Physical Sciences teachers have some understanding of gender equity concept in general. However, the extent of their understanding of gender equity issues in science education is very limited. One of the participants even indicated that she does not focus on gender issues. This finding is similar to what Monyemore (2012) found in a study that investigated teachers’ views on gender equity in primary schools in Soweto, Gauteng. Teachers from the study lacked understanding of gender equity issues because during their teacher training they did not receive training on gender equity in science education issues. In addition, gender equity issues are not the centre of attention in the workshops that are organised by the Department of Education. The participants’ limited understandings of gender equity issues in science education have confirmed my claim that there is a need to educate and train teachers on gender and science issues. They need more knowledge on gender equity issues in science education so that they will be able to confront gender inequity in high schools. The majority of the teachers indicated that there is gender equity in science education up to certain extent because of their understanding of the equity clause in the South African Constitution which eradicates all forms of injustices for every citizen. Here, gender equity in science education is understood as being whether there are equal opportunities for both males and females to study the sciences or whether they are treated
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equally. The findings also highlighted that teachers believe that there is no gender equity in education in general because in schools there are large numbers of male school principals as compared to females. This trend was also observed when I was doing recruitment at the schools, one female principal was found.