In this section, I briefly discuss the global legislation on gender and children, and go beyond to discuss the aims of the South African curriculum, since it resonates with the worldwide approaches on children, especially the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child
78 (UNCRC) (United Nations, 1989). These principles clearly suggest that the intervention of an adult in the child‟s lives should be in the best interest of the child. It places the child‟s right at the centre of legally binding principles. In this way the rights of children are protected and they are treated as human beings whose active contribution is of paramount importance. This is also evident in the legislation regarding children in the United Kingdom (United Nations, 1989).
In discussing the National Curriculum Statement (NCS) in South Africa I am interested in change especially with regard to patriarchal attitudes. I remember during my school years how we were punished if you were seen with a boy, and also how cultural beliefs created difficulties at school. I remember how sharing a desk created problems, when as girls we reported to teachers that boys are taking a lot of space as they sit with their legs wide open. Therefore, we had to occupy a small space in the desk which was making it difficult to write. When we reported this challenge, teachers used to bring in the cultural belief of boys being allowed to sit with their legs wide open. Hence I am interested in finding out whether, when schools implement gender sensitive policies, they only address the symptoms of patriarchy (such as girls and boys sitting together so as to become equal partners) and not the roots (whereby boys are accorded more power to meet the requirements of the dominant masculinity). Teachers do not have to be blamed for patriarchal attitudes; I fully understand that it is not easy for them to automatically change their patriarchal upbringing. Moreover, girls and boys themselves come from patriarchal families whereby boys are constructed to fit into the world of masculinity. Therefore, girls and boys should be understood in their social environment; in the section that follows I discuss the sociological theory of social constructions to determine how they navigate their gender-based experiences.
79 3.5 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM, GENDER AND CHILDREN
In this section I find it important to address the question that asks: what is it about social constructionism that makes it appropriate as the intellectual basis of the study for the understanding of children? “Social constructionism is a sociological theory of knowledge that considers how genders as social phenomena develop in girls‟ and boys‟ schooling contexts”
(Burr, 1995, p. 53). As a result, I utilize social constructionism in order to understand how gender operates within the school, historically and in present sociocultural constituted relations.
Understanding the cultural artefact of gender is fundamental in order to challenge the underestimated gender discourses and practices of gender, hence it is one of the aims of this study to investigate how it affects girls‟ and boys‟ geographies.
At the centre of social constructionism is the view that our methods for seeing the world are created by relations as opposed to external realities (Gregen, 1999). In any case, this did not imply that there are no external realities; rather, what is imperative is how girls and boys understand and make meanings of their surroundings. Social constructionism does not rule on what was or was not originally however the minute we express what there is or what is really we enter the universe of discourse and in this manner a convention, a lifestyle and an arrangement of significant worth inclination. In this study I critique discourse that views children as weak and vulnerable, as discussed in detail earlier. Instead I advise that gender relations within the school
80 could be seen better through investigation of the social relations and convictions that teachers and parents credit to gender (being female and male).
This implies discourses are thought up and anticipated through social frameworks of convictions and social connections. For example, in KwaZulu-Natal, the context is dominated mainly by patriarchal beliefs that regards a man as “inhloko” (head of the family) while a mother is the care giver in the family. Thus the daily focus tends to be ensuring dominant and subordinate practical livelihood strategies (Molapo, 2006). People living in these communities are resigned to an awareness of gender inequalities and gendered power-related conflicts that ensue as a result of dominant gender discourses. In this province the way of life and social practices, such as giving away the bride in marriage, or assigning roles according to gender are evident in this study, and I argue that it all carries meaning of gender position. Such practices constitute a gendered discourse. Based on these discourses, girls and boys are socialised and pressured to perform gender in conformity to what is thought up to be a typical status of undertakings. This legitimises the inequitable gender relations to appear as if they are a normal part of life.In this study this means the hierarchal structure, for example who occupies leadership positions and the policies within the school. It addresses who does what (males are employed as security staff and women are employed as kitchen staff).
In this way, understanding the cultural artefacts of gender turn into a profitable premise of alarming the underestimated discourses and practices of gender which are frequently viewed as typical, however assume an imperative part in the creation of gender imbalances. Field (2001, p.
81 223) reflects on “the power of androcentric discourses within learning environments and concludes that all gendered discourses are no more than masculine myths”. In this study, this means that stable human identities have been collapsed into the category of masculinities and femininities and then ascribed to a girl and a boy. The question was what happens to those children whose human qualities do not fit into these two categories. There are alternative performances of gender that exist (Morojele, 2009); therefore, this situation calls for more research to be conducted on gender at school if there are children who are at school but whose needs are not catered for.
I share the same sentiments as social constructionism in that discourse is a vehicle through which inequitable gender relations are infused and taken for granted as normal and the only truth. I remember, how as a child I was always told at home “hlala njengentombazane” (sit like a girl).
In Zulu culture there is a prescribed way of how a girl and a boy sit and we all grew up taking it as normal and the only way of sitting. Girls were and are still expected to sit with their legs tight together while boys were encouraged to sit with their legs wide open. Therefore, the taken for granted discourse as normal part of life, is just like the water is to fish metaphor that was used by a French sociologist (Bourdieu, 2013, p. 320 ) in explaining how the concept „habitus‟ operates in gendered relations; as mentioned before. The fish in the water metaphor mirrored the embeddedness of people in their social world with discourse being the primary means by which girls and boys construct their gender idea. I find this having common characteristics with Hence Cole (1996) concludes that girls‟ and boys‟ understanding of gender depends on the available list of gender values and discourses in the society (including the school) that their community holds to, as unquestionably as infants come washed in amniotic liquid (Cole, 1996). Employing social
82 constructionism in this study presents more generative conceptualisations, particularly of girls and boys within the school as active agents who construct their methods for drawing in with the world through social connections.
McNay (2000, p. 125) similarly “conceptualises gender identities as multiple and fluid, a lived set of embodied potentialities”. This fluidity could be a source of agency with the potential to enhance the movement of schools towards becoming gender equitable schooling environments.
Hence Cameron (2004) affirms that there are different methods for doing womanhood and masculinity or girlhood and childhood, assorted masculinities and femininities, bent by every other measurement of somebody's social personality. Harro (2000) calls these dimensions the Cycle of Socialization. In the section that follows I discuss Butler‟s theory of performativity and illustrate the possibilities of breaking the cycle.