Equal Opportunities Work - Theories about Practice

approaches need to be used for girls and women than for boys and men, so that
they can develop their competence and learn in the optimal way. Taking
awareness of sex and gender into account in the teaching situation is also
rooted in the idea that the needs of the two sexes are different in the classroom
situation. Girls define problems differently than boys, ask different questions
and imagine different solutions, and so they also need different educational
approaches.
Another didactic argument for being aware of sex and gender in the teaching
situation is based on the insight that good teaching is teaching that integrates
new experience and knowledge with a previously existing worldview. In other
words, the student or pupil must be able to relate what the teacher is driving at
to him or herself and to personal experience. To do this I must feel that the
experience of my sex is represented in the classroom. This is also a
prerequisite for my being able to be sure of my own perspective, to come to
know that basis of my own thinking and argumentation. If I am not familiar
with it, I will not be able to develop into an independent, critical thinker.
It is also possible to justify the importance of awareness of sex and gender
in the teaching situation by saying that it promotes equality of opportunity.
Equal opportunities as a matter of justice require that school be a place where
girls and are treated equivalently. In this respect, equivalent treatment means
having respect for the fact that girls and women need to be taught in different
ways than do boys and men. This, too, requires awareness of sex and gender in
the teaching situation. As we saw in the section on equal opportunities, quality
and justice, it is possible to argue that equality of opportunity generates higher
quality in that it leads to skill enhancement. Introducing an awtueness of sex
and gender into the classroom situation can also be seen as a way of utilizing
the female competence the society of the future will need. Female competence
is an unexploited reserve on the labor market. And this is precisely how the
powers that be justify the introduction of gender into schools, as a way of
recruiting the underrepresented sex.
It is worth pointing out how the differences between the sexes are, once
again, a theme in the arguments relating to awareness of sex and gender and
education. Does this eventually turn into a trap, when we insist on justifying
awareness of sex and gender in the classroom in terms of the inherent
differences between the sexes?
Let us distinguish between awareness of sex and gender in the classroom
and investigating the teaching situation with a gender perspective. How do we
define the latter? In my view, there are at least two options: teaching about
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