Email communication dated April 27, 2010

Education

The thematic concern I am considering is gender issues among boys and girls in Grade 5. This is a stage of growth during which children become aware of each other as creatures that differ much more in terms of gender than they had believed up to this time. It is also a time during which the learning process regarding how to interact with each other is significantly heightened. I therefore believe educators of these children should give particular attention to how genders interact with each other, so that problems can be identified and repaired as they occur. In this way, children are on their way to adulthood as people who can interact effectively with each other as gendered creatures.

The use of alternative accounts is inherent in the action research process. Each research group will consist of a number of interested parties, all of whose accounts of the same activity or the same phenomenon will vary. This will provide a balanced view of the issue, which is particularly important not only in action research, but particularly also in how such research is conducted in terms of gender.

In the action research process, an important step is then to transfer claims into questions. In order to accomplish this, teachers and children's claims regarding gender issues in the classroom should be considered and transferred to questioning mode. If a teacher for example claims that boys tend to follow a certain pattern of behavior towards girls, as set by a perceived leader, can then be transferred to a question that asks to which extent boys and girls in the classroom function as individuals, and how they function collectively. A comparison can then be made to determine their attitudes towards and interactions with each other.

Identifying excluded possibilities is also an important element of action research, and one that is particularly useful to obtain a balanced view of the issue being considered. This is particularly important to obtain a mean of observations and to eliminate bias. Bias in gender research is a particular danger, since the researchers will necessarily have some bias in favor of his or her gender.

Boys and girls at the school stand in a dialectical relationship within the context of the school, as well as in the context of each particular classroom. This context will be simulated by means of action groups, consisting of a number of girls and boys, and led by the teacher in each classroom being studied. Teachers chosen for the action research will also be a mix of male and female in order to minimize the emergence of bias.

In the wider context, male and female relationship in Western society has always had certain problematic elements. At the beginning of the 20th century, for example, very specific roles were assigned to males and females, with the latter working in the home and kitchen while raising children and their male counterparts generally working outside the home at companies. Much of this cultural context remains today, not only in terms of prejudice perpetrated by males against females, but also among members of the same gender. Females may for example frown upon other females who choose their careers over marriage and children. Any remaining bias of such a kind will be considered by means of the action research groups.