Gender Studies, in Educational Leadership

Menthia P. Clark & Becky Ropers-Huilman

While biological factors determine a person's sex, the sociocultural ways that a particular sex is expressed is known as gender. The construct of gender is formulated and socially constructed through different environments, interactions, and practices. Personal characteristics such as race, class, geographic location, and family composition also have effects on the expression of gender; to be a man or a woman has different meanings for various individuals. From an early age, societies have established norms determining what is acceptable and appropriate for boys and girls, men and women. Subsequently, gendered practices influence all levels of education through both formal and informal policies and expected behaviors. Gender equity in education emerged as an important societal issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and reform efforts resulted in the passage of Title IX, which prohibits discrimination in every public education institution in the United States, including all K–12 schools as well as colleges ...

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