Issue #0

Gender and subject in higher education

Plot

This book reports a study which examined the concrete experiences of male and female university students in the United Kingdom, and the meanings students attach to them. It suggests that meanings arise from everyday discourse, which habitually uses oppositions such as masculinity/femininity and arts/sciences. Chapter 1 introduces the issue of gender as a social construct, and discusses the relationship of education to gender, and gender and subject choice. It describes the study's methodology, which involved interviews with 48 male and 48 female students and 12 faculty at two British universities and one polytechnic in two subject areas--English and physics. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the literature on gender and education, gender and science, and the different cultures of"science" and "humanities." Chapter 4 looks at how physics students and staff construct their subject and how this affects and is affected by their ideas about humanities disciplines. Chapter 5 similarly looks at ideas held by English students about their discipline and the sciences. Chapters 6 and 7 examine how studying either physics or English interacts with students' sense of personal and gender identity. The concluding chapter summarizes findings and urges the breakdown of disciplinary barriers at the university level. (Contains approximately 225 references.) (DB)