Teaching a Women's Rights Course in a Secondary School

Abstract

In view of the growing concern with sexism in education and the recognition by many teachers that women's contribution to society is invisible in most areas of school knowledge, t am surprized that more women's studies courses have not been set up in secondary schools. lllis may be due to the enormous amount of work involved in setting up new courses, cuts in educational expenditure, and the conservatism of many examination boards as to what counts as legitimate school knowledge. However, what dves seem to be taking place is the incorporation of the subject matter of women's studies into other areas of the curriculum, notably the social sciencess history and English, and also a general emphasis on acquainting pupils with the problems of sexism. (C.L.t.O.: 1981). It could be claimed that this incorporation of the content of women's studies into wider areas of the curriculum is more valuable than actually setting up a separate course. A women's studies course could be said to 'ghettoize' such knowledge, leading to its being regarded as the school's gesture to anti-sexism, thereby avoiding the necessity of persuading teachers to consider their content and practice and make the relevant changes. Ideally, anti-sexist content and practice should pervade the whole curriculum and the entire social relations of schools. However, like black studies, women's studies can be a necessary first step to changing the whole curriculum and getting recognition for formerly ignored areas of knowledge. ln this article t will outline my experience of teaching a women's rights course at Starcross School, give details of content and useful resources, and then make some general comments about teaching women's studies, drawing on research that t conducted at part of an MA dissertation. (Kirton: 1982) Starcross is a girls' comprehensive school in Islington, London. All the members of the social sciences department are feminists, and we have worked collaboratively to develop most of the courses we teach. In the early seventies all fou.<hand fifth-year pupils followed a non-examination course called Communit Education. lt was plagued with problems: being compulsory but unexamined, it tended to be too general and vague and was not popular with pupils. Out of this course we developed a community rights course (now called Community Law), and made it optional for fourth-years ( 15-16 year olds). After some difficulties (though no objections were made to the women's rights section), it was accepted as a two-year examination course by the Metropolitan Region Examination Board. It is a Mode Three Certificate of Secondary Education, which means that the teachers set and mark the examination paper and the projects, which are however moderated by the Board. The marks for the