Gender, Sexuality and Social Class in Second Language Education: Background

1
Gender, Sexuality and Social Class in Second
Language Education Background

• Douglas Fleming
• University of Ottawa

2

• As Lemonick (1992) has noted, about one person in
  20,000 are genetically of a different sex than
  their outward appearance would suggest.
• Men generally have greater upper body strength,
  larger muscle mass and joint structures, thicker
  skin and lower awareness thresholds of injury.
• Women, on the other hand, seem to have greater
  tolerance for pain and better long-term physical
  endurance.

3

• When considering behavior, the differences
  between men and women are difficult to classify
  in terms of being biologically determinate. How
  much is due to nature and how much to nurture?
• John Gray, the author of Men are from Mars, Women
  are from Venus contends that the sexes approach
  problem-solving differently.
• Do you buy his arguments?

4

• Gender, as opposed to sex, is the way in which
  one sees ones own sexual role.
• Needless to say, social influences have a big
  role to play in this important aspect of
  self-perception.
• Ones physical sex might very well be clear
  enough from birth (although many would dispute
  this).
• However, gender is learned.

5

• People who do not fit into the binary division of
  gender are subject to pressures to conform.
• Gay men, lesbian women, bisexuals or
  transgendered people behave sexually outside the
  dominant norm within society and are thus
  commonly subject to pressures to conform to
  preconceived notions of what constitutes gender.
• This binary division also promotes the attitude
  that sexual identity and behavior should be
  consistent and clearly demarcated against an
  opposite.

6

• As Beasley (2005) notes, the fact that the
  masculine is accorded higher value than the
  feminine can be demonstrated linguistically.
• Feminine equivalents (spinster as opposed to
  bachelor, for example) are usually interpreted
  negatively. Feminine names often contain
  diminutives (waitress, as opposed to waiter).
  

7

• The battles over politically correct
  terminology occur because some contend that
  making a conscious effort at using PC words is a
  way of conscious-raising that hopefully affects
  attitudes AND behaviors.
• Breaking linguistic conventions is difficult,
  given the constructionist nature of language.

8

• great effort has been made to deny the very
  existence of class (Teeple, 2000).
• Despite a recently dramatic concentration of
  wealth in the U.S. (see http//concentrationof
  wealth.blogspot.com)
• Liberal (small l) forms of citizenship, for
  example, in which everyone enjoys equal access to
  a common set of rights and privileges masks
  social and economically-based inequalities
  (Marshall, 1950).

9

• The supposed basis of class is not biological,
  but socio-economic.
• As opposed to race and gender, the outward
  appearance of class is generally more easily
  discarded. In other words, it is easier to hide
  ones class origins as opposed those pertaining
  to ones race or gender.
• One can also change class membership in ways that
  are not dependent on physical attributes.

10

• We are used to equating class primarily with
  wealth and secondarily with access to educational
  resources.
• Given how social stratification is represented
  ideologically, we are also using to viewing class
  as being relatively fluid and based on merit.
• However, it is important to note class is as
  socially constructed as race and gender.
• Proof of this is in how societies have classified
  social stratification in various ways.

11

• The Indian caste system in its traditional
  formulation, for example, is quite rigid in terms
  of social mobility.
• Native social hierarchies were quite variable.
• Traditional Confucius Chinese social
  stratification

12

• Even within modern European notions of class,
  there are important variations.
• Pre-revolutionary France was marked by the three
  estates (church aristocracy/ military and
  everyone else).
• The traditional British system divided society
  into the aristocracy and the commons.
• It could be argued that communist countries have
  divided classes according to party membership.

13

• Social stratification is marked by ones wealth,
  income, education and placement in an overarching
  system that ascribes value to various
  occupational statuses (esp. in terms of
  governmental, military and religious structures).
  
• Class is symbolically represented through manners
  and clothing, membership in high status
  organizations, honorific titles bestowed by
  organizations that exercise power, and language
  use.

14

• Formalized descriptions of class structures do
  not (usually) reflect power relations accurately.
• Stories about individual merit (e.g. Horatio
  Alger) will often make class membership in modern
  capitalist societies appear to be much more fluid
  than it really is.
• As in the case of race, meritocratic standards
  allow one to blame the victims, this time the
  poor.

15

• Financial capital passed down from family members
  perpetuates class divisions in obvious ways.
  However, other factors also play a hand.
• Cultural capital (Bourdieu,1977) is a set of
  non-materialist resources related to family
  background, social status (as opposed to economic
  class) and education that is passed down from
  generation to generation.
• Different values are found within hierarchical
  forms of cultural capital that can be variously
  transformed into the more tangible material forms
  of capital, such as money and power.