Caribbean Gender Studies

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enhancing effective and efficient recognition, development and utilization of competencies and endowed capabilities of both sexes.
Gender, is a significant contributor to student achievement (McCoy, 2005; Peng & Hall, 1995). From the statements of McCoy, Peng and Hall it can be deduced that gender plays an important role in the academic performance of students. This is in line with the second objective of this study which was to find out whether gender played an important role in the performance of students in Asuom Senior High School in the 2013 WASSCE.
The relationship between gender and the academic achievement of students has been discussed for decades (Eitle, 2005). In one of the earliest studies Morris (1959) referring to the psychic …show more content…

Much of this literature has addressed the differential performance, by gender, of students in the Caribbean high school system. One school of thought, best captured in the work of Errol Miller, has posited that the underachievement of males in the school system is linked to a historical process of male marginalisation (Miller, 1986, 1991 & 1994). Other scholars of Caribbean society adopt a differing perspective. In particular, Mark Figueroa argues that male underperformance in education is not a result of male marginalization. Instead, Figueroa suggests that it is the historical privileging of Caribbean males that has led to the phenomenon of male educational under-performance (Figueroa, 1996). In essence male academic underperformance is rooted, Figueroa states, in male privilege and the manner in which this has been played out in relation to education at a time of social change within some institutions, values and norms. He recommends that the problem of male underperformance be attacked at three levels: at the home/community, school and workplace. Figueroa purports that, so long as academic disciplines continue to be defined as ‘male’ or ‘female’ boys will be at a disadvantage in choosing a career in keeping with their

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