Class
The National Center for Education Statistics says: "Between 1989-90 and 1999-2000, the percentage of high-income students who were women increased (from 51 percent to 53 percent; table 2). No difference was detected in the percentage of low-income students who were women in each survey year. Nonetheless, in 1999-2000, women were still overrepresented among low-income students (60 percent were women) and underrepresented among high-income students (53 percent) when compared with all students (56 percent). (Katharin Peter and Laura Horn, "Gender Differences in Participation and Completion of Undergraduate Education and How They Have Changed Over Time," <http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2005169>, February 2005, p. 15). "Low-income levels represent those whose family income did not exceed 125 percent of the established poverty level. The remaining levels [of middle-low-income, middle-high-income, and high-income] are evenly distributed above the low-income group. The source of income for dependent students is their parents or guardians; the source for independent students is their own earnings and assets" (Peter and Horn, p. 49).
Race
<blockquote>[T]he percentage of Hispanic students who were women increased from 1989-90 to 1995-96 (from 52 to 58 percent). . . .
In 1999-2000, women made up a greater percentage of Black students than they did among White, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander students (64 percent vs. 56, 56, and 51 percent, respectively). In fact, when compared with all 1999-2000 undergraduates, a greater percentage of Black students were women by almost 8 percentage points (56 percent of all undergraduates were women vs. 64 percent of Black students). As was shown in table 1, in 2000-01, Black women also earned a greater percentage of the degrees awarded than their male counterparts. (Peter and Horn, p. 16)</blockquote>
A reasonable hypothesis, then, is that the gender gap has widened between 1989-90 and 1999-2000 because of continuing stratified expansion of post-secondary education, enrolling more low-income students among whom the gender gap is the most pronounced, and increases in enrollment and degree acquisition among high-income women who have caught up with and finally surpassed men of their strata.
<blockquote>[A]s shown in table A, Black and Hispanic students made up larger proportions of beginning postsecondary students over the study period [between 1989 and 1995], while the proportion of White students declined over time. . . .
Coinciding with the rise in Black and Hispanic student enrollment in the 6-year period between cohorts was an increase in the proportion of low-income students. The percentage of low-income students increased from 13 to 16 percent overall for dependent students.4 This increase held for dependent students who began in public 4-year institutions (from 10 to 15 percent) and private for-profit institutions (from 21 to 35 percent) (table 1). (Laura Horn and Rachel Berger, "College Persistence on the Rise? Changes in 5-Year Degree Completion and Postsecondary Persistence Rates Between 1994 and 2000" <http://nces.ed.gov/das/epubs/2005156/persistence1.asp>, November 2005)</blockquote>
It is possible that the education system does discriminate more against working-class men -- especially working-class men of color -- than working-class women of all races. Probably, working-class boys are more boisterous than working-class girls, and teachers and principals are likely to find working-class boys more threatening than working-class girls. Working-class boys get more often penalized by teachers and principals than working-class girls are. E.g.,
<blockquote>School suspensions across the country have risen from 1.7 million in 1974 to approximately 3.1 million in 1997. This increase has impacted African American and Latino students disproportionately, especially boys. On a national level, African American students are suspended at twice their proportion in the school population. During the 1997 school year, African American children made up 17 percent of the U.S. student population but 32 percent of those suspended, according to U.S. Education Department, Office of Civil Rights statistics (Cantu, 2000; U.S. Education Dept., 1999). (Bay Area School Reform Collaborative, "The Color of Discipline: Understanding Racial Disparity in School Discipline Practices," <http://www.basrc.org/Pubs&Docs/EquityBriefJan01.pdf>, Equity Brief, January 2001)</blockquote>
There may be a gender difference in attitudes also. E.g., Boys look at busywork at school and say, "Crap! Who can take this seriously? Not me!" Girls look at busywork at school and say, "Crap! But you gotta do what you gotta do to graduate and go to college. I'll just get it done and get the hell out of here!"
What's up with working-class men, especially working-class men of color, who are unable to attend college? They found moer jobs during the neoliberal boomlet in the 1990s than in the 1980s or got pushed into the informal sector or got sucked in the criminal justice system or signed up for the military.
Still and all, the gender gap in salary -- in favor of men rather than women -- persists in many fields:
<blockquote>Even when controlling for undergraduate field of study, men earned higher average annual salaries than women in roughly half of the fields examined. In addition, the data in table 16 suggest that the disparity may be increasing in some cases. For example, in both cohorts, men who majored in engineering, mathematics, and science fields earned higher average annual salaries than women who majored in these fields ($33,300 vs. $27,900 in 1994 and $45,200 vs. $34,200 in 2001, respectively). In other words, women with degrees in these fields earned, on average, $5,400 less than men or roughly 84 percent of what men earned in 1994, and about $11,000 less than men or 76 percent of what men earned in 2001. Also, in 2001, about one-half of men in these fields (51 percent) earned $45,000 or more, compared with about one-fourth of women.
In some fields, gender disparities in annual salaries were evident in the later cohort that were not observed earlier. In 2001, men with bachelor's degrees in fields comprising humanities and social/behavioral sciences, health fields, vocational/technical fields, and other technical/professional fields earned higher full-time salaries than women in the same fields.
These differences were not detected in the 1994 cohort. Although it appears that men in the first cohort with bachelor's degrees in health fields, vocational/technical fields, and other technical/professional fields earned higher average salaries than their female counterparts, the apparent difference was not statistically significant. In business/management fields it also appears that men earned higher average annual salaries than women, but the difference was only statistically significant in 1994. Still, 34 percent of men with a business degree were earning $45,000 or more in 2001, compared with 24 percent of their female peers. Although it appears that men in the first cohort with bachelor's degrees in education earned higher average salaries than their female counterparts, the apparent difference was not statistically significant. For both years, no gender difference was detected in the average annual salary of graduates with a degree in education. (Peter and Horn, pp. 38, 40-41)</blockquote> -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * OSU-GESO: <http://www.osu-geso.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>