Most College Students Are Women: Implications for Teaching, Learning, and Policy (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- Most College Students Are Women: Implications for Teaching, Learning, and Policy
Most College Students Are Women: Implications for Teaching, Learning, and Policy is one of three books in the Women in Academe series, edited by Jeanie K. Allen, Diane R. Dean, and Susan J. Bracken. In the foreword, David Sadker describes the book’s focus as helping women learners succeed.
The assumption that women can be successful because they are the majority of college students fails to recognize the complexity of women’s lives and higher education in general, calling for a text like this. Through this book, the editors and chapter authors seek to identify many of these complexities, so that, as educators, we can intentionally consider what we do to support women’s success in the academy.
An introduction and conclusion by Allen, Dean, and Bracken frame the eight edited chapters in this volume. In the introduction, the editors identify three themes: the different perspectives that emerge when women become the focus of research, the different voice that may be present when discussing women’s styles of learning, and the different pedagogical strategies that might be considered when examining classrooms largely made up of female learners (p. 2). Moreover, they identify specific policy and practice recommendations to foreground the important place that action and activism have in transforming the academy to be a better place for all learners.
In Chapter 1, Rebecca Ropers-Huilman and Betsy Palmer offer a primer in feminist and civic education. They then review common values between these two pedagogical approaches and identify the similarities, differences, and tensions between them. Through this discussion, the authors challenge feminist and civic educators to consider how they can learn from one another to strengthen community in higher education.
Ropers-Huilman and Palmer also note that the outcomes of such an analysis and conversation can counter the neo-liberal idea of the student as consumer. In this framework, the student is an engaged citizen, reinforcing the public good role of the academy.
Marcia Baxter Magolda builds on her invaluable longitudinal work about self-authorship in Chapter 2. She presents empirical data on the process of self-authorship and the role a Learning Partnerships Model (LPM) can play to enable self-authorship.
However, Baxter Magolda argues, to truly implement an LPM, the central structures of higher education must be reshaped. Perhaps in such a paradigmatic change, the institution may not only embrace a LPM but also dismantle the masculine model of the university, fostering self-authorship for all students.
Kathleen Taylor and Catherine Marienau discuss the power of self-reflection and narrative as fundamental tools in advancing learning for women. From adult learning theory, we know the valuable role reflection plays in learning (e.g., Brookfield, 2004). However, Taylor and Marienau provide further support for these techniques by explaining how they ultimately change the brain.
Taylor and Marienau also briefly discuss how mentoring and affective connection can physiologically facilitate learning. We often read about the importance of mentoring in higher education; yet until relatively recently, we have had little empirical evidence about its efficacy. This chapter offers insight into how these relationships can make a difference.
In Chapter 4, Teri Sosa traces the historical status of women in computer technology careers. Women continue to be significantly underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the academy; and the case of computer science is particularly problematic, as the fewest number of women intend to major in that field (Hill, Corbett, & St. Rose, 2010).
Sosa provides some of the reasons why this might be the case and identifies several reform efforts directed at addressing these concerns. However, the chapter ends on a pessimistic note. Sosa reminds us of the on-going obstacles for women in academic computer science that may continue to make it difficult for women to want to persevere, despite their right to do so. [End Page 342]
Marilyn Simon continues the conversation about...
