U of Manitoba Education faculty - 45% students slots for five "diversity categories"

[rubecube]

Whatever the underrepresentation of male teachers is in K-12, it's more than made up for in postsecondary faculties.

[rubecube]

I would like to see what the current proportion of these people are going to university vs. other demographics are before I judge the program but suspect it's lower. Do people honestly think that's entirely base on intelligence. Or is it maybe possible that there are some systemic problems that are preventing marginalized groups from attending postsecondary?

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I would like to see what the current proportion of these people are going to university vs. other demographics are before I judge the program but suspect it's lower. Do people honestly think that's entirely base on intelligence. Or is it maybe possible that there are some systemic problems that are preventing marginalized groups from attending postsecondary?

While eliminating systemic marginalisation is very important, I would caution that post-secondary entrance shouldn't be viewed as the primary mission of K-12 education and removing any negative impact on post-secondary entrance shouldn't be seen as the only potential benefit of increased diversity. There are much more fundamentally important characteristics of a basic education in a multi-cultural society, such as developing empathy and respect for diverse people and points of view, which are well served by having diversity in a teaching body.

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

While eliminating systemic marginalisation is very important, I would caution that post-secondary entrance shouldn't be viewed as the primary mission of K-12 education and removing any negative impact on post-secondary entrance shouldn't be seen as the only potential benefit of increased diversity. There are much more fundamentally important characteristics of a basic education in a multi-cultural society, such as developing empathy and respect for diverse people and points of view, which are well served by having diversity in a teaching body.

Yeah, that wasn't really my point though. If someone wants to go to postsecondary and has the ability to do so, but is being prevented from doing so for reasons beyond their control, then we should be doing what we can to get them there.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Or is it maybe possible that there are some systemic problems that are preventing marginalized groups from attending postsecondary?

Of course there are. It's just that more discrimination isn't an acceptable solution.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by rubecube

I would like to see what the current proportion of these people are going to university vs. other demographics are before I judge the program but suspect it's lower. Do people honestly think that's entirely base on intelligence. Or is it maybe possible that there are some systemic problems that are preventing marginalized groups from attending postsecondary?

Don't know if this is what you're looking for (and the data isn't complete for the amount of minority populations the new program is seeking to balance) but this shows the % of indigenous students:

http://umanitoba.ca/admin/oia/media/...Profile_14.pdf

In Education, it's 7.8, so they're effectively looking to double it.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by SebC

Of course there are. It's just that more discrimination isn't an acceptable solution.

Could you expand on your assertion that this initiative is discriminatory?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Whatever the underrepresentation of male teachers is in K-12, it's more than made up for in postsecondary faculties.

When their experience from K-12 has been that most of their teachers and most of the top students are girls, many boys have already decided learning and reading and all that stuff is for girls. That's a much bigger social problem than the makeup of university faculties.

Originally Posted by rubecube

I would like to see what the current proportion of these people are going to university vs. other demographics are before I judge the program but suspect it's lower. Do people honestly think that's entirely base on intelligence. Or is it maybe possible that there are some systemic problems that are preventing marginalized groups from attending postsecondary?

Do you think the dramatic, and growing, under-representation of males in post-secondary institutions across the developed world is entirely based on intelligence, or are there some systemic problems that preventing them from attending postsecondary?

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by rubecube

Yeah, that wasn't really my point though. If someone wants to go to postsecondary and has the ability to do so, but is being prevented from doing so for reasons beyond their control, then we should be doing what we can to get them there.

Many natives have full scholarships available to them. So the barriers are not usually financial. When only half of a community even graduates from high school, university participation is going to be low.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

And I don't think there's any doubt that there are systemic reasons for that. But I don't see this sort of policy as making any difference in addressing those.

As for the other targeted groups, I tend to doubt that the barriers are anything but financial. Is there really any systemic bias preventing LGBT people or physically disabled people, or people from remote areas, from going to university? It doesn't seem so to me.

EDIT: Actually the last one seems sort of practical; are there not issues getting people to teach in remote communities? If so, getting more people in the program from those areas might be a good idea.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Could you expand on your assertion that this initiative is discriminatory?

Isn't that what quotas effectively are? And why they've been ruled unconstitutional in the US for publicly funded institutions.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by McG

as a parent, I want my children educated by the best teachers possible.

whatever happened to letting the best students into university regardless of subgroup?

surely the best teachers are the best regardless of anything.

Just because someone can score well in their high school classes doesn't mean they will be any good at teaching someone else.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

On another note, I found this data, which is USA sourced, but nonetheless interesting: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=72

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

When their experience from K-12 has been that most of their teachers and most of the top students are girls, many boys have already decided learning and reading and all that stuff is for girls. That's a much bigger social problem than the makeup of university faculties.

Many boys think that learning and reading is "for girls"? According to who? Boys? I'd like to see a hands-up from all the guys who thought that when they were kids.

Having been a boy myself, and also having been a teacher, I don't buy it.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Many boys think that learning and reading is "for girls"? According to who? Boys? I'd like to see a hands-up from all the guys who thought that when they were kids.

Having been a boy myself, and also having been a teacher, I don't buy it.

When I was in K-12 we learned that those (male AND female) students were known as "losers."

I can't name one of my male friends or even acquaintances from school that thought reading or learning was "for girls."

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

When I was in K-12 we learned that those (male AND female) students were known as "losers."

I can't name one of my male friends or even acquaintances from school that thought reading or learning was "for girls."

Yeah, exactly. There was definitely a negative attitude towards kids who did really well in school, but it wasn't negative because we saw it as feminine or "for girls".

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Many boys think that learning and reading is "for girls"? According to who? Boys? I'd like to see a hands-up from all the guys who thought that when they were kids.

Having been a boy myself, and also having been a teacher, I don't buy it.

You realize 'boys' includes lower-class boys, right? Not just the educated and high-earning males who tend to hang out out on these forums?

And if you were a teacher in the last 10 years and you weren't aware of the literacy struggles of boys, then whatever system you were part of is behind the times. Boys are far less likely to read than girls*. They do worse in school at every level. They report less interest in school and less interest in grades. This is more pronounced among poor students than rich, but evident in every demographic**.

Boys in all ethnic groups and social classes are far less likely than their sisters to feel connected to school, to earn good grades, or to have high academic aspirations. A recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research documents a remarkable trend among high-achieving students: In the 1980s, nearly the same number of top male and female high school students said they planned to pursue a postgraduate degree (13 percent of boys and 15 percent of girls). By the 2000s, 27 percent of girls expressed that ambition, compared with 16 percent of boys. During the same period, the gap between girls and boys earning mostly A’s nearly doubled—from three to five percentage points.

How to Make School Better for Boys (the Atlantic)

Across Canada, the evidence is mounting that the boys are falling seriously behind. And educators are now wondering whether the time has come to give the boys extra attention...

...A literacy gap in the early years is not new.

But the gap used to be closed by high school. Now, as the children grow up, the gap stays the same or gets wider. The most recent nationwide reading tests of 13-year-olds in 1998 revealed a gap of 16 percentage points between girls and boys who had achieved a basic level or better; among 16-year-olds, the gap was 22 percentage points. Among those who could read at a sophisticated level, the gap of 18 percentage points in 1994 grew to 22 points by 1998...

...Students who are still behind in reading by Grade 3 tend never to catch up, and for boys, the result is that they turn away from the idea that school has anything to offer. Some move on to jobs, and others get in trouble.

"At some point they decide they would rather be bad than dumb," Durham's Ms. Freedman said.

Are the schools failing boy? (the Globe and Mail)

* The reading disparity continues through adulthood - the market for fiction breaks 2:1 female/male.

** Women now make up 60 per cent of medical school students and 55 per cent of law school students in Canada.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

When I was in K-12 we learned that those (male AND female) students were known as "losers."

I can't name one of my male friends or even acquaintances from school that thought reading or learning was "for girls."

Good thing we have access to more than anecdotes.

Gender identities that cast reading as an unattractive activity mean
that boys have markedly different attitudes to reading to girls. More
girls than boys say that a reader is happy (46% vs. 40%), clever (70%
vs. 61%) and someone who will do well in life (66% vs. 54%). Boys,
on the other hand, are more likely than girls to believe that a reader
is boring (18% vs. 13%) and a geek (22% vs. 19%).

These attitudes also affect the extent to which girls and boys identify
themselves as readers: girls are more likely than boys to view
themselves as readers, with 69% of girls saying that they are a reader
compared with 60% of boys. A quarter of boys (25%) said that they are
not a reader (15% were not sure) compared with a sixth of girls (16%;
15% were not sure). Some boys find being a reader less attractive and
less aspirational. It doesn’t sit well with their gender identities.

Interestingly, even boys who regard themselves as readers differ from
girls who see themselves as readers: 66% of boys who see themselves
as readers enjoy reading either very much or quite a lot compared with
76% of girls who see themselves as readers.

The strongest indicator that male gender identities can be hostile to
reading is the fact that a significant minority of children and young
people think that reading is more for girls than boys – 18% of boys and
12% of girls.

Boys Commission Report (UK Literacy Trust)

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You realize 'boys' includes lower-class boys, right? Not just the educated and high-earning males who tend to hang out out on these forums?

And if you were a teacher in the last 10 years and you weren't aware of the literacy struggles of boys, then whatever system you were part of is behind the times. Boys are far less likely to read than girls*. They do worse in school at every level. They report less interest in school and less interest in grades. This is more pronounced among poor students than rich, but evident in every demographic**.

I realize that different kinds of people exist, and live in different circumstances, but thanks for the reminder either way.

I haven't been a teacher in the last 10 years, but when I was, I was mostly teaching kids with literacy problems, and I definitely taught more boys than girls.

Whatever the reason was, they didn't end up getting remedial teaching because they thought reading/schoolwork was for girls. Not one of them ever said anything like that.

Obviously there's an issue, I'm not arguing that, but that's not it, based on my experience.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Good thing we have access to more than anecdotes.

Right, forgot about my formative years spent living in the UK and learning in their education system.

Regardless, it's not a "many" boys phenomenon, but rather a "some" boys instance. As pretty much every report on the matter suggests, biological development plays a part, with non-cognitive factors reaching far and wide.

I can't speak to studies but as Rouge said, I can't possibly give one real example of a boy I knew thinking that reading (or, even more problematic is your assertion that learning) is "for girls."

Though, I feel dumb that I have to ask, what's your point anyway? What does this have to do with diversity categories at U of M?