Gender Markers in the Schools
Research in North America, the UK, and Australia suggests that various factors have led to a feminization of the school (Skeleton, 2001, p.116). For example, Jobe & Dayton Sakari (2002) have written a book in which they suggest that media, information cyber or sound bites and electronic information have displaced the time and interest boys spent with traditional curriculum materials found in school. Another study in the UK reports that male students do not engage in literacy activities at home as much as they do in school (Mallett, 1997). Girls revealed that they did engage in literacy activities at home as well at school. Mallet writes that "for boys it makes the school input to their developing literacy crucial" (p. 56).

A lack of male role models is also a recurring theme in the literature. Men are not usually seen reading and writing in our society (Norman, 2002). In Norman's study, one child replied that his father 'writes cheques'. Norman's article also addresses another possible reason why boys do not like to read. He says it is the way in which they have been socialized. He notes that men are not seen showing their emotions, or talking or writing about them. Why then would boys want to read a poem about another person's emotion and write how they feel about it? This goes against their attempts to suppress emotions. Laura Sokal (2002) writes that reading is seen as a feminine act. She notes that this occurs as mothers spend more time reading with children and that most early teachers are women. Her research reports that only 1/3 of the books in a school library are the types of books in which boys have an interest. Sokal also revisits the notion that most books show boys in stereotypical roles. Indeed the basal reader found in schools in Canada, from the stories of Dick and Jane (Richmond, 1999) to present day, reading texts continue to provide stories and texts where men are heroes or survivors or achieve almost impossible feats. These images may be more than most little boys can live up to. Boys, as Jeff Wilhelm (2002) says, often "find school a bitter pill". Books typically found in schools encourage boys and girls to see themselves portrayed in particular roles thus reinforcing stereotypes. Love (1993) found in his study of books that boys are portrayed in energetic roles while girls were more passive. This supports the findings of research into school readers (Richmond, 1999). Smith and Wilhelm write in Reading don't fix no Chevy's (2002) that the boys in their study resisted school literacy as it was not purposeful in their lives. Boys were literate but in their own everyday practice of literacy. This supports Jobe's' work on info kids (2002) and their reluctance to read in a school literacy context.