Curriculum as a Gender Text

 Suggested Citation: Sharma, S. (2021, May 31). Curriculum as a Gender Text. Queer Academia. URL

Curriculum as a Gender Text | Sanket Sharma

“To comprehend the present and move towards the future requires an understanding of the past: an understanding that is sensitive, analytical and open to critical enquiry.” (Thapar).

I

Introduction: Understanding the Intersection of Gender and Curriculum

The curriculum is the great conundrum of modern education. Those teaching it have a certain idea of it, as do those learning it, as do those making it — everyone has a different idea of what it must look like. What it is, is an entirely different discourse. This must be a cautious discourse lest it falls prey to uninformed, polarizing formulations. It appears that there are no quick answers.

One of the many aspects of discourse over curriculum is deeply situated within the sphere of gender. In the first instance, it may seem simple to determine what constitutes “gender discourse”. However, that is an oversimplification. Gender and curriculum discourses intersect in many ways: How does curriculum treat gender?; how does the curriculum include/exclude certain gender?; and, how is gender discourse changing curriculum? — just to name a few. 

In adding to these preexisting points of note, this paper attempts to conceptualize curriculum as a gendered text. The root of this understanding is in defining what a gendered text is. Of course, there is no singular determination to be found. Delane Bender-Slack weighs, “how a text is understood is determined in part by who is engaged in the act of reading at a particular place in a particular time” (15). That would betray that this is an individualistic negotiation to be made. However, there is an important point to be noted — time. Time is an important point of concern for many reasons but primarily because gender discourse (and thereby gender texts) are greatly impacted by time. Primarily because time impacts the background that goes into the creation of a text i.e., it is integral in the determination of context. Time contextualizes a text through the means of history. Therefore, this paper posits that curriculum as a gendered text is crafted by the gender discourse that has factored into the crafting of curriculum across time. It is important to note, however, that a detailed investigation of the same would probably require a multiple-volume book. Therefore, this paper attempts to establish the same using a singular example based on an investigation of the Indian school curriculum. 

II

Gender in Indian School Curriculum

Gender is an intriguing frame to understand Indian School Curriculum. Like all Indian spaces, it has experienced great impact through the forces of colonization. However, that is far from the only force which has impacted the historical craft of curriculum. Brahmanical ideologies and late-capitalism have also greatly influenced it. Therefore, what we find at the end is a complex interplay of all these forces. 

This interplay is so prevalent that it is visible even from a distance. It rests in the lack of female authors taught in school (nothing to say of the lack of representation with respect of other genders). It is visible in the invisibility of women’s history – even as Indian history is greatly determined by them. Nothing to say of the aversion to addressing sex and sexuality education — even in topics of reproduction (where it can play an integral role). 

The discomfort of the Indian education system to acknowledge gender differences, relations, and identities is a result of the historical and contemporary forces which have both discouraged and ignored vibrant gender expressions. Ever since education and curriculum became talking points during the 20th century, there was a certain discomfort. “The anxiety about the content of education was not just in terms of threat to native identity. It was also powered by fears of a modernist onslaught, based on the rationalist-humanist message of Enlightenment, on the existing social order, overturning hierarchies of power - relating to caste, ethnicity or gender - and leading to a state of anomie.” (Bhog 1638). 

Therefore, this muddled mix of fears produced an equally muddled mix of the curriculum. One which was simultaneously eager to please the growing seemingly liberal sentiments of equality which Mahatma Gandhi used to campaign for independence, and at the same time, hesitant to disrupt the hierarchical system in place. Therefore, structural gender relations were never painted quite as much as the need was. Instead, iterations of gender became deeply self-defeating - all representations adhered to what was expected of them in a traditional patriarchal construct. 

III

Conclusion

Therefore, as a gender text, the curriculum is impacted by the historical determination of prevalent gender conceptions. Dipta Bhog, in her investigation of gender in the Indian curriculum, mentions that “Traditional meanings of the masculine and the feminine continued to persist along with the oppositional, dichotomous categories of active-passive, emotional- rational, nature-culture and dependent- autonomous.” (1642). Therefore, in extending this discourse, there is a need to acknowledge these forces and work to understand the path moving forward with respect to greater gender inclusion within the curriculum.  

References

Bhog, Dipta. “Gender and Curriculum.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 37, no. 17, 2002,

pp. 1638–1642. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4412041. Accessed 16 May 2021.

Bender-Slack, Delane. “The Role of Gender in Making Meaning of Texts: Bodies, Discourses,

and Ways of Reading.” Feminist Teacher, vol. 20, no. 1, 2009, pp. 15–27. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/femteacher.20.1.0015. Accessed 16 May 2021.

Thapar, Romila. In Defense of History, 

https://www.india-seminar.com/2003/521/521%20romila%20thapar.htm. Lecture 

delivered at Thiruvananthapuram on 2 March 2002.

Written by: Sanket Sharma

Reviewed by: Kanav Sahgal, Mohit Dudeja

About the Author: Sanket is a student at Christ (Deemed to be University) studying English (Honours).