Analysis And Review Of School Talk: Gender And Adolescent Culture By Donna Eder
As discussed in class in School Talk, Donna Eder discusses an uncommon examination of middle school years. The author examines a normal Midwestern middle school in Indiana to uncover and address the nature of gender inequality within school culture. This includes an in-depth study of conversations amongst the junior high students and daily routines that enforce cultural norms and language between the students. Eder and her team of graduate students invested three years of observing peer to peer exchanges, especially in an unsupervised setting, like the lunch cafeteria. Concerning gender, labeling and engaging in insult exchanges seemed to have a big hand in how the students viewed cultural ideas on gender.
As discussed in lecture, examining the students in an uncontrolled and barely supervised setting like a lunch cafeteria can help strengthen a study like this. The reason being, that it provides raw unfiltered data to be able to draw strong conclusions about what really goes on within the adolescent mind and in peer to peer interactions. The ultimate purpose of this study wasn’t to necessarily give an insight to middle school life in the Midwest but to highlight the language and social beliefs that shape an adolescences’ ideas of gender and relationships. Eder stresses how the analyses of male and female discourse processes and the cultural emphases are ultimately limiting to the potential of both genders, but especially to young girls. For males, having success in competitive sports was important, while for girls, cheerleading and having good looks are most critical in the eyes of the adolescences.
The findings also suggest several bases of boys' aggressive and often insensitive treatment of girls, stem from boys' fear of being different or at the bottom of their ‘social hierarchy’. Based on their findings, the authors suggest the elimination of especially aggressive and violent sports in schools. They also note that the focus on appearance and attractiveness in such activities as cheerleading teams is not in the best interest of girls, and suggest a shift of focus to inner qualities that lead to a more complete sense of self. The authors also describe a ‘spill-over’ effect, arguing that the content of boys talk affects the nature of their growing relations with girls. Boys' more tender feelings are denied, girls' feelings are ignored, and heterosexual relations become little more than another arena in which to "score. "
The assigned readings have shown how socialization in relation to age norms is also shaped by and connected to how we learn and display gender norms. The reading has shown the method of ethnographic research which is the qualitative approach that studies patterns, such as culture and the perspectives of the individuals in a setting that is natural to them. The book showed this ethnographic approach because the researchers worked to show people, through the means of writing the book, how the middle-schoolers behave. In doing so, they manage to analyze and interpret the culture of the middle- schoolers over the course of three years to help them better understand their beliefs, behaviors, and language. They make their own form of the worlds from what they learn, just like when kids play house they are modeling what they see with in their own households. Age-progression of gendered relations as children age was discussed in the book as well. More focus is put on girls and how they dress and look. Over the course of reading the book, the author Eder takes the reader through social norms of middle-school students dealing a variety of topics; the communication of students, gender differences and the division of social groups within the middle schools.
Symbolic interaction, which is also relevant to this book, is in reference to the subjective meanings that people impose on objects, events, and behaviors. Although the construct view of ageing strives to understand any part of the ageing point through their standpoint, which I understood to mean the subjects point of view I found it interesting to learn that the researchers tend to look at children through the views and standards of adults. Opening to the argument that society is socially constructed through human interpretation. Through the class discussion and videos watch I feel it is safe to say that kids construct their own cultures. A minor limitation of the book is that it provides a glimpse through the lens of a single middle school. Although the processes Eder describes can translate to all class variations, there may be other types of school settings where peer concerns are extremely different.
