GAnet - Faculty - Kast-Grant Janet Maurer - Gender Dialog Program, Freshman Seminar

2001 Annual Grant Issue
Janet Maurer, Ph.D. - Kast Grant Report
Gender Dialog Program, Freshman Seminar

(What follows are the preface, introduction, and syllabus outline for the Gender Dialog Program I developed for my Kast Grant Project. Specific curriculum content is available for review, so please let me know if you are interested. I have already shared the entire project with some folks who plan to use parts of it in the Freshman Seminar this year and I'm really excited about that).

Sex, Lies, and Videotape used to be just a movie from 1989. This past year, however, communities all across the country became aware of new levels of teenage sexual behavior and exploitation. This worrisome national trend seems to be rooted in the troubled gender relationships of some young people who may be struggling with issues of powerlessness, vague identity, low self-esteem, anger, and confusion generated by the media. When power or aggression intrude upon interpersonal relationships, the likelihood of coercive sexual experiences within these relationships may increase.

As I began pondering this heady topic of gender relationships, I became aware of the complicated and confusing nature of this subject matter. While my original focus was prompted by what was observed in the aftermath of several video exploitations and the effects these incidents had on our students, it became clear that the underlying issues of identity, self-esteem, values, and respect for self and others were most worthy of study. These issues are the building blocks of decision-making.

Hoping to find and coordinate already established programs addressing topics such as sexual harassment, dating violence, values clarification, interpersonal relationships, friendship, loyalty, and self-esteem, I discovered several things: first, none of the few available programs were perfectly tailored to the needs of our students; and second, this topic was truly overwhelming. As a result, I chose to focus on several key themes as a means of introducing this material to the students of GA. After sifting through and digesting research studies and theoretical works about adolescents, sexual decision making, and peer pressure/relationships, I settled upon four core topics to explore in order to encourage a dialog between adolescent boys and girls: self-esteem, friendship, decision-making, and sexual harassment. The goal of this project is to provide a forum for students to explore their feelings about themselves, look at their relationships and their beliefs about gender, learn about aggression and harassment in relationships, and identify means for addressing or avoiding unhealthy relationships. Research tells us that education to increase pro-social, reciprocal interactions is the best defense against victimization.

I chose to use the Freshman Seminar format as the vehicle for this program for several reasons:

Ninth graders, all new to Upper School, may be open to thinking about new relationships as they begin a new school experience.
As 14 year olds, they are also relatively new to adolescence and may be interested in and open to exploration of issues related to self, friends, decisions, and sex.
Ninth graders are also often in the throes of risk-taking behavioral exploration, engaging in sexualized relationships, so the topic is timely.
The curriculum of Freshman Seminar is flexible enough to accommodate new content areas but also similar enough to the aforementioned topics to easily embrace this material.
Programs for adolescents, which have the greatest chance for success, often use social learning methods. Use of discussion, role-plays, and behavioral rehearsal help teenagers engage with each other and retain important information. Since the social consequence of behavior is often more potent for teenagers than other consequences (i.e. physical effects), use of the peer group through the group process of Freshman Seminar may have a very powerful influence. The format of Freshman Seminar lends itself to these methods.

This program is really a forum for consciousness raising. That term, however, has gone out of style, and in considering an alternative phrase I realized that what I am proposing is a gender dialog about self, relationships, and decision-making. This is a program to promote social and emotional competency. According to Fischhoff (1999), successful programs for promoting these competencies endorse improvement in social skills, decision-making skills, self-management skills, and coping strategies. It is my hope that through this journey students will gain knowledge about themselves and others, enhance these aforementioned skills, and develop healthy relationships.

Many researchers also report that in order for programs for adolescents to be truly effective they should include peer leaders and parent involvement. To address this first suggestion I hope to:

request upperclass student-volunteers to serve as teaching assistants
train volunteers in areas of specific class content and group processes
supervise volunteers to assist in the classroom

To address the second suggestion, parents/other trusted adults would be included through homework assignments.