Gender and Education, an encyclopedia by Barbara J. Bank

Author:Barbara J. Bank
Language: pol
Format: mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Part VI

Gender Constructions and

Achievements in the

Extracurriculum

Overview

The extracurriculum consists of school-sponsored and school-recognized organizations

and activities that are not considered to be part of the official curriculum. As the titles of the essays in this section indicate, in contemporary educational institutions, particularly in the United States, these organizations and activities include academic, arts, and service clubs, sports, cheerleading, fraternities, sororities, service learning programs, student government, and women’s centers. Some of these activities and organizations, such as

academic clubs, student government, and interschool or intercollegiate athletics, are officially sponsored by schools or by institutions of higher education. Some of these officially sponsored organizations, like women’s centers, were initiated primarily by students, but others, like honors societies, were initiated by faculty or administrators. Other activities and organizations are officially recognized and regulated, but not sponsored, by the

schools, colleges, and universities in which they exist. Included among these would be fraternities and sororities as well as newer, student-initiated organizations for which gaining official recognition usually means that they can meet in a school or campus building and sometimes also that they receive funding from the student activity fees paid to that educational institution. Organizations of this latter type are often political or religious in nature, and, because they are controversial, educational institutions go to great effort to indicate that they are not “sponsoring” such activities, merely allowing them to exist, meet, and publicize themselves in school or on campus.

There also are activities and organizations that seek official recognition, but have not yet achieved it. Groups advocating on behalf of equal treatment for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people sometimes fall into this category, although in some schools and in many colleges and universities such groups are officially recognized. And, on some campuses and in many secondary schools, either they do not exist at all or they are treated as peer groups and denied any official support.

Outside of the United States, educational institutions are far less likely to sponsor or even give official recognition to a plethora of extracurricular activities and student clubs.

At the university level, these activities and clubs are likely to be sponsored by student unions or associations that often own their own buildings in which extracurricular activities and club meetings take place. These student unions or associations generally have

their own budgets and considerably more autonomy than student governments in the

476 GENDER AND EDUCATION

United States. Neither universities nor secondary schools have the elaborate, expensive

school-sponsored athletic programs common in the United States. Indeed, many of the

extracurricular activities common to U.S. schools are either unknown in other countries

or are considered leisure-time activities unrelated to schooling. The reasons for many of these international differences can be found in the history of how and why the extracurriculum developed in the United States.

Historically, many of the activities and organizations that are now considered to be part of the official extracurriculum of U.S. universities were initiated by students, often in rebellion against the academic emphases of the faculty. These activities and organizations included athletic programs and contests, “school” newspapers, debating clubs, fraternities, sororities, and other social clubs.

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