Gender: How does it effect the outdoor education experience?

As the literature about outdoor education grows, it is important that emerging trends are reviewed and the implications for practice discussed. Gender is arguably the most ubiquitous individual difference, and is attracting considerable interest in the outdoor education field. In spite of this trend, critical reviews of the anecdotal and research literature are lacking. This paper examines the impact of gender on outdoor education experiences in a number of areas, including staffing ratios, participant ratings of outdoor leaders, group processes, and program outcomes. The findings challenge some common perceptions about the role of gender in outdoor education experiences and suggest that new thinking about how to best facilitate the development of both males and females is needed. Introduction The purpose of this paper is to review the research literature on the effect of gender on people’s outdoor education experiences. Although a reasonable body of research exists, reviews of the research literature which draw on insights from the anecdotal literature are rare. Asking about the effect of gender on outdoor education experiences, prompts many questions, such as: • Do males and females have different outcomes for the same programs? • Are there different psychological, social, or physical processes that occur for males and females during outdoor education programs? • What influence does the gender of instructors have on outdoor education experiences for participants? • What does research say about single-sex and coeducational outdoor education programs? Although a comprehensive understanding of the impact that gender differences have in outdoor education is yet to be developed, answers to such questions are starting to become available. In the light of studies on gender differences, outdoor educators can make appropriate adjustments to their programs. Explaining the findings, however, still looms as a formidable challenge. Types of Gender Literature in Outdoor Education Broadly speaking, there are two types of literature on the influence of gender in outdoor education. The first type comprises articles and books largely based on the accumulated experience and anecdotal evidence of outdoor education practitioners. By way of generalization, the authors of the 1960’s and 1970’s tended to be men and they typically wrote about outdoor education for delinquent boys. Literature from the 1980’s, and particularly the 1990’s, reveals a shift in emphasis. Typically these works are authored by women and tend to focus on expressing and explaining females’ experiences of the outdoors in mixed-sex and single-sex settings. The second major source of gender literature in outdoor education comprises research studies which use qualitative and/or quantitative methodologies. The majority of these studies do not specifically investigate the role of gender in outdoor education, but include gender as a variable in studies of the processes and outcomes of outdoor education. Although not all the outdoor education gender literature can be categorized as neatly as presented here, the two sources of literature are distinct and make surprisingly little use of each other. For example, in her introduction to a recent book “Women’s Voices in Experiential Education”, Angelou (1996) commented that: “I find it noteworthy that no authors in this volume use quantitative justification as a basis for their essays...the experiences and voices of women are the foundation for hypothesis and analysis for contributors to this text” (p.4). On the other hand, the research literature tends to be dry and without colour in its reporting of gender-related outdoor education findings. The results are often presented in a couple of sentences, and the discussions rarely utilise the rich possibilities for explanation from experience-based literature. Is Gender Really an Issue? Maccoby and Jacklin (1974, p.6) could have been describing the outdoor education situation when they wrote that: JTN 10/96 GENDER4X.DOC 2 A number of the physical differences between the sexes are obvious and universal. The psychological differences are not. The folklore that has grown up about them is often vague and inconsistent. We believe there is a great deal of myth in the popular views about sex differences. There is also some substance... One way of examining gender myths for substance is through research findings. This approach has the strength of being (arguably) less subject to personal bias, but is limited by the number, range, and quality of research studies available. Is it really necessary to look at the research literature? In the “enlightened” 1990’s aren’t we all aware of gender differences and their implications? Unfortunately, this is one of the myths about gender. A research study by Swim (1994) found that people tend towards reasonably accurate estimations or towards underestimation of the actual size of gender differences. There were, however, two areas in which people overestimated gender differences: that men are more aggressive and that women have superior verbal ability. Nevertheless, the stronger tendency towards underestimation implies that outdoor educators need to be better informed about the extent of gender differences. Gender Literature in Education, Research, and Outdoor Education There is a noticeable gender bias in the volume of material available. There is a sizable body of literature on female-only programs, some literature comparing males and females on outdoor education programs, and comparatively few contemporary studies on male only programs. A systematic search of the Educational Resources Information Centre (ERIC) database was conducted to test these observations. The titles, abstracts, and keywords of three decades of educational articles were searched for occurrences of males and females, with the major findings as follows: Figure 1. Frequency of ERIC citations containing males and females. 1966-1981 1982-1996