Ninety percent of the students are African American, Latino, Asian, or Filipino. The school has been neglected by the wealthy population in the area. Outwardly the school has the potential to provide an equitable environment, yet the hidden curriculum reaches young women here just as consistently as at Audubon Middle School, a very different place in many ways yet somehow it delivers the same message regarding gender roles.Īudubon Middle School rests on the cusp of a residential neighborhood and the warehouse district of a Northern California city. The teachers at Weston are progressive in their methods, seeking ways to engage students actively in learning as they teach from new, inclusive text books. Well supported by parents and the community, Weston has earned a 'California Distinguished School' award based on student standardized test scores as well as exemplary staff performance. The bumper stickers on the cars delivering the children to school reflect the mix: 'Toyota vans advertising the local NPR affiliate pull up behind rusty pickups that proclaim: 'My wife said if I buy another gun she'll divorce me God, Ill miss her'' (4). Weston Middle School is comprised of both working-class poor and young professionals. Only forty minutes apart by car, socioeconomically, they consist of two different worlds.

Orenstein centers her study at Weston Middle School and at Audubon Middle School in California's San Francisco Bay Area. Orenstein credits this report, based on information gleaned directly from children, as the impetus which led her back to eighth grade to investigate the causes and realities of the 'confidence gap' experienced by young women most drastically at the dawn of adolescence. (1991), the most extensive survey on gender and self-esteem ever conducted nationally, confirmed that between the ages of nine and fifteen girls suffer a tremendous decline in confidence in themselves and their competence, particularly in the areas of math and science. Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America The American Association of University Women's report Her book chronicles her courageous, painstaking gender journey, in which she exposes the problematic reality of the loss of self-esteem which occurs among adolescent girls. What would your life be like if you were born the opposite sex? Peggy Orenstein frames her book SchoolGirls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap

Schoolgirls by peggy orenstein