ALLOWING GIRLS TO JOIN?
2:33 AM
Q - The group that I am an Assistant Scout Leader for is currently looking into allowing girls to join the group from Beavers through to Scouts. All of the sections have at least one female leader in its leadership team. However the Scout section at the group only has a male leadership team. Is there anything that we should be considering to make this a an easy transition for all concerned?
A - If you want to open your group to both boys and girls, the first question you have to ask yourself is WHY? If it is just because it is more convenient or if you consider it a way to recruit more members, I believe you should think again before implementing this decision. In fact, before starting you need to have a clear "educational proposal" agreed by all the leaders of your group.
By "educational proposal", I mean a text explaining clearly the EDUCATIONAL reasons why you want to offer Scouting to both girls and boys. You cannot do proper educational work if you don't have some clear educational goals.
Therefore, you should first organise a meeting of all the leaders of your group to examine the following issues:
1. What are the educational goals that we want to achieve by offering Scouting to both girls and boys?
2. What added value will a coeducational framework bring us?
3. What are the potential difficulties or risks?
4. How to prevent or overcome them?
5. What conditions should we respect in order to do good educational work?
To give you some "hints", I think that Scouting has a very important role to play in order to challenge the gender stereotypes which still exist in our society.
We have to help each individual, whatever his/her gender to develop his/her full potential and we have to free young people from gender stereotypes.
Gender stereotypes can prevent children from developing their full potential (because they state that some roles are reserved exclusively to women or to men). Gender stereotypes can prevent girls and boys from working together on an equal footing.
Download the "Policy on girls and boys, women and men within the Scout Movement"
If you want to free young people from gender stereotypes you have to adopt some basic rules for your work. For example:
- Adult leaders have to set an example to young people of men and women working on an equal footing, sharing roles and responsibilities according to their skills and not according to (more or less implicit) "gender roles".
This means that you need to have both male and female leaders in your team and that you should share responsibilities in a fair way (for example, the female leaders are not automatically appointed as "assistants" or given menial tasks).
- This should be the same at the level of children and young people: a girl should have the same opportunities as a boy to become patrol leader... Roles, tasks and responsibilities should be distributed according to skills and not gender.
- If you want to help each individual to develop his/her full potential, you also need to review the way you consider the educational needs of both girls and boys. Nowadays it is often still implicitly accepted that boys be trained to become assertive, competitive, able to resist to stress and pain ("a boy does not cry!"), whereas girls have to develop relationship skills, be able to communicate and negotiate, develop artistic skills, etc.
You should challenge these stereotypes and give each individual- whatever his/her gender - equal opportunities to acquire all whole range of skills and attitudes which are necessary for his/her full development. Girls also have the right to be assertive and competitive and boys also have the right to develop their skills in relationships, negotiation, arts, etc.
If you agree on this educational approach, then you will discover the great added value that a coeducational framework will bring to your group and how it will help accelerate the maturity and development of both girls and boys.
On the contrary, if you put girls and boys together without any further reflection, without any educational vision, the coeducational framework will bring nothing more and you will quickly discover that, despite being open to both boys and girls, the membership of your group is not growing.
The World Scout Bureau is currently undertaking research on "gender education" in partnership with the University of Oslo.
A - If you want to open your group to both boys and girls, the first question you have to ask yourself is WHY? If it is just because it is more convenient or if you consider it a way to recruit more members, I believe you should think again before implementing this decision. In fact, before starting you need to have a clear "educational proposal" agreed by all the leaders of your group.
By "educational proposal", I mean a text explaining clearly the EDUCATIONAL reasons why you want to offer Scouting to both girls and boys. You cannot do proper educational work if you don't have some clear educational goals.
Therefore, you should first organise a meeting of all the leaders of your group to examine the following issues:
1. What are the educational goals that we want to achieve by offering Scouting to both girls and boys?
2. What added value will a coeducational framework bring us?
3. What are the potential difficulties or risks?
4. How to prevent or overcome them?
5. What conditions should we respect in order to do good educational work?
To give you some "hints", I think that Scouting has a very important role to play in order to challenge the gender stereotypes which still exist in our society.
We have to help each individual, whatever his/her gender to develop his/her full potential and we have to free young people from gender stereotypes.
Gender stereotypes can prevent children from developing their full potential (because they state that some roles are reserved exclusively to women or to men). Gender stereotypes can prevent girls and boys from working together on an equal footing.
Download the "Policy on girls and boys, women and men within the Scout Movement"
If you want to free young people from gender stereotypes you have to adopt some basic rules for your work. For example:
- Adult leaders have to set an example to young people of men and women working on an equal footing, sharing roles and responsibilities according to their skills and not according to (more or less implicit) "gender roles".
This means that you need to have both male and female leaders in your team and that you should share responsibilities in a fair way (for example, the female leaders are not automatically appointed as "assistants" or given menial tasks).
- This should be the same at the level of children and young people: a girl should have the same opportunities as a boy to become patrol leader... Roles, tasks and responsibilities should be distributed according to skills and not gender.
- If you want to help each individual to develop his/her full potential, you also need to review the way you consider the educational needs of both girls and boys. Nowadays it is often still implicitly accepted that boys be trained to become assertive, competitive, able to resist to stress and pain ("a boy does not cry!"), whereas girls have to develop relationship skills, be able to communicate and negotiate, develop artistic skills, etc.
You should challenge these stereotypes and give each individual- whatever his/her gender - equal opportunities to acquire all whole range of skills and attitudes which are necessary for his/her full development. Girls also have the right to be assertive and competitive and boys also have the right to develop their skills in relationships, negotiation, arts, etc.
If you agree on this educational approach, then you will discover the great added value that a coeducational framework will bring to your group and how it will help accelerate the maturity and development of both girls and boys.
On the contrary, if you put girls and boys together without any further reflection, without any educational vision, the coeducational framework will bring nothing more and you will quickly discover that, despite being open to both boys and girls, the membership of your group is not growing.
The World Scout Bureau is currently undertaking research on "gender education" in partnership with the University of Oslo.
