Rating: 
Summary: Helps understand complexities of adolescence.
Review: This is an expose of a "hidden curriculum" in our schools. It explores the effect it has on our children as schools help reinforce stereotypical gender roles, whether they intend to or not. The book is based on a study that suggests that as they reach adolescence, a girl's self-esteem drops and performance in school is compromised. Girls and boys adopt the traditional gender stereotypes with assertiveness being seen as masculine and restraint and compliance seen as feminine. Because Peggy Ornestein is not a trained adolescent psychologist, her conclusions may be suspect, but through anecdotal stories and interviews Ornestein adds a human dimension to survey data. She brings the problem to life and makes it difficult to ignore. Ornestein gives the reader reason to care about what happens to April and Lisa, two of the girls she profiles in the book. Pervasive gender inequity in teaching is one of many difficulties facing educators, students and families attempting to improve today's education system. The observations in this book can go a long way toward understanding the complexities of adolescence and toward improving the learning environment.
Rating:
Summary: Helps understand complexities of adolescence.
Review: This is an expose of a "hidden curriculum" in our schools. It explores the effect it has on our children as schools help reinforce stereotypical gender roles, whether they intend to or not. The book is based on a study that suggests that as they reach adolescence, a girl's self-esteem drops and performance in school is compromised. Girls and boys adopt the traditional gender stereotypes with assertiveness being seen as masculine and restraint and compliance seen as feminine. Because Peggy Ornestein is not a trained adolescent psychologist, her conclusions may be suspect, but through anecdotal stories and interviews Ornestein adds a human dimension to survey data. She brings the problem to life and makes it difficult to ignore. Ornestein gives the reader reason to care about what happens to April and Lisa, two of the girls she profiles in the book. Pervasive gender inequity in teaching is one of many difficulties facing educators, students and families attempting to improve today's education system. The observations in this book can go a long way toward understanding the complexities of adolescence and toward improving the learning environment.
Rating: 
Summary: Girls' High School Basketball Coach/AD jlori81@gte.net
Review: To read Peggy Orenstein's SchoolGirls is to take a journey into a world 1) that any man with a conscience is ashamed to remember ( because of the way boys treated girls ) and 2) that for high school girls and women to remember, is to recall the pain of being punished, physically abused, humiliated and emotionally beaten down for simply being born female. But before going into the book in depth, one important point must be made: While Orenstein's portrayal of girls and boys is accurate, it should not be taken as a message that all middle school girls are good but get shortchanged, or that all boys engage in destructive behavior when it comes to girls. There are wonderful adolescent boys and nightmarish middle school girls. And some girls do have a very positive experience. Unfortunately, Orenstein's portrayal is the norm and it is accurate. What Orenstein did was to go into two vastly different schools, one in a solidly white middle class community and the other located in an urban black and Hispanic neighborhood. Both schools were located in Northern California. She observed and interviewed the girls ( as she gained their trust ) for an academic school year to see what they were experiencing with regard to their academic, home and social lives. Although the cultural environments were vastly different, the dynamics of both groups' experiences turned out to be strikingly similar in many respects. I remember all too well what went on in junior high school in the 60s. I was not aware that while the same basic social structures exist today, the pressures and dangers are much greater than they were 30 years ago: Sixth grade boys pressuring their pubescent female peers into intercourse and the girls feeling trapped between fear of rejection and being labeled a slut; boys who treat girls' bodies like it is public property to be pinched pulled and fondled in public; boys' totally dominating the classroom to the point where girls give up, lose interest and start failing classes that they could easily have gotten As in; constantly bombarding girls with the thought that they are bad at sports. But even more incredible are the administrators who can effect change. Teachers and counselors work hard to enforce newly created sexual harassment laws only to have the administrators nix the effort out of laziness or personal sexist beliefs -- " If he grabbed you like that you must have asked for it . " This is not a fun exciting read. But as someone who coaches teenage girls in basketball and is very dedicated to changing their lives for the better, I feel that this book ( although at times depressing ) has helped me to understand, better than ever before, what it is like to be a teenage female at the turn of the millennium. Don't read this book if you are searching for justification for adolescent boys. But by all means, do read this book if you really want to know how middle school girls are abused and shortchanged in America.
Rating:
Summary: Girls' High School Basketball Coach/AD jlori81@gte.net
Review: To read Peggy Orenstein's SchoolGirls is to take a journey into a world 1) that any man with a conscience is ashamed to remember ( because of the way boys treated girls ) and 2) that for high school girls and women to remember, is to recall the pain of being punished, physically abused, humiliated and emotionally beaten down for simply being born female. But before going into the book in depth, one important point must be made: While Orenstein's portrayal of girls and boys is accurate, it should not be taken as a message that all middle school girls are good but get shortchanged, or that all boys engage in destructive behavior when it comes to girls. There are wonderful adolescent boys and nightmarish middle school girls. And some girls do have a very positive experience. Unfortunately, Orenstein's portrayal is the norm and it is accurate. What Orenstein did was to go into two vastly different schools, one in a solidly white middle class community and the other located in an urban black and Hispanic neighborhood. Both schools were located in Northern California. She observed and interviewed the girls ( as she gained their trust ) for an academic school year to see what they were experiencing with regard to their academic, home and social lives. Although the cultural environments were vastly different, the dynamics of both groups' experiences turned out to be strikingly similar in many respects. I remember all too well what went on in junior high school in the 60s. I was not aware that while the same basic social structures exist today, the pressures and dangers are much greater than they were 30 years ago: Sixth grade boys pressuring their pubescent female peers into intercourse and the girls feeling trapped between fear of rejection and being labeled a slut; boys who treat girls' bodies like it is public property to be pinched pulled and fondled in public; boys' totally dominating the classroom to the point where girls give up, lose interest and start failing classes that they could easily have gotten As in; constantly bombarding girls with the thought that they are bad at sports. But even more incredible are the administrators who can effect change. Teachers and counselors work hard to enforce newly created sexual harassment laws only to have the administrators nix the effort out of laziness or personal sexist beliefs -- " If he grabbed you like that you must have asked for it . " This is not a fun exciting read. But as someone who coaches teenage girls in basketball and is very dedicated to changing their lives for the better, I feel that this book ( although at times depressing ) has helped me to understand, better than ever before, what it is like to be a teenage female at the turn of the millennium. Don't read this book if you are searching for justification for adolescent boys. But by all means, do read this book if you really want to know how middle school girls are abused and shortchanged in America.
Rating:
Summary: UNBELIEVEABLE
Review: UNBELIEVEABLE that is all I can say. As a future educator, this book was an eye-opener. I feel every education professional and parent NEEDS to read this book. In brief, it shows how America unknowingly promotes gender streotypes.Very Moving.
Rating:
Summary: UNBELIEVEABLE
Review: UNBELIEVEABLE that is all I can say. As a future educator, this book was an eye-opener. I feel every education professional and parent NEEDS to read this book. In brief, it shows how America unknowingly promotes gender streotypes. Very Moving.
Rating:
Summary: Be you man or woman, read this book.
Review: Very easy to read. Well-written. Disturbing.
If you have kids in school, or if you work with kids, the book is all the more important. Sheds light on topics that are rarely
given the light of day: how girls are essentially shortchanged
in many ways in our school system. Getting information like
this is the beginning of change. The issues in this book
affect all of us. Buy it. Read it. Share it. A very, very
important topic, and a book that does it justice.
Rating:
Summary: ATTN. Teachers: READ THIS!
Review: While I could not personally relate to most of the experiences of the girls interviewed for this book I was not surprised that this kind of gender discrimination exists in our nation's learning institutions. Peggy Orenstein does a wonderful job illustrating the social anxieties and educational challenges facing middle-school girls from two racially and economically divergent schools in Northern California. It angered and saddened me to read about what these girls went through while trying to get an education. Hopefully this book will open the eyes of educators nationwide so that some serious social changes can be implemented to better improve the way our children learn. It would be interesting to see a follow-up of "Schoolgirls" and see what eventually became of these kids. After reading through these reviews, I was shocked to see how many unidentified "readers" gave the book one star because they felt that the boys were the ones being mistreated in this book. Come on people...the book is called "SchoolGIRLS" not "SchoolBOYS".
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