The hidden gender equality problem of school democracy : Student experiences in a gender segregated upper secondary school

The general question in this dissertation is whether the democracy of schools is carried out in a gender equal manner in Sweden’s gender segregated upper secondary school. Students’ experiences of school democracy are measured using the dimensions of influence, discussion and legal rights. Three different explanatory factors are considered: the significance of gender, gender context and the character of the school programmes for these experiences. The study is based on student responses to a poll conducted in the top form classes of Kronoberg County’s upper secondary schools during the school year 2008/2009. The results of a series of regression analyses show that neither gender, gender context or programme character alone had an affect on experiences of school democracy. However, the more males present in a teaching environment, the poorer the experiences of influence and discussion are when all of the three explanatory factors are controlled for. In addition, the school programmes having male-coded character content particularly stand out favourably regarding school democracy. The number of males is usually high in such programmes and therefore the negative effects of male representation cancel out the positive effects of programme affiliation unless an explicit division is made of both of these aspects. Thus, keeping gender context and programme character separate is very important with studies of school democracy, since significant effects otherwise remain hidden. The study demonstrates that school democracy is important for students. Those students who have good experiences of school democracy perceive the school environment as significantly better than those who have poor experiences of school democracy. Concerning secondary effects, it appears that experiences of school democracy have different implications for learning among female and male students. There is a negative relationship between male experiences of influence and their grades in Swedish and Maths, while female experiences of discussion seem to show a positive covariance with grades. There is no relationship found in the data between students’ daily experiences of school democracy and their thoughts on voting in the upcoming parliamentary election