Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Blog

On Single-Sex Education

By Frances R. Spielhagen

It is no surprise that single-sex classes have emerged as a school reform that might foster student achievement. However, single-sex classes are not a “silver bullet” that will solve all problems associated with student achievement. Ideologically driven reform does not take into account the caveats that must accompany efforts to implement single sex classes.

Do single-sex classes work? The answer is a complex “Yes, no, and maybe.” While single-sex classes are not a panacea for the social ills that beset young adolescents and affect their academic performance, recent research that has examined the implementation of single-sex classes in several districts across the nation suggests that such arrangements work for some students, both boys and girls, in some academic areas. Single-sex class arrangements seem to be most effective when related to the developmental needs of the students. In fact, the younger the student, the more likely that being in a single-sex class will be a positive experience. Moreover, simply grouping students according to gender will not automatically enhance their achievement. Teachers must understand the ways in which they can address and actualize the various ways in which students learn. Such training takes place over time. There are no quick-fixes here. Finally, it is essential that equal curriculum opportunities be offered to all students, both boys and girls. The slippery slope to a curriculum that provides shop classes for boys and home economics classes for girls is dangerously real if one begins to believe that differences in style equals difference in capacity!

Should all students be taught in single-sex classes? Of course not! The very complexity of student personalities and populations precludes any “One size fits all” approach to education, especially in the middle grades. However, the more pertinent question is whether single-sex classes should be offered as a viable choice for students, parents, and teachers who strongly favor them and want to be involved in them. The answer to that question is a resounding “Yes.” Schools must involve parents in decision-making about single-sex classes. Moreover, students who opt for single-sex classes may benefit from the arrangement simply because they chose it. Their success may well be related to the chicken/egg symbiosis of choice and efficacy. Nevertheless, it is still success for those who choose the arrangement. As schools across the nation struggle to address declining achievement among all students, success is welcome wherever it can be found. Researchers who have examined the schools that have implemented single-sex classes can attest to the complexity of results that derive from separating students in any way.

Frances Spielhagen is currently an assistant professor of education at Mount Saint Mary College, in Newburgh, New York and is the author of Debating Single-Sex Education: Separate and Equal?

Don't Blame Katie Couric -- The First Sole Female Anchor Is Not the Cause of the Low Ratings at CBS Evening News

In 1983 TV Guide asked, “Why Are There Still No Female Dan Rathers?” And if Katie Couric steps down as the anchor of CBS Evening News, we still won’t have any “female Dan Rathers.”

When Couric took over at CBS Evening News, the press was quick to add her salary and new title: a five-year contract, a fifteen million dollar salary, Managing Editor, Katie Couric was heralded as the one who would reshape CBS Evening News. CBS executives were hoping that Katie Couric would build a bigger audience, including more women and younger viewers. Now that the newscast’s ratings have tanked, the media is pouncing on Couric – and the underlying theme is that “because she is a woman”-- her anchoring stint was unsuccessful. Katie Couric made history as the first woman anchor she is also being marked as the first woman anchor to fail. John Dickerson of Slate.com, and son of former pioneering correspondent Nancy Dickerson, said that it has taken women over thirty years to get to the anchoring position because “men have always run the networks and it takes time to convince men that women can handle the task. But it’s also the audience. Networks are risk averse and putting a woman in the anchor chair is a change for viewers and advertisers who fund that crucial hour of television. People took time to get used to a female face in the position of authority.”

And it would seem like they still aren’t ready, if we jump on the bandwagon and blame the low ratings of CBS Evening News on Katie Couric’s gender. Truth is, the failure of CBS Evening News is much more complex than that.

Sure, Katie Couric fell prey to the usual intense focus on her appearance, as most women on television do. It is true that the focus on Katie Couric’s appearance was a debilitating factor, but nothing new to women in the media. As Katie Couric readied herself for her new job as evening anchor on CBS, the media was filled with speculation on how effective she would be in the job and mostly, what she would wear and how she would style, and tint her hair to move from “perky” to the gravitas personality needed to deliver the weighty evening news. A story appeared on NBC News about how a publicity photo for CBS Evening News, featuring Katie Couric, had been airbrushed to make the new anchor appear slimmer. The caption on the screen, while the anchor told the story, read “Can CBS News Be Trusted?” The controversy spurred the debate about the standards of appearance for women in television and how they differ from the standards for men. And no one ever mentioned that a photo of Charlie Gibson has been re-touched to make him appear more fit and trim to anchor the news. If anything, the press seems to dote on Gibson’s “avuncular” average man appeal. When Harry Smith, (who by the way is missing a lot of his hair – but no one seems to comment) co-host of CBS The Early Show interviewed Katie Couric about her new position and pointed to the fact that so much hype about her appearance and qualifications, Katie Couric commented, “I think there is some residual sexism, and I think women are sort of judged by different standards. But I try not to get too preoccupied by that. I think that I feel very confident in who I am as a person and as a professional.”

Other factors that contributed to the low rating of CBS Evening News include the format of the broadcast, which was radically different than viewers were used to. There was a “free speech” section that featured people commenting “op/ed” style about issues of a topic nature, and longer interviews conducted in a more relaxed, homey atmosphere Unusual for network anchors, Katie Couric offered personal asides during the broadcast. In addition, CBS also strove to create a larger web presence for the broadcast, and this effort never gained traction.

Before she made her September 5, 2006 debut as anchor of the CBS Evening News Katie Couric went on a "listening tour" of six cities. Of the listening tour, Katie Couric noted “I think face-to-face conversations with people and really getting a sense of where they are and their likes and dislike, their frustrations, is invaluable.” In addition to meeting her CBS audience in person, Katie Couric also spent her time on the road raising money for cancer awareness. Many of us who follow women in leadership and media wanted her to be a resounding success. But it sounds as though, even if she ultimately leaves the CBS Evening News before her five year contract is up, Katie Couric, has been successful. Before starting her new job, Katie Couric said that she would have regretted not taking advantage of the opportunity to be anchor more than she would regret taking it. So before you quickly write off the first woman anchor of a major network, think about the many factors that go into being successful, and resist blaming it on gender.

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor of communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Books) and Paving the Way for Madam President (Lexington Books).

From Silence to Prominence; The Story of Women is Evident in Their Television Images

by Nichola D. Gutgold

Being First Lady seems like a dread for any woman who wishes to be known for her own achievements. Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams was so unhappy and desperate that most of the time she could be found indulging in chocolate and penning a biography titled  Adventures of a Nobody.  Eleanor Roosevelt carved out a life for herself as first lady, though the press pounced on her unorthodox role as she traveled around the country serving as the legs of her husband. But at least she had a voice. To see the progress that women have made in society we need only to turn on our televisions and see that women are not only major figures in the news, they are major figures reporting the news, too. Hillary Clinton as a viable presidential candidate is major progress over the symbolic presidential aspirations of Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Pat Schroeder, Elizabeth Dole and Carol Moseley Braun. As she said, she is “in, and in it to win.” Being a front runner, even if she doesn’t win the nomination, is closer than any woman in American history. And she was first lady. To be seen and heard is progress for women in politics and in broadcasting. From curvaceous weather forecasters hired more for their looks than their understanding of meteorology, women have become forces in television news. Women like Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley and Dana Bash, who are front and center reporting on the latest political developments. Crowley has become a presence on CNN, reporting on Washington politics. She has distinguished herself with witty, yet serious and intelligent coverage of the presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, George Bush, Pat Buchanan, Paul Tsongas, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Since the nomination of Jimmy Carter, she has reported from all but one of the national political conventions. Her strong, confident voice and insightful questions and commentary make her a fixture on the political scene. She is a self described “political junkie” who revels in participating in the campaigns and the other political rituals that she covers. Dana Bash represents the younger broadcast journalist who grew up with role models, including her own father, who had long and productive careers. Though her career trajectory demonstrates her strong work ethic and persistence—she started out labeling archival tapes--she recognizes that several women in broadcasting who went before her have paved the way for her to be successful at the most difficult and prestigious levels of journalism. She recalls telling Judy Woodward one day as she prepared for a stand up report from the White House, “I’m standing here on the North Lawn of the White House because you stood here before me.” She told me that though both her mother and father graduated from one of the top journalism schools in the country, her father immediately landed a good job in television, while the best job her mother could find was as a secretary. And we should remember some of the trailblazing women in journalism – women like NBC’s Nancy Dickerson whose son, John Dickerson is chief political correspondent of Slate.com. Dickerson was the first woman to cover the White House for television on a regular basis. She tenaciously studied speech at Catholic University while she was a producer at CBS with the hope that she could become a correspondent, though the idea of that was outrageous at the time. In 1965 Liz Trotta was television’s first woman assigned full-time as a foreign correspondent. She stayed with NBC for thirteen years, covering major stories in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. In 1962 Barbara Walters became a reporter for NBC’s Today show and is still a major presence—with a Star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame-- she has interviewed every American president and first lady since Richard and Pat Nixon. Many of the most controversial world leaders have sat down to tell their stories to her including Menachen Begin, Margaret Thatcher, Fidel Castro, Anwar Sadat, Vladimir Putin, Boris Yeltsin, King Hussein of Jordan and Premier Jiang Zemin. Her tenacity and hard work were especially evident she was the first of the three big network news anchors to conduct a joint interview with Egypt’s President Anwar el-Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Something that Walter Cronkite noted in his autobiography he “did not count on.” Lesley Stahl joined CBS as a correspondent in 1972 and was the first woman to co-anchor election night coverage.  And of course, Katie Couric is making history as the first sole anchor of CBS Evening News. So, yes, we are seeing women make gains not only as major figures in the news, but as major figures reporting the news.

 

Nichola D. Gutgold is associate professor or communication arts and sciences at Penn State University at Lehigh Valley and is author of Paving the Way for Madam President  (Lexington Books) and Seen and Heard: The Women of Television News (Lexington Book, forthcoming, March 2008)

 

Hillary Clinton's Tears

by Nichola Gutgold

I was feeling smug about my book Paving the Way for Madam President  because Hillary Clinton's "femaleness" wasn't getting much attention in the press all summer long and into the fall. UNTIL IOWA. It was her nomination to lose and it looks like she could be losing it.  CNN just featured a segment titled The Woman Question. And now, the former front runner Hillary Clinton has been cast as the aging, exhausted female who has worked harder and longer than anyone else for this promotion, only to see the rug pulled from under her by the young upstart male who seemed to come from nowhere with a message -– both visual and verbal -- that resonates better than hers.

When she was asked "how do you do it" at cafe in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, she choked and teared up when she explained:

"It's not easy, and I couldn't do it if I didn't passionately believe it was the right thing to do. You know, I have so many opportunities from this country just don't want to see us fall backwards," she said. Her voice breaking and tears in her eyes, she said, "You know, this is very personal for me. It's not just political it's not just public. I see what's happening, and we have to reverse it." "Some people think elections are a game, lot's of who's up or who's down, [but] it's about our country, it's about our kids' futures, and it's really about all of us together," she said.

Do Clinton's tears help or hurt her? Pat Schroeder was railed in the press in 1988 for shedding tears when she withdrew from the presidential race. Before her, Ed Muskie's steady image crumbled when he cried in New Hampshire in 1972 after mean spirited remarks were made about his family. Hillary's crying humanized her and can only help her in this emotionally charged race for the White House. Already, she won the first primary, when all the polls predicted she wouldn’t win.

For eight years as first lady, as a candidate for senate and in her presidential election race so far, Hillary Clinton was comfortable communicating in her usual masculine style. It is a style that I thought would work well for her because America is a surprisingly masculine country. Dutch communication scholar Geert Hofstede’s observation of feminine and masculine cultures is especially important to the prospects of a woman American president. Hofstede notes that “femininity stands for a society in which social gender roles overlap: both men and women are supposed to be modest, tender, and concerned with the quality of life.” Masculinity, on the other hand, “stands for a society in which social gender roles are clearly distinct: men are supposed to be assertive, tough and focused on material success.”

Then Barack Obama brought in Oprah Winfrey to endorse him and all bets were off. The nation became swept up with the pathos of a young, smart visual of everything American should be. And Hillary Clinton changed her communication style. Her emotional response to the woman in the diner showed that she is human--a working woman--ike so many of us. Before that, she responded very naturally in a debate that the impression of her that she isn’t likable, “hurts my feelings.” A peevish Barack Obama muttered, almost under his breath, “You’re likable enough.”

This is an emotional race. America needs a leader with heart and brains. Looks like Hillary Clinton is coming into her own to express why she wants to be president. It is her emotional communication style, tempered with her usual cerebral plan for the country that combined, may win her the prize.

Motherhood, the Media, and the Marine Corps

By Robin R. Cutler

On October 13, 1907, a 22-year-old marine from Portland, Oregon died during a fight with his fellow student officers in Annapolis, Maryland. The young men immediately claimed Lieutenant Sutton committed suicide; within 36 hours a swift and efficient naval investigation confirmed their story. But then something astonishing happened. Three thousand miles away in Portland, Oregon, the dead lieutenant's mother saw a "vision" of her son who denied the charge, and asked her to clear his name. Fueled by her Catholic faith, Rosa Brant Sutton would spend the next three years trying to redeem her son from the stigma of a mortal sin and learn the real truth about his death. Within a few months her spiritual battle became a political one — in the summer of 1909 a new naval investigation took place that was unprecedented.

The Sutton case became a national sensation as reporters, editors, members of Congress, high-ranking military officials, attorneys, doctors and ultimately the Cardinal of the Catholic Church were caught up in the question of what had really happened to Lieutenant Sutton. There was no question of friendly fire — this fratricide might have been homicide. In 1909, big-city papers in San Francisco and across the country put this case in their headlines for months as Americans from all walks of life acquired a stake in its outcome. Today, this mother's cause célèbre — a civilian seeking truth from military power — is a familiar story, a fact that is both instructive and sobering.

We might learn from the timeless language used by Major Harry Leonard, the savvy judge advocate in the Sutton court: "The hallowed grave of a dead son is no more sacred than the grave of a military reputation and there are great many military reputations at stake in this hearing." The accused marines' attorney, Arthur Birney, echoed this theme: "We know what an officer's honor is to him. It cannot be stained without the same kind of injury which is done to a woman's honor when it is stained . . ."

What really happened to "Jimmie" Sutton became less important than his mother's right to know. The case became a battle between protagonists who fought hard for their own versions of the truth. Today, America's journalists follow several families whose military sons died under questionable circumstances. Their efforts to learn the truth have been eerily similar to Rosa Sutton's both in their language and the hurdles they face. The soldiers' mothers, overwhelmed by a very private grief, have turned to the media unwillingly — and as did Rosa Sutton, Patrick Tillman's mother, Mary, has insisted on a congressional investigation of her son's mysterious death.

Misleading information — even blatant lies — may only be fully comprehensible over time. The whole truth (in so far as it can ever be known) about an alleged cover-up may come to light when the conflicting testimony surrounding cases such as these is analyzed years from now. Evidence will be weighed in the context of how military leaders function, what private battles individual officers and enlisted men faced, what allegiances they had and what personal debts witnesses owed. Only then will we understand why the exact same language used at the beginning of the twentieth century about misleading and inaccurate information from one of the armed services appears on the front pages of newspapers in 2007.

Robin R. Cutler has spent most of the past two decades as a public historian both at the National Endowment for the Humanities and as president of two nonprofit organizations. She is the author of A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Ten years ago she discovered the extraordinary primary sources that make it possible to explore the century-old case of Jimmie Sutton's death for the first time. You can visit her website at http://www.RobinRCutler.com/

 

July 19th to August 18th marks the 98th anniversary of the unprecedented naval investigation of Lieutenant James L. Sutton's death.