Students' Gendered Experiences of High School Portfolio Art Assessment in Canada, the Netherlands, and England

Abstract

This study combines findings in the literature with a small-scale survey of male and female students' gendered experiences of high school assessment in art in Canada, England, and the Netherlands. The main research question was: “Are high school experiences of portfolio assessment in art different based on gender?” As well, we raise a related question asked by Nochlin, “Why have there been no great women artists?” (Collins and Sandell, 1996). The survey data reveal that students' experiences of high school portfolio assessment in art differs according to gender. Males are less likely than females to know and understand the qualities a teacher is looking for in their work; males consider it less important than females do to know and understand the criteria for assessment; it is less important to males than females to discuss their an with their teacher; and males find group critiques less valuable than females do. The findings from the literature concur: In high school an education, girls are more numerous and successful. We posit that biological differences and socio-cultural influences are factors. As well, in spite of gender inclusive strategies for teaching art in which classroom power relations are ‘flatter,’ a modernist paradigm persists in which patriarchal control of curriculum and education prevails. At the tertiary level, females outnumber males, but are less successful. They are pathologized as disturbed or depressed by patronizing male instructors and are much less visible as practicing artists and designers. In light of Nochlin's question, it continues to be difficult for women to be visible artists and designers because in spite of the short-lived success of females in high school portfolio art assessment, the fundamental inner structures of patriarchal western society have not changed significantly.

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