Loris Malaguzzi (1993) claims that students enter school already “contaminated” with “pieces of the world attached” and of the “experiences we bring with us” (p. 2). Teachers need to understand what these “contaminants” are, how they influence or relate to students’ learning and their teaching practices before they can engage appropriate techniques. An ideal way to assess the influencing factors of students’ social inequality would be to observe students’ ‘virtual schoolbag’ (Thomson, 2002, p. 3). ‘Vicki’ and ‘Thanh’ from Pat Thomson’s 2002 Schooling the Rustbelt Kids, Robyn Ewing’s 2013 statistical view of Australia’s social structure, Lawrence, Brooker and Goodnow’s 2012 open–minded, explorative Ethnicity: Finding a Cultural Home in Australia …show more content…
Their findings show that it is not the fault or inclination of the individual to hold or act upon certain beliefs, but the society they are raised in. Theorist Urie Bronfenbrenner presented a very similar diagram which outlines the ‘systems’ and their developmental influences on humans. The N.U.T’s review reflects the Micro– and Mesosystems of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (Margetts, Woolfolk, 2013, p. 25). The N.U.T also look at the ways gender inequality may be bred within the classroom with resources such as story books, family orientated films (p. 4). Even the sociohistorical understandings conceived of women’s roles in society from the 1960s and earlier, such as “women don’t go to work” (p. 8) and “[…] girls were also dismissed as ‘baby changers’ or ‘cooking in the kitchen’” (p. 15). Although this is written by the British Union of Teachers, their debated concerns aren’t so different from Australian concerns. The N.U.T explains how teachers, educationalists and support staff confronted, discussed and handled the issues that emerged in the classroom. “The teachers took the opportunities to challenge stereotypical representations of gender or to highlight and endorse non – stereotypical expressions of gender whenever they occurred” (N.U.T, 2013, p.