| dc.description.abstract | Using the Boys and Girls Club of Thunder Bay as a case study, this research
focuses on how girls receive, understand, and resist dominant messages of femininity,
heterosexuality, and the body that value sexiness over intelligence and academic success
in the hidden curriculum in Ontario schools. The study explains how preadolescent girls
age 8-14 are affected by the mass media, but also how they negotiate competing
discourses in the hidden curriculum and may resist them. Premised on the fact that girls'
thoughts, experiences, and opinions matter, the study utilizes girls' voices, stories, and
ideas to provide solutions for the overwhelming evidence of gender disparities in the
hidden curriculum. A feminist qualitative perspective is the foundation for the research,
using focus group discussions to provide the space and time for preadolescent girls to
reflect and offer their interpretations of the social world, shedding light on the lives and
experiences of girls' by speaking with them, rather than about them. Through the use of
the focus groups, girls' perspectives can provide valuable knowledge to assist educators
to better serve the needs of girls at school. The results of the research indicate that
preadolescent girls' educational experiences are affected by media content that continues
to represent girls through features of heteronormative femininity. | en_US |
