A feminist perspective on the school-to-labor pipeline

Abstract

Today, women across race and class categories graduate high school and college at higher rates than men (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). According to Marxist reproduction theories, schools maintain social hierarchies by academically rewarding the elite. Yet, despite educational gains, women remain materially and symbolically unequal, proving to be exceptions to reproduction frameworks (Fraser, 2009). This paper examines females' anomalous success through a feminist poststructuralist lens (Weedon, 1987). It critiques Marxist and feminist approaches to educational inequality for narrowly defining academic achievement and missing the effects of gender reproduction in schools. It presents an alternative understanding of academic success, one that incorporates gender performance, by examining how the discourse of "separate spheres" informs the dialectical relationship between schools and labor. By reviewing the theoretical, empirical, and historical accounts of schools and the labor market, the paper concludes that academically successful women perform and help reproduce a narrow version of White femininity.