Dictionary Definition
schoolgirl n : a girl attending school
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Translations
- Finnish: koulutyttö
- French: élève
- Italian: alunna , scolara
- Korean: 여학생 yeohaksaeng
See also
Extensive Definition
A schoolgirl is a girl attending either primary or
secondary school. They are generally aged between four and eighteen
years old.
Academic performance
In general, girls perform more poorly than boys on standardized tests. This has led to calls for greater equality in the school system. The disparity in test scores is attributed to a number of factors, such as girls being generally less aggressive than boys and thus getting less attention from the teachers, gender-bias in test questions, or a gender difference in proficiency at essay and fill-in questions versus multiple choice. According to The National Center for Fair & Open Testing, "despite the fact that females earn higher grades throughout both high school and college, they consistently receive lower scores on the exam than do their male counterparts. In 2001, females averaged 35 points lower than males on the Math section of the test, and 3 points lower on the Verbal section."Some researchers, such as Howe, http://www.scre.ac.uk/rie/nl60/nl60howe.html
have found that schoolgirls respond less well to a competitive
environment than do schoolboys, and some argue that girls are
better suited to a single sex classroom environment.
One of the factors hampering girls in the
developing world is attending school in the first place. The
United
Nations has argued that given that "Two-thirds of illiterates
are women", they argue that we should work to "Eliminate gender
disparities in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005,
and at all levels by 2015". This was set out by the UN as a
Millennium Development Goal.
School uniform
In many schools, girls are required to wear school uniforms. For many girls, this gives them a sense of collective identity, unity and equality. For others, the fact that they are forced to wear a particular type of clothing (such as a dress) is a source of frustration and tension.In popular culture
Schoolgirls are often discussed in books, films and the media in general. Often in fiction, they are portrayed as giggly, immature and flip-flopping in their opinions. Occasionally they are portrayed as nymphets, as in the book Lolita and on various commercial websites. However, this portrayal is somewhat at odds with the experience and behavior of most schoolgirls.The school
uniform, particularly the Catholic
school uniform and Japanese
school uniform, is an icon representation of schoolgirls in
popular culture. For example, the schoolgirl outfit that Britney
Spears wore for parts of the "...Baby
One More Time" music video has also become one of her
unofficial 'trademarks', an easily-recognizable public way of
representing her.
In pornography
Schoolgirls are a common genre of pornography, particularly
Japanese
pornography. The schoolgirl genre generally focuses on the
schoolgirl
uniform fetish or cheerleaders in combination
with an interest in youthful women ranging from ephebophilia to Pedophilia
(referred to as child
pornography), though sometimes it features neither having
adults dress as schoolgirls. Lolicon is the
Japanese slang term for the fetish of young girls used to refer to
pornography featuring drawn images of children or characters or
models that appear to be children, especially schoolgirls.
References and external links
- Gender and Classroom Interaction A Research Review published by SCRE May 1997
- Gender Bias in College Admissions Tests
- Boys, Girls and Grades How Do Girls and Boys Compare across the Province]
- Gender Bias in Schools Revisited