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In the UK, we’re lucky to have a pool of dedicated SENCo professionals who are specialised in helping and supporting learners with dyslexia, literacy differences and indeed, many other neurodivergent minds in their studies. However when we look at the actual breakdown of the SENCo professionals in our schools, one thing becomes apparent above all others: they’re mostly all women.
According to an article by Dr. Mark Pulsford for Teachwire, unfortunately we don’t have information available on the actual gendered spread of men, women and non-binary people in the SENCo role, but the publication does anecdotally mention that their authors have been extremely hard-pressed to find men who work in a SENCo capacity in our schools. Evidence supplied by the National Award for SEN Co-Ordination suggests that the primary demographic of people who sign up for their courses are women in their 30s and 40s. If we consider that pre-pandemic figures show around 75% of primary to secondary school teachers in the UK are women and 25% men, it stands to reason that we’d expect around 25% of people in a SENCo role to be men- but instead, we’re looking at a school system where the male SENCo is incredibly rare, and researchers like Dr. Pulsford end up only finding 4 participants for a high-level ESRC study focused on male SENCo experiences.
But what does it mean?
Essentially, the question we’re asking is are women taking on more than their equal share of job-based care and support responsibility for learners with dyslexia and literacy differences – but in terms of our answer, this isn’t really that meaningful. Yes, women in a SENCo role may vastly, vastly outnumber men in a SENCo role, but what are the actual effects of this kind of demographic split in the profession?
The first piece of the puzzle is that in having a very female-fronted SENCo profession, we’re reinforcing the idea that women in the education sector are the forefront of care, support and guidance. There are arguments that this kind of role may be seen by children as almost motherly; a support mechanism, a dedicated, qualified hand to hold for learners who struggle or are more vulnerable. And for many it is- SENCo professionals do an amazing job and the school system would likely not be able to function without them, but by creating a sub-section of overwhelmingly female educational professionals whose role is to support and care for learners who may struggle, we create a network of associations. For children, it’s easy to see women educators take on these roles and male educators not take on these roles and make assumptions, reinforcing the idea that there’s a natural gravitation in female educational professionals towards these kinds of more personal, support-focused teaching roles that male educators don’t feel.
Combine this with the current trend that women educators in 2022 are still significantly less likely to become headteachers, less likely to enter senior leadership teams and far less likely to become heads early in their careers, and we have a problematic binary on our hands. One set of educators takes on responsibility for a learning support role, often seen as more personal and rooted in ‘caring’ for learners, and the other take on leadership roles, and also finds these roles far easier to progress into and come by. Children, even very young ones, take notice of these kinds of splits in demographic, and it creates a difficult to erase a problematic set of assumptions that many won’t stop to consider the implications of until they’re much older, if at all.
And this goes deeper, too – if you’re an active member of the global dyslexia community, think of all the amazing dyslexia influencers who spend their time and resources advocating for children and young people, blogging about their parenting experience, sharing their knowledge and influencing their community. How many of them are women, and how many of them are men? There are some amazing dyslexia and neurodiversity advocates for children the world over, but it remains that there’s an unequal gender split in the role of the parent-influencer when it comes to supporting young, neurodivergent learners: there are nowhere near as many men in these roles, and it means that we're actually presenting a very gendered face of dyslexia support across the board.
This has a few implications: one is that it has the potential to create false assumptions about what is a highly specialised and vital role. If we run with these kinds of assumptions and don’t challenge them, it’s easy to see how young learners might conceptualise SENCo and/or advocate status as a ‘helping and supporting’ role based in an outdated and inaccurate gender binary – the ‘mother’-coded educator and influencer, as opposed to the highly trained specialist or tireless advocate that they actually are. The second is that for male and non-binary teachers who do want to get into these roles, there’s a climate of rarity and divergence from an accepted norm about them, which may make it harder for them to find positions and followings as they don’t fit the bill.
What we end up with is a system in which the main responsibilities for helping, championing and supporting young learners with dyslexia and literacy differences are held by women. It’s not a problem in terms of the power this community has- it’s an amazing demographic of people whose dedication changes lives on the daily, but it does mean that we’re fostering a system in which it feels perhaps that dyslexia support is somewhat of a 'female thing'. To younger learners, it could also reinforce an idea that there's a predilection in this female demographic towards 'helping and supporting' children and young people, rooted in outdated gender binary assumptions and again, a fundamental under-appreciation of the high-level educator skills that SENCos have.
And in 2022, that's a problem.
What needs to change?
We need to look more to systemic change. We need to change perceptions of the SEN specialist role and appreciate them as highly trained and vitally important, as well as the the educators who ‘help and support’ – and this means allocating them positions in leadership and senior management, as well as the time and resources they need. SENCo voices do, to a large extent, need to be amplified within decision-making in schools and beyond – and we need to make sure that across the board, women in schools are having a fair shot at high-level opportunities at the appropriate points in their career.
We also need to figure out in terms of SENCo training and recruitment how to erase that gendered assumption and pull more teachers, both men and women, into the profession. We don’t have enough SENCos, and numbers decline year on year: there is a vital need to replenish these numbers or else we risk the educational futures of generations of children and young people. So again, we need to more accurately frame the SENCo and the incredible work that these people do as a means of opening up the profession to those who don’t fit the demographic, but may see their future in that direction. SEN specialist roles are challenging ones that require a very high degree of skill, but the appreciation other kinds of similar-level specialists get in other professions simply doesn’t line up yet in many schools and systems worldwide- and this needs to change.
And finally, we need to break the assumption that dyslexia support is a female predilection towards the ‘caring and supporting’ side of the developmental process in 2022. We need to create male SENCo, support professional and influencer role models, and open up school leadership to more women, especially to those who are SENCo-trained. By focusing on erasing the incorrect assumptions about these roles, we can create a new, accurate conceptualisation of the role where professionals are appreciated for the difficult but vital work they do. And this not only opens the door to the profession to male educators who may gravitate towards the profession but feel blocked out because they don’t ‘look like a SENCo’, but also open the doors to decision-making and leadership in schools to female professional voices that need to be heard to a higher degree than they perhaps currently are.
