Internal

• Attitudes to school work:


  Boys overestimate their ability and girls underestimate theirs. Francis conducted research in three London secondary schools and found that boys thought exams would be easy and didn't warrant much effort. When they failed they tended to blame teachers or their lack of effort - not their own ability.
• Masculinity and anti-school subcultures

  School work is seen as feminine. Working class boys engage in 'laddish' behaviour to gain 'street cred' and status among their peers by rejecting school and not working.

  Francis found that boys were more concerned than girls about being labelled by their peers as 'geeks' because this label is threatening to their masculine identity. Similarly, Epstein found that working class boys risked being bullied or seen as 'gay' if they appeared to be hard-working at school.
• What did Francis find regarding the lack of male teachers and boys' underachievement?


  It might not be a factor in boys' underachievement.
• What are the two types of language teachers used according to Read?


  Disciplinarian and liberal discourse.
• How is disciplinarian discourse characterized?


  The teacher's authority is made explicit and visible, e.g., through shouting.
• How is liberal discourse characterized?


  The teacher speaks to the pupil as if they were an adult and explains their expectations.
• What did Read find about the use of 'masculine' discourse among teachers?


  Females were as likely as males to use a 'masculine' discourse to control behaviour.
• What conclusion did Read reach regarding the claim that schools are being feminised?


  She concluded that this claim is disproved.
• Teacher labelling


  Francis found that teachers often had low expectations of boys and disciplined them more harshly than girls. Boys are more likely to be given negative labels compared to girls, which usually became a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, a male student given the negative label of 'trouble maker' will believe he is a trouble maker and not bother trying at school, instead mess about and not do school work, resulting in underachievement.
• Feminisation of education

  Tony Sewell claimed that education has become feminised with schools celebrating more feminine qualities such as working attentively in class opposed to more masculine qualities of competitiveness and leadership. He was also critical of too much coursework. 

  Others have highlighted the lack of male teachers as a reason for the feminisation of education.