Subject Choice

• Carrie Paetcher - Peer Pressure and Identity:

  • Boys and Girls apply pressure to others if they disapprove of their choices
  • Boys doing dance or drama face criticisms as these subjects fall out of their domains
  • Sport was seen as a male subject and girls who chose it had to face a contradiction with the traditional female stereotype
• Carol Fuller - Gender, Vocation and Class:

  • Vocational courses have a social class element with the working class taking more gendered decisions
  • Most working class girls took courses in child care, hairdressing and beauty reflecting their working class habitus
  • Schools steered them towards jobs through work experience
• Browne and Ross - Gender Domains:

  • Due to socialisation girls and boys see different activities as their territory
  • Fixing a car sits within a male domain while caring for sick does not
  • These domains are shaped by their early interaction with adults
  • Their confidence levels are higher when taking on a task within their domains
• Evaluation - Single Sex Schooling

  • Diana Leonard
  • Pupils who go to single sex schools have less stereotyped views and make less traditional choices
  • 13,000 students were analysed
  • More single sex girls choose maths and science at A-Level, boys English and languages
  • Girls are 2.4 times more likely to choose physics
  • Lack of female physicists on TV contribute to a male image