Gender and differences in achievement

• The impact of feminism (external factor)

  More job opportunities for women

  More positive female role models

  University is normal for women 18+

  Less expectation to start a family

  Higher aspirations for life
• Study of magazines

  MCROBBIE

  Magazines in the 1970's emphasised the importance of getting married and not being 'left on the shelf'. Whereas nowadays they contain images of assertive and independent women. These changes affect girls self image and ambitions
• Changes in the family (external factor)

  - Increase in divorce:

  women not trapped in marriage however loose their main

  income, not wise to rely on a man for income want to

  look for themselves for support

  - Increase in cohabitation:

  More flexible, easier to leave the relationship

  - More female lone parents:

  more women taking the breadwinner role, girls see these

  as financially independent women

  - Smaller families - less children:

  focus on career and aspirations, have children later
• Changes in women's employment (external factor)

  1970 - equal pay act

  since this the pay gap has halved

  1975 - sex discrimination act

  Some women are now breaking the class ceiling

  These changes have encouraged girls to see their future in terms of paid work rather than housewives
• Girls changing ambitions (external factor)

  SHARPE

  1970's - low aspirations, priorities for Yr. 11 students was love, marriage, children

  1990's - priorities for Yr. 11 students was job, career, financially independent

  -Girls were increasingly wary of marriage as they had seen adult relationships break up around them. Girls were more concerned with standing on their own feet.

  -However there are class differences, working class girls had more gendered stereotypes
• Equal opportunities and policies (internal factor)

  BOALER

  Women are traditionally under represented in STEM subjects. Policies such as GIST and WISE encourage girls into STEM. National curriculum removed some inequality by making girls and boys study the same. Girls no longer face barriers into STEM subjects so school is more meritocratic. So girls who work harder, generally outperform boys
• Evaluation of equal opportunities and policies

  Where choice is possible boys and girls will still follow different gender routes. 3x more girls choose sociology than boys but 3x more boys choice to do physics than girls
• Positive role models (internal factors)

  76% of teachers are female this rises to 86% in primary school. Women are more likely to be teachers than men. Girls - women act as a role model, gives them an ambition. Boys - lack of male role model to give them an ambition.
• Evaluation of positive role models

  Although there are more female teachers, male teachers are still more likely to reach the top positions such as headteachers in secondary school
• Changes in the curriculum (internal factors)

  GORAD

  Gender gap in achievement was consistent between 1975 - 1988 until GCSE's and coursework were introduced.

  MITSOS AND BROWNE

  girls are more successful in coursework because they are more organized, take more care, better at meeting deadlines. In oral exams girls do better as they have better developed language skills as a result of early gender role socialization where they are encouraged to be neat, tidy and patient
• Evaluation of changes in the curriculum

  Exams have more influence on final grades, so the introduction of coursework had only limited effect on gender differences in achievement
• Teacher attention (internal factor)

  FRENCH AND FRENCH

  Boys receive more negative attention as they are more likely to be misbehaving. Teachers interacted positively with girls, focusing on how well they do at school work rather than behavior. Boys dominate class discussions so can be labelled as disruptive.

  Leads to a self fulfilling prophecy in which successful interactions with girls promote their self esteem and raise their achievement whereas boys are negatively labelled isolating them.
• Evaluation of teacher attention

  Gillborn and Youdell

  Teacher attention is based on ethnicity. Teachers have more racialized expectations of Black / Asian pupils and are more likely to give them negative attention based on stereotypes
• Challenging stereotypes (internal factor)

  WEINER

  Since the 1980's stereotypes have been challenged and removed ( women as housewives, girls as frightened by science. This may have helped raise girls achievement by presenting them them with more positive images of what women can do.
• Selection (internal factor)


  JACKSON

  Marketisation policies have created more competition. Schools see girls as desirable as they achieve better exam results. High achieving girls are attractive to schools whereas low achieving boys are not. This creates a self fulfilling prophecy because girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools, they are therefore more likely to do well.
• Feminist view of girls achievement

  Liberal - Celebrate the progress made so far, encourage more equal opportunities policies and positive female role models

  Radical - believe education is still patriarchal were women experience sexual harassment and are under represented in leadership roles
• Identity, class and girls achievement

  ARCHER

  There is a conflict between working class girls feminine identity and the values and ethos of the school. By performing their working class feminine identities, girls gain symbolic capital. However this brings conflict with school preventing them from gaining good qualifications. There are several strategies that working class girls follow to gain symbolic capital : Hyper-heterosexual feminine identities, boyfriends, being loud. Leads to the working class girls dilemma.
• Explain how hyper-heterosexual feminine identities affect educational achievement

  Many girls spend considerable time, effort and money in constructing 'desirable' and 'glamorous' hyper-heterosexual feminine identities.

  - Makeup, jewellery and nice hair give you symbolic capital

  - Brings conflict with school policy's
• Explain how boyfriends affect educational achievement

  Having a boyfriend brings symbolic capital but also got in the way of school work and lowered girls aspirations.

  This could have led to girls loosing interest in going to university's and studying STEM subjects.

  Girls aspired to 'settle down', have children and work locally in working class feminine jobs such as childcare.

  One of the students in Archers study dropped out as she got pregnant
• Explain how being 'loud' affects educational achievement

  Loud feminine identities led to them being outspoken, assertive and independent e.g. questioning teachers authority.

  Conflicts with the ideal female pupil and brought conflict with teachers who viewed their behaviour as aggressive not assertive
• What is the working class girls dilemma

  According to Archer working class girls have to choose between:

  Gaining symbolic capital

  or

  Gain educational capital
• How does boys literacy affect boys achievement

  Parents spend less time reading to their sons

  boys leisure pursuits are footbal and computer games which don't develop language and communication skills

  Girls have a bedroom culture - talking and writing in diaries
• How does the feminisation of education affect boys achievement

  SEWELL

  boys fall behind because education has become feminised

  Schools do not nurture masculine traits such as competiveness and leardership

  Schools celebrate qualities more associated with girls e.g. following instructions, methodical work, attentiveness

  rise of coursework has also benefited girls
• How does the shortage of male primary teachers affect boys and achievement

  Only 14% of primary school teachers are male yet boys generally feel the presence of male teachers make them behave better and work harder

  Many primary schools have a feminised culture and are staffed by female teachers who are unable to control boys behaviour or exert discipline
• Evaluation of male primary school teachers

  Criticises the view that primary schools are feminised and only male teachers can exert firm discipline
• How does laddish subcultures affect boys and achievement

  EPSTEIN

  laddish subcultures have contributed to boys underachievement

  Working class boys are more likely to be harrased, bullied and subjected to homophobic verbal abuse if they appear to be 'swots'

  boys are concerned about being labelled as 'swots' beacsue this label is more of a threat to thier masculinity than it is to girls feminity
• Evaluation of laddish subcultures

  there is a moral panic about failing boys, but in reality girls achievement should be celebrated, not neglected and forgotten
• Reasons for differences in gender and subject choice

  1. Gender role socialisation

  2. Gendered subject images

  3. Gender identity and peer pressure

  4. Gendered career opportunities
• Explain how gender role socialisation affects gender and subject choice

  NORMAN

  in the family boys and girls are dressed differently and given different toys to play with

  BRYNE

  Teachers encourage boys to be tough whereas girls are encouraged to be helpful, clean and tidy. This explains why boys are more likely to select practical subjects and girls are more likely to choose passive subject

  female gender domain - people's feelings and emotions SHAPE subjecta

  male gender domain - how things work STEM
• How does gendered subject images affect gender and subject choice

  KELLY

  science is stereotypically seen as a boys subject

  1. Science teachers are more likely to be men

  2. The examples teachers use often draw from boys rather than girls interests

  3. In science lessons, boys monopolise the equipment and dominate the laboratory as if its theirs
• How does gender identity and peer pressure affect gender and subject choice

  PAETCHER

  boys and girls apply pressure to behave in a certain way. e.g. boys tend to opt out of music and drama as these activities fall outside of their gender domain as they attract a negative response

  girls opt out of PE as fear of being called lesbian
• How does gendered career opportunities affect gender and subject choice

  Employment is highly gendered and jobs tend to be sex typed. Women's jobs often involve work similar to that performed by housewives such as childcare, nursing or cleaning

  FULLER

  working class pupils make decisions based on traditional gender identity

  Most working class girls in her study had ambitions to go into jobs such as childcare or hair and beauty
• pupils sexual and gender identities

  CONNEL

  hegemonic masculinity - the dominance of a straight white man

  1. double standards - sex

  2. verbal abuse - slags

  3. the male gaze - look girls up and down

  4. male peer groups - gay as an insult

  5. Female peer groups - dating culture

  6. teachers and discipline - strong helpful boys