Gender differences

• External - Impact of feminism

  • Has raised women's self esteem and expectations
  • McRobbie's study of girls' magazines. In 1970s they emphasises importance of getting married
  • Now, they contain images of assertive, independent women
  • This affects girls' self-image and ambitions
• External - changes in family

  • Increase in divorce rate
  • Increase in cohabitation
  • Increase in lone-parent families
  • Smaller families
• External - changes in women's employment

  • 1970 Equal Pay Act
  • Since 1975 the gapt between men and women has halved from 30% to 15%
  • Women in employment rose to 72% in 2020
  • Some women breaking through 'glass ceiling'
• External - changing ambitions

  • Sharpe: interview with girls in 70s & 90s
  • 70s they had low aspirations and gave priotity to love, marriage, children and husbands
  • 90s they saw their future as an independent woman with a career
• Class and ambition

  • Biggart: w/c girls likely to see motherhood as only vable option for their futures hence see less point in achieving in education
• Internal - Equal opportunity policies

  • GIST & WISE
  • National Curriculum in 1988 made both genders study almost same subjects
  • Boaler: girls work harder as barriers have been emoved and schooling is more meritocratic
• Internal - Positive role models

  • Increase in female teachers & heads
  • Shows girls that women can achieve positions of importance & gives them non-traditional goals to aim for
  • Highlghts the rewards of staying in education
• Internal - GCSEs & Coursework

  • Goard: gender gap in achievement was fairly consistent untril introduction in 1989
  • Mitsos & Browne: girls more successful in CW as they spend more time on it and take more care on presentation, meeting deadlines and bringing the correct equipment to lessons
  • Criticism: Elwood argues it can't be the only influence as exams have the biggest impact on grades
• Internal - Teacher attention

  • French & French: boys attract more attention because they attract more reprimands
  • Francis: boys feel more picked on and targeted when disciplined more harshly by teachers who have low expectations of them
  • Swann: boys dominate whole class discussions whereas girls prefer pair work as they are better at listening - teacher viewthem more positively as they seem more co-operative
• Internal - Stereotypical curriculum

  • Research in 70s & 80s found that reading schemes portrayed women as housewives, and physics showed them as frightened by science
  • Weiner: sexist images have since been removed and has raised girls achievement and goals
• Internal - League tables

  • Jackson: high achieving girls are attractive to schools whereas low achieving boys are not which creates a self-fulfilling prophecy
  • Slee: boys are less attractive to schools because they suffer from behavioural difficulties and are 4X more likely to be excluded - making them liabilities
• Girls' achievement - Liberal Fem

  • Celebrate the progress made so far
  • Believe further progress will be made
  • Done by developing opportunity policies, encouraging role modekls and the overcoming of stereotypes
• Girls' achievement - Radical Fem

  • Recognises progress made but still criticises the patriarchal system
  • Sexual harrassment in school continues
  • Subject choice is still limited which limits career opportunties
  • Males more liekly to become heads of secondary's
  • Weiner: describes secondary history curriculum as a 'woman free zone'
• Girls' achievement - Symbolic capital

  Archer - study of w/c girls

  • By performing their working class feminine identities, girls gained symbolic capital from peers
  • However, this conflicted with their progress in school as it prevented them from acquiring better grades or getting middle class job
• Girls' achievement - Hyper heterosexual feminine

  Archer

  • Girls put time and money into being 'desirable' to gain status from girl peer groups and to avoid being labelled a 'tramp'
  • Effects education as they are punished for wrong uniform with jewellery and makeup
  • One girl spent all her £40 earnt from babysitting on her appearance
  • Bourdieu: links to his idea of symbolic violence, by defining a culture as worthless and denying them symbolic capital
• Girls' achievement - Boyfriends

  Archer

  • Gets in the way of schoolwork and lowers aspirations
  • Results in loosing interest in university, not taking 'masculine' subjects like science, or gaining a professional career
  • Fuels ideas of settling down, having children and working low paid jobs like child care
  • One girl dropped out after getting pregnant
• Girls achievement - Being 'loud'

  Archer

  • W/C girls adopt an outspoken, independent and assertive voice
  • Fails to conform to the schools ideal female pupil of being passive and submissive
  • Damages education as it brings further conflict with teachers
• Girls' achievement - Successful w/c girls

  • Evans: studied 21 W/C girls and found they wanted to go to uni to increase their earning power for their families
  • Skeggs: caring is part of their identity, leading to want to succeed, yet it also limits them as they want to stay at home
• Boys achievement - Globalisation

  • Ther has been a significant decline in heavy industries such as iron and steel, shipbuilding, mining and engineering - due to globalsation of the economy
  • Mitsos & Browne: decline in male employment opportunities has led to an 'identity crisis for men'
  • Many boys now believe that they have little prospect of getting a job, this undermines their motivation and self-esteem and so they give up trying to get qualification
• Boys achievement - Feminisation

  Sewell

  • Schools do not nurture 'masculine' traits such as competitiveness and leadership
  • Schools now celebrate qualities more closely associated with girls, such as methodical working and attentiveness
  • Argues coursework should be replaced with final exams and a greater emphasis on outdoor adventure
• Boys achievement - Male teachers

  • Yougov: 39% of 8-11 year old boys have no lessons whatsoever with male teachers
  • Male teachers may be more able to impose strict discipline on boys behaviour
  • Boys have no role model in school and can't see themselves following an academic career
• Boys achievement - Male teachers needed?

  • Francis: 2/3 of 7-8 year olds believe the gender of teachers is irrelevant
  • Read: studied teachers language -
  • Disciplinarian discource: teacher's authority made explicit and visible
  • Liberal discource: teacher's authority is implicit and invisible
  • Female teachers were more likely to use disciplinarian discourse
  • Jones: male teachers have a 1/4 chance of gaining a headship, whereas females have a 1/13 chance - it still is male-dominated
• Boys achievement - Laddish subcultures

  • Epstein: W/C boys are likely to be harassed, labelled as sissies and be subject to homophobia if they conform to school values
  • Francis: boys are more concerned than girls about being labelled by peers because it threatens their masculinity
  • Spreading due to girls moving into traditionally masculine areas and boys respond by increasing their masculine appearance to not seem feminine
• Boys achievement - Moral panic

  • Ringrose: here's a fear that underachieving W/C boys will grow up to become a dangerous, unemployable underclass that threatens social stability
  • Has led to a narrowing down on opportunity policies to help 'failing' boys (ignoring ethnic and WC groups, as well as problems girls face like sexual assault)
  • Osler: the neglect of girl's underachievement is due to boys being louder in their conflict with school values
• Boys achievement - Class & ethnicity

  • McVeigh: the class gap in achievement at GCSE is 3x larger than the gender gap
  • Connolly: certain combinations of gender, class and ethnicity have more effect than others, like being female raises performance for black Caribbeans than for whites
• Gender & subject choice -Socialisation

  • Norman: boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities
  • Byrne: teachers encourage boys to be tough and show initiative, whereas girls are taught to be quiet
  • Murphy & Elowood: boys read hobby books and information texts, while girls read stories about people - leads to differences in science and english
• Gender & subject choice - Gender domains

  • Ross: kids beliefs on it are shaped by early experiences, mending a car seen as falling within the male domain, but looking after a sick child is not
  • Murphy: boys and girls pay attention to different details even when tracking the same task, girls focus on how people feel and boys focus on how things work
• Gender & subject choice - Gendered subject images

  • Kelly: science is seen as a boy subject:
  • Science teachers likely to be male
  • textbook examples draw on male interests
  • Boys monopolise lab apparatus acting as if it is theirs
  • Colley: ICT seen as a boy subject:
  • Involves working machines (male domain)
  • Tasks are formal and individual, no group work - off-putting to females
• Gender & subject choice - Single sex schools

  Leonard: interview 13,000 individuals from same-sex schools

  • Girls in all girls schools were more likely to take maths and science A levels
  • Boys in boys schools were more likely to pick English and languages
• Gender & subject choice - Gender identity

  • Paetcher: girls who are 'sporty' have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventual female stereotype
  • Dewar: boys called sporty girls 'lesbian'
• Gender & subject choice - Career opportunities

  • Over 1/2 of all women's employment falls within: Clerical, Secretarial, Personal services, Cleaning
  • Boys get the message that nursing roles are female, and will be less likely to opt for a course in childcare
• Gender & subject choice - Vocational choice

  Fuller

  • Most w/c girls had ambitions to go to into jobs such as child care or hair & beauty - reflecting their w/c habitus
• Gender identities - Double standards

  • Lees: boys boast about their own sexual exploits, but call girls slags if she has a certain appearance or doesn't have a steady boyfriend
  • Sexual conquest is rewarded with status and ignored by male teachers, but female promiscuity attracts negative labels
  • Feminists: can be seen as a form of patriarchal social control as it reinforces gender inequality with subordination
• Gender identites - Verbal abuse

  • Connell: boys use name calling to put girls down if they behave or dress in certain ways
  • Lees: boys call girls slags if they are sexually available and drags if they aren't
  • Paechter: maintains male power as 'gay' and 'queer' are are used to police a lack of masculine character
  • Parker: boys labelled as gay for simply being friendly with girls or female teachers
• Gender identities - Male gaze

  • The way male pupils and teachers look girls up and down, seeing them as sexual objects and making judgement on their appearance
  • Mac an Ghaill: its one of the ways boys prove their masculinity to peers, boys who do not display their heterosexuality in this manner are labelled as gay
• Gender identities - Male peer groups

  • Mac an Ghaill: W/C macho lads are dismissive of other W/C boys who work hard and aspire to MC careers
  • M/C 'real Englishmen' project an image of effortless achievement
  • Redman: shows a shift in definition throughout classes
• Gender identities - Female peer groups

  • Ringrose: studied 13-14 year old girls and found that being popular was crucial to their identity. They struggled with having either an idealised feminine identity (staying loyal to other girls) or a sexualised identity (chasing boys)
  • Currie et al: girls are mocked either way, called sluts for chasing and frigid for not
  • Reay: girls have to present an asexual identity to achieve, meaning not being interested in anyone
• Gender identities - Teachers

  • Haywood & Mac an Ghaill: male teachers tell boys off for behaving like girls and tease them when they get lower marks than girls
  • Askew & Ross: male teachers subtly reinforce gender identities, for example by coming into female teachers classes and saving them by threatening the disruptive students