Gender and Education

• Internal factors for gender differences in educational achievement


  - Teacher labelling

  - Peer pressure

  - Teachers as role models
• External factors for gender differences in educational achievement


  - Gender domains

  - Socialisation

  - Changes in wider society
• Hannan (2000) - Leisure time


  Girls spend their leisure time differently to boys:

  - Boys are more active

  - Girls relate to each other by talking

  
  

  This puts girls at an advantage because most subjects require good comprehension skills
• Edwards and David (2000) - Gender role socialisation (differential)


  Gender differentiated primary socialisation gives girls an advantage in school as they develop better language skills, e.g. mothers talking more to their girl children in comparison to their boys.

  
  

  Girls are also taught to conform more frequently which matches the norms and values of the classroom e.g. sitting quietly
• Wilkinson - 'Genderquake'


  Relates girls' success over the last 30 years to transformed attitudes e.g. wanting to achieve high success due to the feminisation of the economy

  
  

  Girls in contemporary society have bigger ambitions in comparison to their mothers and grandmothers who were raised in restricted societies

  
  

  Economic independence and having a career is now a reality for girls
• Sharpe - 'Just like a girl'


  Working class girls' priorities shifted away from marriage to getting a good job by succeeding academically

  
  

  Girls have higher attainment than boys and are given more educational opportunities
• Mitsos and Browne (1998) - Changes to the curriculum


  O-Levels were geared to boys for being high risk (Pirie); GCSEs introducing coursework favoured girls who are more organised and conscientious in comparison to boys
• Mac an Ghaill - Crisis of masculinity


  - Decline of the manufacturing industry and rising unemployment makes it harder for men to be 'breadwinners'

  - New service sector jobs are often suited to the skills and lifestyles of women

  - Wagg: pessimism about the workforce has been initiated by primary school attitudes of boys

  - Jackson: W/C male adolescents conclude that education is irrelevant as they aspire to work unskilled/semi-skilled jobs
• Fuller (2011) - Working class girls' ambitions


  - Studied a single-sex girls' school in London

  - Found that W/C girls had ambitions to go into beauty or childcare jobs, reflecting their W/C habitus

  - Concluded that the school was inadvertently steering the girls into certain types of jobs
• Browne and Ross (1991) - Gender domains


  Tasks and activities that boys and girls see as being male or female 'territory' and as relevant to themselves, shaped by early socialisation and adult expectations

  
  

  - boys designed battleships and power boats with intricate weaponry details (how things work)

  - girls designed cruise ships with bedroom and living space details (how things look)
• Colley (1998) - Gendered subjects


  Sees gendered subjects at A-Level as problematic as it leads to gendered career paths with females more likely to go into lower paid, lower status jobs

  
  

  Peer groups often subscribe to gender stereotypes and may encourage girls to choose more traditionally feminine subjects, and vice-versa for boys

  
  

  - boys more likely to study computer science and economics

  - girls more likely to study English and biology
• GIST + WISE schemes


  Encourage girls to study STEM subjects to put them on equal levelling with boys who have higher prospects in future STEM careers
• School environment - girls


  - Schools are mostly dominated by female teachers, however the top of the hierarchy is dominated by males

  - Teachers are less critical of girls and motivate them to achieve higher, leading to a positive self-concept
• School environment - boys


  - Males at the top of the school hierarchy

  - Teachers are more critical of boys, who also feel less supported by their teachers

  - They are demotivated and are more likely to join anti-school subcultures and get lower grades than girls