Gender DEA

• E - Changing ambitions for women: Sue Sharp - interviews

  w/c girls future ambitions

  • 1970: husbands, love, family
  • 1990: jobs, career, independence
• E- Feminism

  movement for men and women’s equal rights encouraged girls to succeed.
• E- Changes to women’s employment

  1970: equal pay act
• E- Changes to women’s employment

  Gershuny (2000s):

  • more women in paid employment than ever before
• E- Changing families 


  rise in lone parent families (female role models)
• E- Changing families 


  increased gender equality (female breadwinners)
• E- Decline in traditional men’s jobs

  Due to globalisation, manufacturing jobs have moved elsewhere.

  • Mitsos & Brown: this resulted in an identity crisis for boys (lack of motivation & aspiration)
• E- Evaluation

  • Reay: some w/c girls aspirations are still based on gender stereotypes.
  • Radical feminists recognise improvements in women’s position, but more needs to be done.
  • Eduaction system is patriarchal and girls face sexual harassment.
• Internal factors- the gender gap

  Teacher expectations

  • Francis: Teachers have lower expectations for boys and tend to punish them more harshly.
  • Swann: boys and girls communicate differently: in whole class discussions: boys dominate, girls cooperate and listen. in small group work, boys interrupt eachother, girls speak in turns.
• Internal factors- the gender gap

  Coursework:

  • Gorard: When GCSEs were introduced, the gender gap increased.
  • Argues girls are better at coursework as they’re more organised so are better at meeting deadlines.
  • Different work habits are due to socialisation not natural differences.
• Internal factors- the gender gap

  Feminisation if teaching:

  • Girls have positive female role models, boys may not identify with female role models/ teachers.
  • Sewell: school is feminised and boys fall behind as it doesn’t nurture masculine traits of competition.
  • Read: most teachers use disciplinary language (masculine) regardless of gender.
• Internal gender differences in achievement

  Gender and subject choice:

  • subject choices are still gendered. boys choose maths, girls choose english.
  • Skelton et al: boys and girls choose subjects aligning with their gender.
  • Colley: computer science is similar to working with machines, girls are put off by the formal teaching.
  • Leonard: single sex schools hold less stereotypes for subject choice. Girls at an all girls school are 2.4x more likely to study physics at A-level.
• Internal gender differences in achievement

  Gendered career opportunities

  • Employment is still highly gendered. Women = nursing and childcare. Men = Manual and business.
• External reasons for gender differences in achievement

  Gender socialisation:

  • the process of learning the behaviours expected of males and females in society.
  • Normal: Boys and girls are dressed differently and given different toys from young.
  • Byrne: Boys are encouraged to be strong and tough while for girls it’s neat, clean and tidy.
  • Elwood: Boys read hobby and information books whilst girls read stories about other people.
• External reasons for gender differences in achievement

  Gendered identity and peer pressure:

  • Paechter: girls opt out of sport as it’s associated as manly and girls who are sporty contradict their image and gender stereotype.
  • ”peers police one another’s subject choices”
• Internal factors- school processes and pupil identities:

  w/c pupils gain status by acting a certain way:

  • girls wear makeup and have boyfriends to adopt a hyperheterosexual feminine identity.
  • boys are outspoken, independent assertive, and question teacher authority.
  • But this creates a conflict with the school contributlung to lower achievement:
  • wearing too much makeup and jewellery is distracting behaviour.
  • having a boyfriend lowers teachers expectations
  • this results in a dilemma: reject w/c identity or school values.
• school processes and pupil identities:

  Boys: Forde et al:

  • boys are influenced by their male peer groups and feel the need to show ‘masculinity’ but view school work as feminine so they put off work, are disruptive, withdraw efforts and reject all academic work
• school processes and pupil identities:

  Gender, social class & ethnicity:

  • it’s hard to seperate one factor from another and their individual impwct on educational achievement but research suggests:
  • 40.6% of girls from w/c families gain 5 A*-Cs at GCSE.
  • 67.5% girls from m/c families gain 5 A*-Cs at GCSE.