Gender

• • Many factors impact girls’ academic achievement, including internal and external factors, differences in subject choice and gender identity.
• Role models

  • The emphasis on positive role models such as working mothers and the growth of employment opportunities for women have helped to raise girls’ ambitions and expectations.
• The ‘crisis of masculinity’

  • Boys may lack the same ambition as girls because of declining opportunities and the role of the male breadwinner, often referred to as the ‘crisis of masculinity’.
• External factors (outside the school)

  • The women’s movement and feminism challenge gender stereotypes of women at home as homemakers and mothers as well as raising awareness of patriarchy and sex discrimination.
  • This is relevant both within and outside the education system.
• Internal factors (inside the school)

  • More emphasis on equal opportunities for girls, encouraging them into once male-dominated subjects, for example, science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).
  • Drives to reduce gender stereotyping in the classroom.
• Subcultures

  • Girls are seen to work harder in school and be better organised and more motivated than boys.
  • Girls are more likely to form pro-school sub-cultures that encourage peer support, while boys are more likely to form anti-school sub-cultures, emphasising masculinity and ‘laddish’ behaviour.
• Maturity

  • Girls generally mature earlier than boys, encouraging them to take school more seriously than boys.
  • Girls are seen as more cooperative and better behaved in school, resulting in teachers having higher expectations for them.
• Confidence

  • Girls have a tendency to underestimate and play down their ability, while boys overestimate their own.
  • Girls tend to read more and discuss their schoolwork more often than boys, developing language and reasoning skills that gives them an advantage over boys.
• Subject choice

  • Females are more likely to choose subjects in the arts and humanities, while boys tend to choose science and technology-related subjects.
  • For example, females make up around 70 percent of all A-level psychology candidates (Smith, 2011) while the figure is even higher for sociology.
• University

  • This difference is much less pronounced in single-sex schools.
  • This pattern continues at university:
  • Males are more likely to study physical sciences, maths, engineering, and technology.
  • Females are more likely to graduate in the arts and humanities.
• Francis

  • Francis (1999) argues that the schooling process reinforces and reproduces gender identities; fitting in at school often involves adopting gender-appropriate behaviour linked to gender stereotypes.
  • Schools reinforce gender identities and patriarchal relations through gendered verbal behaviour: boys dominating classroom talk, belittling girls’ contributions and the use of terms of sexual abuse for girls.
• Teachers might also have different expectations for boys and girls, viewing boys as naturally boisterous and disruptive, while expecting girls to be quiet and well behaved.
• Evaluation

  • Girls do better in school, but even this performance could be improved upon if boys didn’t tend to dominate and often disrupt the classroom, take up more teacher time and marginalise girls.
• Evaluation

  • Differences in subject choice might limit girls' future career trajectories.
  • Gender is not the only explanation for differences in achievement; social class and ethnicity remain important factors.
• Subject choice trends

  • Females
  • Arts
  • Humanities
  • Males
  • Science
  • Technology related subjects