Gender

• McRobbie


  1970s girls magazines emphasised the importance of marriage. Modern magazines contain assertive, independent women.
• Changes in the family

  Increased divorce rates, increased cohabitation, increase in lone parents families, smaller family sizes.

  More women need to take on breadwinner roles, leading to less reliance on their husbands.

  Less desire for marriage and more positive independent female role models.
• Changes in women’s employment 


  Girls view their future as paid work rather than becoming a housewife.

  Role models of successful career women inspires them to gain educations and qualifications.
• Sharpe

  1974 - educational success is unfeminine. Prioritise marriage and family.

  1994 - prioritise careers.
• Beck & Beck-Gernsheim


  Independence is valued more strongly in modern society. Careers become part of a woman’s life story as it promises recognition and self sufficiency.
• Fuller


  Study of girls:

  Saw themselves as creators of their own future. Aimed for a professional career.
• Equal opportunities policies

  GIST - girls in science and technology.

  WISE - women in science and engineering.

  Female scientists visit schools as role models.

  National curriculum - boys and girls study the same subjects.
• Boaler

  Impact of equal opportunities policies - barriers to girls achievement removed.
• Mitsos & Browne

  Girls are more organised, spend more time on work, take more care with presentation, are better at meeting deadlines, bring correct equipment to lessons. This enables them to benefit more from the introduction of coursework.
• Oral exams 


  Girls have generally better developed language skills as a result of early gender role socialisation in the family.
• Jane & Peter French


  Boys received more attention because they attracted more reprimands.
• Francis


  Boys disciplines more harshly and felt picked on by teachers who had lower expectations of them.
• Swann


  Boys dominate in whole class discussions. Girls prefer pair and group work so are better at listening and cooperating. Teachers therefore more likely to respond positively to girls and negatively to boys.
• Textbooks


  Removal of gender stereotypes from textbooks, reading schemes and other learning materials removed a barrier to girls achievement.
• Weiner


  Teachers challenge stereotypes, sexist images removed from learning materials. This has led to more positive images of what women can do.
• Jackson


  Introduction of exam league tables has improved opportunities for girls. High achieving girls appeal to schools rather than low achieving boys.
• Slee

  Boys are less likely to be attractive to schools as are more likely to have behavioural difficulties and are 4x more likely to be excluded. Boys are viewed as an obstacle to good league table scores.
• Archer et al


  Working class girls adopt hyper-heterosexual feminine identities:

  School view them incapable of educational success, punish them for clothing.

  Boyfriends result in disinterest with education. Aspire to settle down with a family.

  Often outspoken, independent and assertive, leading to conflict between student and teacher as they are viewed as aggressive.
• Boys & Literacy

  Boys often have poorer literacy and language skills as parents tend to spend less time reading to sons.
• Bedroom culture 


  Girls tend to have a culture of staying inside and talking to friends, developing their language skills.

  Boys tend to peruse sports which don’t help their language to develop.
• Mitsos & Browne


  Decline in make employment has led to an identity crisis for me . Boys believe they have little prospects of getting a proper job so give up on getting qualifications. (Decline in traditionally male jobs.)
• Sewell


  Boys fall behind because education has become feminised. Schools don’t nurture masculine traits (competitiveness & leadership).
• Epstein

  Examined the way that masculinity is constructed in schools.

  Working class boys more likely to be labelled with homophobic language if they appear to be putting effort into educational achievement.
• Francis


  Boys more concerned than girls about being labelled negatively by their peers.

  Working class culture encourages manual work.
• Ringrose

  Feminist

  Shift in educational policy now preoccupied with raising boys achievement.

  Ignores the disadvantages ethnic minority pupils face.

  Ignores the issues girls still face in schools.
• Osler


  Feminist

  Focus on the underachievement of boys may lead to girls being neglected.
• Patterns in subject choice

  Girls and boys tend to choose different subjects.
• Norman


  Boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take on different activities.
• Byrne


  Teachers encourage boys to be tough and show initiative.

  Girls are expected to be quiet, tidy and helpful.
• Elwood

  Boys generally read hobby books and information texts whilst girls tend to choose stories about people.
• Gendered career opportunities

  Over half of women‘s employment falls within 4 categories:

  Clerical

  Secretarial

  Personal services

  Cleaning

  This affects girls ideas of what jobs are attainable to them.
• Brown & Ross


  Children’s beliefs about gender domains are shaped by their early experiences. Children are more confident doing tasks in their gender domain.
• Murphy 


  Boys and girls pay attention to different details when doing the same task.

  Girls focus on how people feel whereas boys focus on how things are made and how they work.
• Paechter


  Found that because pupils view sport as mainly within the male domain, girls who are sporty have to deal with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype. This may explain why girls are more likely than boys to opt out of sport.
• Dewar


  Study of American college students found that male students would call girls names if they appeared to be interested in sport.
• Single sex schools


  Pupils who attend single sex schools tend to hold less stereotyped views and make less traditional subject choices.
• Leanard


  Found that compared to pupils from mixed schools, girls in all girls schools were more likely to take maths and science alevels, whilst boys in all boys schools were more likely to take English and languages.

  Girls from all girls schools were more likely to study male dominated subjects in university.