Topic 4 -Gender Differences in Achievement

• In recent years, statistics have shown that girls now outperform boys in educational attainment
• Reasons for increased achievement in girls' educational performance


  • External factors (girls changing ambitions, changes in the family, changes in women's employment)
  • Internal factors (equal opportunities, teacher attention, coursework)
• Reasons for boys' underachievement


  • Feminisation of schooling
  • Decline in manual labour
  • 'Laddish' subcultures
• Sociologists suggest reasons for the difference in gender subject choices and reflect on gendered identities
• Feminism


  Movement that campaigns for women's rights and changes in the law (e.g. equal rights)
• Impact of feminism


  • McRobbie studied girls magazines and found that in the 1970s, they emphasised the importance of getting married. However, nowadays, they contain images of strong, assertive and independent women.
• Changes in the law have improved the position of working women, for example the Equal Pay Act (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975).
• Changes in women's employment

  Improved the position of working women
• Sharpe interviewed girls and found that their ambitions in the 1970s were to marry and have children, and saw their future in terms of a domestic role. However, in the 1990s, the girls priorities had changed to careers and wanting to be independent.
• Over time


  Girls' ambitions have changed from domestic roles to careers and independence
• Mitos and Brown


  Found that girls do better than boys in coursework because they are more conscientious and better organised
• Gorad


  Found that the gender gap in achievement increased sharply when GCSE was introduced in 1988
• GIST and WISE programmes


  • Encourage girls into science and technology
• National curriculum


  • Girls and boys largely study the same subjects (eg. by making science compulsory)
• More female teachers


  • Feminises the learning environment and encourages girls to see school as part of a 'female gender domain'
• TEACHER ATTENTION


  • Boys dominate class discussions, girls are better at listening and cooperating
  • Teachers respond more positively to girls and give them more encouragement
• TEACHER ATTENTION


  • Teachers paid boys and girls similar amounts of attention for academic reasons
  • Boys received more attention overall because they were disciplined more often
• Marketisation policies


  Have led to increased competition between schools
• Schools have the incentive to recruit more able students

  Girls are generally more successful than boys, so are more attractive to schools
• boys - external factors

  BOYS LITERACY

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  Parents spend less time reading to sons because it is seen as a 'feminine' activity.

   

  Boys leisure interests do not encourage language and communication skills, whereas gitls ‘bedroom culture’ does.

   

  DECLINE IN MANUAL LABOUR 

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  ​Globalisation had led to the decline in heavy industries (eg. shipbuilding, mining and manufacturing) in the UK. This has led to a male ‘identity crisis’, giving them little motivation to get qualifications for a job.
• boys - internal factors

  FEMINISATION OF SCHOOLING

   

  Boys fall behind because education has been ‘feminised’, meaning schools no longer nurture masculine traits.

   

  The introduction of coursework has disadvantages boys.

   

  Lack of male primary school teachers - only 1 in 6 primary school teachers are male.

   

  LADDISH SUBCULTURES

   

  There is peer-pressure on boys to demonstrate their masculinity by being ‘anti-school’.