Gender

• There is a gender gap in educational achievement where one gender tends to do much better than another
• Gender, along with social class and ethnicity, has a big impact on people's experience of education
• While both sexes have raised their level of achievement generally, girls outperform boys
• There has not been much change with regards to subject choice, which is referred to as sex typing where some subjects are still seen as being very male or female
• Girls


  • More likely to score higher in tests at the start of school
  • More interested and engaged in education from the start
  • Consistently do better than boys in primary school, especially in English and language-based subjects
  • 10% more likely to achieve 5 GCSEs A*-C
  • Continue to be ahead at A-level, with 95.8% passing 2 or more levels compared to 94% of boys
• Boys


  • Take longer to settle down in primary school
  • Underperform compared to girls, especially in English and language-based subjects
  • Less likely to achieve 5 GCSEs A*-C
  • More likely to see university as not for them and decide not to attend
• The gender gap in achievement finally begins to narrow at A-level, but girls continue to be ahead
• By bachelor's level, the gender gap disappears entirely, with more girls attending university than boys
• External factors


  Factors occurring outside the education system that may have contributed to the rapid improvement in results by girls
• Impact of feminism


  Feminism is a movement that strives for equal rights for women in all areas of life, challenging traditional stereotypes regarding gender roles
• Changes in the family


  • Increase in divorce rate
  • Increase in cohabitation
  • Decrease in first marriages
  • Increase in lone parent families typically headed by women
  • Smaller families
• Changes in women's employment


  • Equal Pay Act 1970 made it illegal to pay women less than men for the same work
  • Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made it illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of their gender
  • Proportion of women in employment increased from 47% in 1959 to around 70% in 2007
  • Pay gap between men and women has fallen from 30% to 7%
  • Women are breaking through the 'glass ceiling' and getting into top jobs
• Changing ambitions of girls


  • In the 1970s, girls saw educational success as unfeminine and prioritised love, marriage, husbands and children over jobs and careers
  • By the 1990s, girls had very high aspirations and no longer saw their futures in traditional female roles
• Internal factors


  Factors within the education system that may also play a role in gender differences in achievement
• Internal factors


  • Equal opportunities policies
  • Positive role models in schools
  • GCSEs and coursework
  • Teacher attention
  • Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
  • Selection and league tables
• Girls are increasingly going into jobs that interest them in areas that may have traditionally been seen as masculine
• Girls desire educational qualifications in order to get better job prospects, better pay, and better value jobs in our society
• Factors within the education system that are important in explaining gender differences in achievement


  • Equal opportunities policies
  • Positive role models in schools
  • GCSEs and coursework
  • Teacher attention
  • Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
  • Selection and league tables
• Equal opportunities policies


  Feminist ideas are now widespread in education and society, and there is now a basic belief in gender equality which is a social norm
• The government has set up programs such as Jess (Girls into Science and Technology) to get girls into subjects which they traditionally did not study
• The National Curriculum introduced in the 1980s made science compulsory, so girls could no longer opt out of studying science
• Meritocracy


  The idea that one should be rewarded based on one's own merit, hard work, energy, and intelligence
• Meritocracy has allowed girls to begin to thrive and do very well in education, whereas traditionally teachers held sexist or misogynistic views and rewarded boys more
• Female teachers and head teachers


  • There are vastly more female teachers and female head teachers than in the past, especially in primary schools
• Feminized learning environment


  The presence of more female teachers encourages girls to see education as part of their gender domain
• Girls may perceive educational success as a desirable female characteristic and emulate the behaviours and achievements of their female teachers
• Coursework


  Girls do better than boys in coursework as they are better organised and mature earlier than boys
• The use of coursework has increased as girls' results have improved
• In the past, girls were underrepresented or presented as subordinate to males in reading schemes and textbooks
• Sexist images in learning materials have now been replaced with more positive images, boosting girls' perceptions and aspirations
• Teacher attention


  Teachers spend more time interacting with boys than girls, often to deal with behavioural issues rather than academic reasons
• Teacher expectations


  Teachers have lower expectations of boys and discipline them more harshly
• Boys dominate class discussions, while girls are more likely to engage in group work, which teachers view favourably
• Schools are incentivised to include more able students to secure a good league table position, and girls are more successful than boys, making them more attractive to schools
• There are more all-female schools and all-boys schools, and mixed schools tend to seek to get more girls on their rolls as boys are perceived as lower-achieving and more badly behaved
• Feminist perspectives on gender differences in achievement


  • Liberal feminists applaud the progress in improving girls' achievements and believe further progress will be made through equal opportunities policies, positive role models, and challenging stereotypes
  • Radical feminists argue the system is still patriarchal and male-dominated, with issues such as sexual harassment, limited subject choices and career options for girls, and an imbalance in male and female teachers