Internal

• In a nutshell


  In-school factors which may explain the gender gap in education include labelling, laddish subcultures and the feminisation of teaching.
• Swann and Graddol (1994) 

  Swann and Graddol (1994) found that teachers tend to see boys as unruly and disruptive and are more likely to spend time telling them off than helping them with schoolwork. Teachers have lower expectations of boys and so are less inclined to push them hard to achieve high standards. Because of their disruptive behaviour they are more likely to be excluded. 
• Jackson, 2006


  Four out of five permanent exclusions are boys. With Ladette culture this may be changing
• John Abraham (1986) 


   asked teachers to describe a typical boy and a typical girl – The typical boy was described as not particularly bright, likes a laugh and always attention seeking, often by messing around. The typical girl is bright, well –behaved and hard working, being quiet and timid. As a result he found that boys were told off much more easily than girls.
• Subcultures and ‘Laddishness’


  Working class boys especially tend to form anti-school subcultures. Paul Willis (1977) found this with his research with the lads, Tony Sewell (1997) argues that there is a black –anti school masculinity and Diane Reay et al (2003) found that boys felt they had little control over their educational learning and so seek power through other negative strategies
• Abrahams (1988) and Mirza (1992) 


  have found evidence of pro-school female subcultures who actively encourage each other to study.
• Carolyn Jackson (2006) 


   Found that laddish behaviour had important benefits – it made students seam cool and thus popular. She also argued that it was a response to the fear of failure – it made students seam unbothered about failing, so if they did FAIL they would not look bad. Furthermore, if lads and ladettes did well, they would be labelled as a genius – doing well with apparently no effort