gender differences in education

• what has the liberal feminist movement led to in education?

  increase in opportunities - higher grades

  change in social attitudes

  equal pay - higher aspirations
• what has the radical feminist movement led to in education?

  change in laws

  but believe school is still patriarchal
• changes in the family

  symmetrical families & smaller families, more diverse family types - women can stay in further education, more time for work/school, encouraged to stay in education
• changes in women’s employment

  sex discrimination act - reduced pay gap from 30% to 17% - encourage girls to see their role in terms of paid work & not housewives

  • greater career opportunities/better pay/more successful role models - provide incentive for girls to gain qualifications
• girls changing ambitions


  sharpe - compared results of unstructured interviews from 1970’s & 1990‘s

  1970s - girls had low aspirations - priority was marriage & children

  1990’s - ambitions changed - priority was careers & supporting themselves
• what are internal factors affecting girls achievement?

  equal opportunities, positive female role models, gcse’s/coursework, teacher attention, stereotypes in the curriculum, marketisation
• equal opportunities


  • teachers more sensitive of the need to avoid stereotyping

  • boys and girls entitled to the same opportunities

  • policies such as WISE ( women into science and engineering) & GIST (girls into science and technology)
• positive female role models


  • increasing numbers of female teachers & heads

  • female teachers act as a role model for girls - demonstrating how women can achieve positions of importance
• GCSEs & coursework


  coursework favours girls - spend more time on work, take pride in presentation, better at meeting deadlines

  • more oral exams benefit girls as have better developed vocabulary and language skills
• teacher attention


  • teachers give girls more positive attention as they view them as cooperative - leads to a self fulfilling prophecy as this promote’s girls self esteem

  • boys receive more negative attention & more harshly disciplined
• challenging stereotypes in the curriculum

  • removal of gender stereotypes from textbooks, reading schemes & other learning materials has removed a barrier to girls achievement - used to portray women as housewives & mothers

  • teachers challenge stereotypes more
• marketisation 


  • created a more competitive system - girls seen as desirable recruits as achieve better exam results

  • this increased opportunities for girls - more likely to be recruited by good schools
• two views of girls achievement

  liberal feminists - celebrate the progress made, believe in further progress from equal opportunities policies

  radical feminists - believe the education system is patriarchal, girls have limited subject choices, more male head teachers, have sexual harassment in schools
• identity, class & girls achievement

  • girls form hyper-heterosexual feminine identities - invested considerable time & money into their appearance, became over sexualised - brought status from their friends

  • things like boyfriends & being loud prevents adequate learning and focus in lessons
• what are external factors affecting boys achievement?

  literacy & decline in traditional men’s jobs
• boys and literacy 


  • boys have poorer literacy & language skills than girls

  • parents spend less time reading to boys - may view reading as ‘feminine’ & spend more time on activities like football which doesn’t help their language skills

  • creates a language barrier i.e restricted code vs elaborated code
• decline of traditional men’s jobs


  • significant decline in heavy industries such as mining & engineering

  • this decline has led to an ‘identity crisis for men’ - boys now believe there is little prospect of them getting a proper job - undermines their motivation so give up in school
• evaluation of decline in traditional male jobs

  • the decline in the manufacturing industry has mainly affected working class jobs which require no or few qualifications
• what are internal factors effecting boys achievemen?

  feminisation of education, shortage of male teachers, laddish subcultures, moral panic about boys
• feminisation of education


  • education has become too ‘feminised‘ - schools do not nurture masculine traits like competitiveness & leadership - celebrate qualities more associated with girls e.g attentiveness & methodical working

  • coursework better suited to girls
• shortage of male primary school teachers

  • 14% of primary school teachers are male - lack of male role models in education system

  • argued male teachers are better able to impose strict discipline that boys need to concentrate
• evaluation of shortage of male teachers

  • two types of language used by teacher: disciplinary (e.g shouting, sarcasm) & liberal (speaking to them as adults)

  • disciplinary more associated with masculinity

  • HOWEVER, most teachers favoured disciplinarian therefore female teachers are able to control boys behaviour
• laddish subcultures 


  • working class boys likely to be harassed & subjected to homophobic verbal abuse if they appeared as “swots”

  • working class boys prioritise the 3 F’s

  • being labelled a ‘swot’ threatens their masculinity so reject schoolwork to avoid being labelled/bullied
• moral panic about boys

  • girls have exceeded at the expensive of boys who are now disadvantaged

  • caused a moral panic about ‘failing boys’ - reflects fear of working class boys growing up to become dangerous & threats to social stability

  • focus on underachieving boys led to a neglect of girls
• gender, class & ethnicity

  • causes a focus on differences so ignores the similarities in gender achievement - both genders performing better than in the past

  • differences could be due to pupil identities - black girls define femininity in relation to education while black boys define masculinity in opposition to school
• gender & subject choice

  • national curriculum gives pupils little freedom to choose or drop subjects - where choice is possible tend to follow gender stereotypes

  e.g health and social mainly females, PE mainly males, boys mainly take maths & physics a level while girls take sociology & english
• explanations of gender differences in subject choice


  • gender identity & peer pressure - peer pressure of outside gender domain, sporty girls viewed as ‘lesbian’

  • gender role socialisation - primary socialisation shapes gender identity e.g girls & boys dressed differently, given different toys, encouraged to take part in different activities
• how are gender identities reinforced in school?

  • verbal abuse - girls called names like slags, boys called gay if have female friends - reinforces gender norms

  • male gaze - male pupils & teachers look girls up and down, seeing them as a sexual object & make judgements via their appearance - male gaze form of surveillance - masculinity reinforced & femininity devalued

  • teachers & discipline - tell boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ - ignore boys verbal abuse of girls, blaming the girls for attracting it