gender identity

• While girls on average achieve higher than boys, only 40.6% of girls from poorer families achieved five A*-C grades at GCSE in 2013. this is significantly lower than girls who are not receiving FSMs
• The Attainment Gap between poorer girls and their richer peers is significant with 55% of w/c girls going on to further study compared to 77% of the non-disadvantage group.
• Archer explained difference in achievement across the various social groups as the result of a conflict between w/c feminine identities and the values of the school
• In Archer's study of W/C girls, she uses the concept of symbolic capital to understand conflict. This refers to the status, recognition and sense of worth that we can obtain from others. W/C girls get this symbolic capital from performing their hyper-heterosexual feminine identities and this prevents them from acquiring educational capital.
• Archer (2010) concluded that w/c girls’ investment in their identities is a major cause of their underachievement.
• Evans -> w/c girls wanted to go to university to increase their earning power, but this was not for themselves but their families.
• Even the most successful w/c girls were excluded from elite universities that were further away as the ‘caring’ aspect of their w/c feminine identity produces a desire to stay at home and live with their families while studying.
• Dominant gender and sexual identities are reinforced through name calling. These names have nothing to do with sexual activity. For example, Parker suggested boys are labelled as gay if they have too many female friends.
• Who conducted the 'Making of Men Study

  
• Hayward found that male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased them when they achieved lower marks than female students.
• Male teachers also treat female staff in a certain way. They may step in to behaviour disputes, reinforcing gender identity and expectation.
• Mac an Ghaill refers to the Male Gaze as a way of looking girls up and down and seeing them as sexual objects. He argues that the male gaze is a form of surveillance through which dominant masculinity is reinforced and femininity devalued. This is achieved, for example, through telling stories of sexual conquest.