Girls DEA

• The gender gap in achievement 

  • In English, the gap is wide, in science and maths it is evident but narrow. 
  • At reception age, girls were 14% better than boys.
  • The gap becomes more significant at GCSE level.
• External Factors - Feminism

  • Feminism has raised women’s expectations and self esteem.
  • Girls magazines in the 70s were focused on marriage and love, compared to now where magazines are about strong independent women.
  • This encourages them to do better academically.
• External - Changes in the family

  • Major changes include - increase of divorce rate, smaller family sizes, increase loneliness parent families, increased cohabitation. 
  • More women are becoming the main breadwinner, this has led to young girls having a successful female role model. 
  • Women’s independence is prioritised which can only occur through having the qualifications to gain jobs.
• External - Changes in employment

  • 1970 equal pay act - women and men who work the same now get paid the same.
  • The growth of flexible part time work - allows 74% of women to work compared to 50% in the 70s.
  • These changes allow girls to earn the job that they want. 
• External - Girls ambition

  • Sharpe interviewed girls from the 70s and the 90s. 
  • 1970 aspirations - find a husband, educational success is unfeminine.
  • 1990 aspirations - careers and education.
  • This is due to the trend of individualisation within modern society. 
  • Study and educational success were central to an individuals identity.
• Positive role models in schools - Internal

  • More female head teachers in senior positions act as role models.
  • Gives girls indirect encouragement.
• GCSEs and Coursework - Internal

  • Changes in the ways students are assessed advantage girls and disadvantage boys. 
  • The gender gap increased widely when GCSEs were introduced. 
  • Mitsos and Browne support this view - Girls thrive from the coursework element as they are more organised, spend more time on their work and meet deadlines easier. 
  • The introduction of spoken exams aid girls as they have more advanced language skills. 
  • However coursework does not make up a huge percentage of a pupils grade, therefore it is not that big of a factor.
• Teacher attention - internal

  • French and French analysed classroom interactions - boys achieved more attention as they were reprimanded often. They were disciplined harshly and picked on which caused them to feel isolated. 
  • Boys prefer class discussions whereas girls prefer passive working with partners or independently.
  • Therefore girls seen as cooperative, boys seen as disruptive. Successful interactions with teachers leads to girls self esteem and achievement increasing.
• League tables

  • Schools desire girls more as they have better grades, which boosts league tables.
  • Creates a SFP, as girls are desirable due to their good grades, they’ll maintain these grades.
  • Boys are seen as liability students due to low grades and behavioural issues.
• two views of girls achievement

  • Liberal feminists - celebrate the current progress, believes that further progress will be made through the continuing development of policies and overcoming stereotypes.
  • Radical feminists - critical , they recognise that girls achieve more but they emphasise that the system is still patriarchal. E.g sexual harassment still occurs, women are still under-represented in areas of the curriculum (women in history), male teachers are more likely to reach senior positions quicker than women.
• Symbolic capital

  • There is a conflict between working class girls feminine identities and the school ethos. Archer uses symbolic capital to describe this.
  • By performing their working class feminine identities, the girls gained symbolic capital.  This brings them into conflict with their school which prevents them from gaining educational and therefore economic capital.
• Hyper-heterosexual feminine identities

  • Girls would invest considerable time into looking glamorous and desirable. 
  • It provides them status from their peers, avoiding them being ridiculed. 
  • Teachers see this as a distraction from education and believe that the girls do not care about education. This leads to the girls becoming isolated from the school, and causing symbolic violence between the school and the girls. 
  • Archer also claims that the hyper-heterosexual feminine identity is not the ideal female pupil who is seen as reserved and asexual.
• Boyfriends

  • Having a boyfriend brings symbolic capital.
  • It gets in the way of school work and lowers the girls aspirations of higher education. Instead, girls feel more inclined to settle down and have children, or work feminine and domestic jobs.
• Being loud

  • Some WC girls adopt a loud feminine identity. They are outspoken and assertive and may question teachers’ authority. This failure to conform causes a conflict with the teachers ideal female pupil and causes the teacher to see the pupil as aggressive rather than assertive.
• Working class girls dilemna

  • Dilemma - Gain symbolic capital by conforming to a hyper-heterosexual identity, or gain educational capital by rejecting the WC identity and conforming to the middle class ideal pupil.
  • Some girls try to cope with this by claiming they are “good underneath” despite their teachers negative views of them.
• successful working class girls

  • Evans - girls want to achieve earning power through going  to university. This was for their families rather than them. Their motivation reflects their working class identities. They are caring and want to give back to their local community. 
  • They will only go to local universities.
  • WC girls want to stay local due to their fear of becoming in debt by living in accommodation.