Boys DEA

• Boys and literacy

  • Boys have worse literacy skills, may be because parents spent less time reading to them.
  • Boys lack bedroom culture therefore they are already behind girls in literacy before school starts.
• Globalisation and the decline of traditional men’s jobs

  • Manual labour has relocated to third world countries, therefore globalisation has caused a decline in traditional jobs available for men.
  • This led to an identity crisis for men - Mitsos and Browne.
  • Boys believe they have less of a chance to get a job therefore give up trying to get qualifications. 
  • However these jobs require little qualifications anyways (AO3)
• Feminisation of education

  • Sewell - boys fall behind in education because it has become too feminine. 
  • School do n to nurture masculine traits such as competitiveness and leadership. They celebrate feminine traits such as passiveness and independent work. E.g through coursework.
• Shortage of male teachers

  • 1.5M female LPFs in the UK - Lack of male role models.
  • 40% of primary boys have no male teachers. 
  • Female teachers are unable to control boys behaviour.
  • Male teachers can discipline boys correctly. 
• Discourse types - Read

  • She found that teachers use two different types of languages to discipline students.
  • A disciplinarian discourse - teachers authority is visible through shouting, exasperated sarcasm.
  • A liberal discourse - teachers authority is invisible, child centred and involved “pseudo-adultification” where the teacher speaks to the students as if they were adults and expects them to be respectful and sensible.
• Laddish subcultures

  • Epstein - WC boys are likely to be harassed and subject to homophobia if they appeared to conform.
  • This threatens their masculinity and therefore boys conform to the macho stereotype of “real men”. 
  • Laddish subcultures are growing as men are becoming more laddish as a response to girls moving into masculine areas of school work.
• the moral panic about boys

  • Ringrose - people believe that equal policies regarding gender has sparked girl power and that boys are now failing as a result of girls succeeding.
  • Educational policy is now focussing on boys achievement which produces negative effects.
  • It ignores the problem of ethnic groups and class differences.
  • It ignores issues girls face in schools e.g sexual harassment.
• gender and subject choice

  • Teachers encourage boys to be tough, girls are expected to be neat and tidy.
  • Reading - boys read books such as nonfiction and manuals, girls read fiction.
  • Subjects become more gendered at university.
  • Boys - maths, physics and sports.
  • Girls - sociology, history, psychology.
• Gender domains

  • Shaped by the task they witnessed their parents do. 
  • Fixing a car is in the domain of boys whilst caring for the sick is for a girl.
  • Children are more confident in doing a job that is in their gender domain. Therefore girls are confident with food tech, boys with maths.
• Gendered subject images and peer pressure

  • Kelly found that science is more likely to be considered a male subject because: science teachers are mainly male, and boys dominate the apparatus during experiments.
  • Boys tend to opt out of subjects such as music and dance because they are not in their domain.
  • Girls who do sports are often portrayed as masculine, as it is not their domain. They would be labelled as lesbian or butch.
• Doutlets standards

  • Lees - boys are able to boast their sexual explorations whereas girls are labelled a slag. 
  • These double standards are seen as a patriarchal ideology that legitimates male power and devalues women. 
• Verbal abuse

  • A way in which gender and sexual identities are enforced. Boys use name calling to put girls down.
  • Homophobic phrases such as “lezzie” are used to police sexual identities within peer groups.
  • They function to maintain gendered norms.
• The male gaze

  • Male pupils and teachers objectify girls and judge their appearance. 
  • It is a form of surveillance that devalues femininity and reinforces dominant heterosexual masculinity. 
• Female peer groups

  • Girls face a tension between showing loyalty to their female peer group (an idealised feminine identity) and competing for boys (a sexualised identity).
  • Girls can be shamed for being frigid or a slut.