The Gender Gap In Achievment + External Factors

What do official statistics provide evidence of?

Differences in the achievements of girls and boys at several important stages of their education.

What are examples of evidence of the differences in achievement between boys and girls?

On starting school In 2013, teacher assessments of pupils at the end of year one showed girls ahead of boys by between 7 and 17 percentage points in all seven areas of learning assessed (including literacy, language, maths, and personal, social and emotional development).

Girls were also better than boys at concentrating. A DfE

(2013) study found that in state primary schools, boys were two and a half times more likely than girls to have statements of special educational needs.

• At Key Stages 1 to 3, girls do consistently better than boys. This is especially so in English, where the gender gap steadily widens with age. In science and maths the gap is much narrower, but girls still do better.

• At GCSE, as Figure 2.6 shows, the gender gap stands at around 10 percentage points.

• At AS and A-level girls are more likely to sit, pass and get higher grades than boys, though the gap is much narrower than at GCSE. In 2013, for example, 46.8% of girls gained A or B grades at A-level, but only 42.2% of boys. Even in so-called 'boys" subjects such as maths and physics, girls were more likely than boys to get grades A to C.

• On vocational courses preparing students for a career, results show a similar pattern. A larger proportion of girls achieve distinctions in every subject, including those such as engineering and construction where girls are a tiny minority of the students.

What do many sociologists argue?

That gender differences in achievement, and especially the more rapid improvement in girls’ results, can be best explained by factors outside the school.

What are the external factors that effect differences in achievement?

• The impact of feminism.

• Changes in the family.

• Changes in women’s employment.

• Girls’ changing ambitions.

• Class, gender and ambition.

What is feminism?

A social movement that strives for equal rights for women in all aspects of life. Since the 1960s, it has challenged the traditional stereotype of a woman’s role as solely that of mother and housewife in a patriarchal nuclear family and inferior to men outside the home, in work, education and the law.

What have feminists achieved?

Although feminists argue that we have not yet achieved full equality between the sexes, the feminist movement has had considerable success in improving women’s rights and opportunities through changes in the law. More broadly, feminism has raised women’s expectations and self-esteem.

What are the changes brought about by feminism partly reflected in?

Media images and messages. A good example is McRobbie’s study of girls’ medicines. In the 1970s, they emphasised the importance of getting married and not being ‘left n the shelf‘ and nowadays, they contain images of assertive, independent women.

What might the changes encouraged by feminism affect?

Girls’ self-image and ambitions with regard to the family and career. In turn, this may explain improvements in their educational achievement.

What has there been in the family since the 1970s?

Major changes, including:

• An increase in the divorce rate.

• An increase in cohabitation and a decrease in the number of first marriages.

• An increase in the number of lone-parent families.

• Smaller families,

What do the changes in the family affect?

Girls attitudes towards education in a number of ways. For example, increased numbers of female-headed lone-parent families may mean more women need to take on a breadwinner role. This in turn creates a new adult role model for girls - the financially independent woman. To achieve this dependence, women need well-paid jobs and therefore good qualifications. Likewise, increases in the divorce rate may suggest to girls that it is unwise to provide on a husband to be their provider. Again, this may encourage girls to look to themselves and their own qualifications to make a living.

In recent decades, what have there been important changes in?

Women’s employment:

• The 1970 Equal Pay Act makes it illegal to pay women less than men to work of equal value, and the 1075 Sex Discrimination Act outlaws discrimination at work.

• Since 1975, the pay gap between men and women has halved from 30% to 15%.

• The proportion of women in employment has risen from 53% in 1971 to 67% in 3013. The growth of the service sector and flexible part-time work as offered opportunities for women.

• Some women are now breaking through the ‘glass ceiling, the invisible barrier that keeps them out of high-level professional and managerial jobs.

What have the changes in employment encouraged girls to do?

To see their future in terms of paid work rather than as housewives. Greater career opportunities and better pay for women, and the role models that successful career women offer, provide a incentive for girls to gain qualification.

What did Sue Sharp study?

Changes in girls’ ambitions through interviews with girls in the 1970s and 1990s.

What did Sharp find?

1974 - low aspirations'; believed educational success was unfeminine and that appearing to be ambitious would be considered unattractive. They have their priorities as ‘love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs and careers, more or less in that order‘.

1990s - ambitions changed and so did their order of priorities: careers and being able to support themselves. They were more likely to see their future as an independent woman with a career than as dependent on their husband and his income.

What did O’Connor find?

His study of 14-17year olds found that marriage and children were not a major part of their life plans.

What is the link between O’Connor’s findings and Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s research?

They link the changing in ambitions to the trend towards individualisation in modern society, where independence is valued more strongly than in the past. A career has become part of a woman’s life project because it promises recognition and economic self-sufficiency.

In order to achieve independence and self-sufficiency, what do many girls now recognise?

That they need a good education.

What did Fuller find?

Educational success was a central part of girls’ identity, they saw themselves as creators of their own future and had an individualised notion of self. They believed in meritocracy and aimed for a professional career that would enable them to support themselves. Clearly, these aspirations require educational qualifications, whereas those of the 1970s girls did not.

What are there class differences in?

How far girls’ ambitions have changed. Some working class girls continue to have gender-stereotyped aspirations for marriage and children and expect to go into traditional low paid women’s work.

What does Reay argue?

That the class difference in how far girls’ ambitions have changed reflects the reality of the girls’ class position. Their limited aspirations reflect the limited job opportunities they perceive as being available to them. By contrast, a traditional gender identity is both attainable and offers them a source of status.

What did Biggart find?

That working-class girls are more likely to face a precarious position in the labour market and see motherhood as the only viable option for their futures. Hence, they see less point in achieving in education. For example, the girls in Fuller’s study were not interested in staying at school and expressed a desire for low-level jobs.