Gender flashcards - sociologists - boys and achievement

Ringrose 2013 - moral panic about boys

• Views such as ‘girls have it all’ and ‘women are taking men’s jobs’ have contributed to the moral panic that boys are failing

• This reflects a fear that underachieving W/C boys will become a dangerous, unemployable underclass that threatens social stability

• Moral panic has caused a major shift in policy, towards being preoccupied with raising boy’s achievement

  • This has resulted in the disregarding of disadvantaged EM and W/C pupils

  • Also resulted in schools disregarding problems faced by girls, such as sexual harassment, bullying, low self-esteem, identity issues and stereotyped subject choices

Osler (2006) - focus on boys leads to neglect of girls

• Focus on boys has led to the neglect of girls

• Boys disengage in public displays of laddish masculinity, attracting attention from teachers and policy makers

  • Mentor schemes to reduce black male exclusions ignore rapidly increasing female exclusions

• Girls disengage from school quietly

  • Less likely to obtain places in PRUs

  • Official statistics mask a wider problem of self- and internal exclusion

DCSF (2007) - literacy

• Gender gap in education due to boys' weaker literacy and language skills, which affects performance across all subjects

• This is due to

  • Parents spending less time reading to boys, and even then most of this is done by the mother which gives it the sense of being a female activity

  • Boys leisure time being spent playing ball games, which doesn’t foster language skills, while girls have a ‘bedroom culture’

Mitsos and Browne - globalisation and the decrease in traditional men’s jobs

• Post-1980s decline in heavy industries due to globalisation has led to manufacturing relocating to developing countries with cheap labour, like China

• Decrease in male employment opportunities has created an identity crsis for men

  • Boys believe they have very few prospects of getting a proper job

    • Undermines motivation and self esteem, they give up getting qualifications

CRITICISM of Mitsos and Browne

• Decline has largely been in manual W/C jobs that require fewer qualifications

  • This has little impact on motivation to get qualifications

Feminisation of education - Sewell (2006)

• Boys have fallen behind due to the feminisation of education

  • School doesn’t nurture masculine traits like competitiveness and leadership, instead celebrating feminine qualities like methodical working and attentiveness

• Coursework has replaced exams which disfavours boys

• There should be more of an emphasis on outdoor education within the curriculum

• ‘We have thrown the boy out with the bathwater [patriarchy]’

Shortage of male primary school teachers

• Lack of male role models both in school and at home due to increasing numbers of boys brought up in matrifocal families

• Female teachers are unable to control boy’s behaviour as male teachers are more able to impose the strict discipline boys need to concentrate

CRITICISM of female teachers and discipline

Read (2008)

• Types of discourse

  • Study of 51 teachers (25 male, 26 female)

  • There are two types of language/discourse:

• Disciplinarian

  • Associated with masculinity

  • Explicit/visible authority

    • Shouting

    • Sarcasm

    • Exasperated tone of voice

• Liberal

  • Associated with femininity

  • Implicit/invisible authority

    • Child-centered

    • Pseudo-adultification

    • Teachers speak to children as if adults and expect children to be kind/sensible/respectful

• Most teachers use a disciplinarian approach, therefore disproving feminisation theory and showing that female teachers can equally provide a stricter classroom culture for boys to thrive in

CRITICISM of feminisation of education

Haase (2008)

• Primary schools are a masculinised educational structure, numerically dominated by women

Epstein (1998)

W/C bullying for engaging in school

• W/c boys more likely to be … if appear to be ‘swots’

  • Harassed

  • Labelled as sissies

  • Subject to homophobic verbal abuse

• “Real boys don’t do work.”

  • If they do, they get bullied

Francis (2001)

Peer labelling by gender

• Boys more concerned about being peer-labelled as swots than girls are

  • Peer-labelling is more of a threat to boys’ masculinity than it is to girls’ femininity

• Laddish culture is more widespread as girls move into masculine careers/areas

  • This pushes boys to be more laddish so as not to appear feminine