Gender Differences in Education - External Factors (3)

Gender patterns in achievement

In the past, boys out-performed girls, but since the 1980s girls have improved more rapidly and now they do better han boys at all levels and in most subjects:

• At key stage 1 to 3, girls do consistently better than boys, especially in English. In science and maths the gap is narrower.

• In 2019, around 3 quarters of girls’ grades were at pass level 4 or above, as against only two thirds of boys’ grades.

• At AS and Alevel, girls are more likely to pass, and to get higher grades, through the gap is narrower than GCSE.

• Girls even do better in traditional boys’ subject like sciences.

• More girls than boys go into higher education.

Reasons for improvements in girls achievement

External Factos - factors outside the education system, such as home and family background, the job market and wider society.

Internal factors - factors within schools and the education system, such as the effect of schools’ equal opportunities policies.

External - The influence of feminism

Since 1960s, feminists have challenged patriarchy in all areas of social life and rejected the traditional stereotypes of women as inferior to men in the home, work, education and law.

• Feminists have impacted women’s rights and opportunities through campaigns to win changes in the law, e.g. on equal pay, outlawing rape in marriage etc.

• More broadly, feminist ideas are likely to have affected girls’ self-image and aspirations. As a result, they are more motivated to do well in education

External - Girls’ changing perceptions and ambitions

Linking to the influence of feminism, studies show that there has been a major shift in how girls see themselves and their fututre:

• Sharpe (1994) → Compared her two studies of w/c girls in 1970s and 1990s. She found that in the 1970s, girls’ priorities were ‘love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs and careers, more or less in that order’. They saw their future in terms of a domestic role, not paid work. In the 1990s, priorities had switched to careers and being able to be independent.

• Francis’s (2001) → found that girls now had high career aspirations and so needed educational qualifications.

• Beck and Beck-Gernsheim (2001) → argue that independence is valued more than in the past. A career has become part of women’s life project.

• Fuller (2011) → found that some girls aimed for a professional career to support themselves. But many working-class girls with poor jobs prospects have stereotyped aspirations for marriage and children - an attainable traditional identity that offers status.

External - Changes in the family

There are now more employment opportunities for women than previously as a result of the expansion of the service sector - traditionally an area of women’s work. Married women’s employment has risen from 53% in 1971 to 72% in 2022.

Changes in the law have improved the position of working women:

• The 1970 Equal Pay Act and the 1975 Sex discrimination Act give women more employment rights

• Since 1975, the pay gap between men and women have almost halved.

As a result of these changes, girls today have more incentive to see their future in terms of paid work and this creates an incentive for them to gain qualifications.