Gender differences in achievment

The impact of feminism - external (girls)

feminism has encouraged girls to strive to move away from their traditional roles. McRobbie - girls magazines, 1960:emphasised marriage and not being ‘left on the shelf’. Present:Assertive, independent women emphasised

Changes in the family - external (girls)

since 1970s, changes in lone-parent fam(divorce), smaller fams, etc. e.g female headed lone-parent fam may encourage girls to strive to be a breadwinner, increase in divorce encourages girls not to be dependent on men.

Changes in womens employment - external (girls)

1970 equal pay act, made it illegal to pay women less than men doing same value of work, women breaking through glass ceiling. girls have more career opportunities, role models, better pay.

Girls changing ambitions - external

Sharpe - 1974, girls believed success in education is unfeminine and unattractive, placed love as most important. 1990s, girls wanted to achieve and support themselves, put job as most important. girls want to achieve now. Oconnor- 14-17 yr olds, marriage + children not apart of their plan

Girls changing ambitions - external (criticism) (girls

class differences in ambition. Reay - girls class determines the reality of their ambition, due to what opportunities they believe to be open to them. they see relationships as status

Equal opportunities policies - internal (girls)

Gist (girls into science + technology). WISE (women in science + engineering). encourage girls to achieve bigger, and national curriculum (1988) ensured they study the same subjects. (boys + girls)

Positive role models in school - internal (girls)

increase of female heads and teachers.they are role models and may be more concerned about girls achievement. 1992 - 50 head teachers. 2012 - 71 head teachers

GCSE and coursework - internal (girls)

Gorard found GCSES + coursework (introduced 1989) made boys do worse. Mitsos + Browne found girls better at coursework due to better organisation, spend more time, more neat, better at meeting deadlines, bring right equipment. also oral exams cause girls to do better due to better language skills.

GCSE and coursework - internal (criticism) (girls

Elwood argued course work has some influence, but isnt sole reason for gender gap, as exams have higher influence on grades than coursework.

Teacher attention - internal (girls)

Francis - boys get more attention as they are disciplined harder, felt picked on, and teachers had lower expectations. Swann - boys dominate whole class discussion, girls prefer pair work + group work, girls like turn taking and cooperation while boys interupt, so boys get disciplined harder and lose motivation while girls gain.(SFP)

Challenging stereotypes in curriculum - internal (girls

textbooks in past would shape girls as housewives, scared of physics and maths, and boys more inventive. Weiner - argues teachers challenged stereotypes and sexist images removed from learning materials

Selection and league tables - internal (girls)

Jackson - marketisation lead to sfp, where girls wanted to get picked as they are high achieving and more attractive to schools. Slee- boys 4 times more likely to be excluded due to behaviour, so less attractive

Liberal feminist view of girls achivement

celebrate progress made to improve girls achievement, and argues it will improve more by encouraging policies, role models, and challenging stereotypes

Radical feminist view of girls achievement

recognise that girls are achieving more but education is still patriarchal. e.g sexual harrassment, education still limiting career opportunities, girls not included in curriculum, males more likely to be head teachers.

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - Symbolic capital

girls gain status, recognition, sense of worth by performing their identities. But this clashes with school, preventing success and qualifications

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - Hyper-heterosexual fem identities

Girls constructued desireable identities. e.g one girl spent £40 she got from babysitting a week on her appearance. They did makeup, hair, clothes, and recieved praise from their peers, avoided being called ‘tramp’. They got punished for jewelrey,makeup, and recieved symbolic violence, the school defined their culture as worthless and ‘othered’ them.

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - Boyfriends

Boyfriends brung symbolic capital, but this got in the way of schoolwork and lowered aspirations. These girls aspired for ‘settling down’ and working low paying jobs, one girl even dropped out due to pregnency

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - Being loud

Outspoken, independent, and assertive personalities. e.g questioning teachers authority. They failed to be the ideal pupil and had conflict with teachers.

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - W/C dilemma

Could gain symbolic capital, or educational capital. Some girls defiened themselves as ‘good underneath’ meaning they struggled to achieve sense of self worth in school that devalues them.

Identity, class, girls achievement: Archer - ‘Successful W/C girls’

Evans - some girls aspired high as they wanted to provide for their families. this ‘care’ reflected their identities, and may cause them to stay at home while studying, limiting their opportunities of what unis to get into.

Boys and achievement - Boys literacy

parents may read less to children, and boys may grow to see reading as feminine as mothers tend to read. their leisure pursuits dont engage these schools e.g football, but bedroom culture for girls does

Boys and achievement - Globalisation and the decline of traditional men’s jobs

Decline in labourous jobs e.g mining, as this was taken overseas as its cheaper. Mitsos + Browne - this has lead to ‘crisis of masculinity’, so now boys believe they have to get a proper job and doubt their abilities. however, this may not affect motivation

Boys and achievement - Feminisation of education (sewell)

schools do not nuture masculine traits e.g competitiveness, but nuture feminine ones, e.g attentiveness. Coursework should aslon be replaced with exams.

Boys and achievement - Shortage of male teachers

lack of male role models at home and in school. e.g at home, 1.5 mil female headed lone parent families.Yougov found only 8 perc of teachers are male, and nearly half of boys reported behaving better in the presence of one. Also females cant control boys.

Boys and achievement - Shortage of male teachers (criticism: Read - )

studied language of teachers. disciplinarian discourse - teachers authority is explicit e.g through shouting. liberal discourse - teachers authority is implicit e.g through speaking to a student as if they were an adult, with respect. found mostly females use disciplinarian which is masculine. so school is not feminine.

Boys and achievement - ‘Laddish subcultures' (Epstein)

Boys likely to be experienceverbal abuse, homophobia, labelled as ‘sissies’ if they appear to be ‘swots’. They dont want to appear feminine, and schoolwork is, they dont want to appear ‘gay’ and want to do the manual work associated with masculinity in the W/C.

Boys and achievement - Moral panic about boys (Ringrose)

Feminisim about girls ‘having it all’ lead to moral panic of boys ‘failing’, and boys male become an unemployable underclass that threatens social stability.

Gender and subject choice

Boys more likely to pick maths, physics, with girls more likely to pick sociology + english. So girls like humanitarian subjects + art, and boys like science and core subjects

Gender and subject choice - Gender role socialisation

The process of learning the behaviour expected of males and females in society. Norman - From early age, given different toys, dressed differently, etc. Murphy + Elwood - develop different patterns of reading, boys about hobbies, information, girls about people

Gender and subject choice - Gender domains

The tasks and activities boys and girls see as their ‘territory’. e.g mending a car is male domain. children engage in tasks more relevant to their domains, girls to nutrition and food, boys to cars(math problem) Murphy - girls tackle a problem in the way people feel, boys on how things are work and made.

Gender and subject choice - Gendered subject images

Refers to which gender will want to pick it.Kelly - science is seen as boys because more teachers are male, examples in textbooks are boys, boys dominate the lab in science lessons. Colley - computer science is male bc of male domain, and taught to be off-putting to females.

Gender and subject choice - Single sex schooling (criticsm)

Pupils at a single sex school dont have stereotyped views. Leanoard - boys in these schools will take english + humanitarian subjects, girls male dominated ones.

Gender and subject choice - Gender identity and peer pressure

Others may pressure eachother into taking something if they dissaprove of a choice. e.g boy policing a boy picking dance. Dewar - girls likely to be called ‘lesbian’ or ‘butch’ if they take sport.

Gender and subject choice - Gendered career opportunities

Jobs tend to be ‘female’ or ‘male’, females in cleaning or caring, and males in corporate

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - hegemonic masculinity (connel

The dominance of heterosexual masculine identity and the subordination of female and gay identities.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - Double standards

When we apply one set of standards to one group but a different set to another. Lees - Boys boast about sexual conquests but call girls ‘slags’, and this masculinity is praised by peers, and ignored by teachers, but girls attract negative labels. Feminists see this as patriarchal.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - Verbal abuse

Boys male use names to put girls down. e.g Lees - girls ‘slags’ if sexually available or ‘drags’ if not. Peachter - ‘queer’ ‘gay’ ‘lezzie’ reinforces sexual identity, and puts people down, and these have no relation to real sexual behaviour.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - The male gaze (Ghaill)

The way male pupils and teachers look at girls and see them as sexual objects. Teachers may ask girls to roll skirts down, so feminity is policed. Boys need to reinforce their masculinity by objectifying women, and talking about sexual encounters.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - Male peer groups

Verbal abuse reinforce masculinity e.g calling a boy gay if they want to do well in school as its effeminate. Ghaill - W/C ‘macho lads’ dimissed other W/c boys trying to achieve a higher lifestyle. and M/c seen as effortless achievement, but work in secret.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - Female peer groups (policing)

Archer showed how girls have a hypersexualised identitiy to fit in, and wear certain brands and dress a certain way to not be called ‘tramps’. Ringrose - being popular crucial to girls identity. faced tension between idealised identity - loyal to female peers or sexualised - competing for boys. Currie - girls who compete too much are slut shamed, or dont compete may be frigid shamed. shaming is used to control identity.

Pupils sexual + Gender identities - Teachers and discipline

Ghaill + Haywood - boys told off for behaving like girls, and ignored boys verbal abuse towards girls, sometimes blaming girls for attracting it.Askew + Ross - male teachers male be protective towards female colleagues ‘rescuing’ from pupils, reinforcing gender identities.