External factors of gender differences

Feminism (for girls)

• Social movement striving for equal rights for women in all areas of life

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Impact on achievement:

• Has shifted cultural expectations → empowering women and girls through altering their self image and ambitions in regards to the family and careers → improving educational achievement

McRobbie:

• Study of girls magazines showed the importance of marriage in the 1900s, but now contains assertive and independent women

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Evaluation:

Does not explain why girls outperform boys in education

Changes in the family

• Increase in divorce rate (as previously, you could not divorce if it was an unhappy marriage)

• Increase in cohabitation (as a result of high divorce rate)

• Decrease in no. of first marriages

• Increase in no. of lone-parent families - most being women

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Impact on achievement:

• An adult role-model for a girl shows a financially independent woman.

• Increase in divorce rate -> suggests it is unwise to rely on a husband and you can rely on yourself

↳ Encourages girls to have good qualifications + to look to themselves + have well-paid jobs.

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Evaluation:

• Girls who outperform boys come from nuclear families.

Work and job opportunities

• The 1970 Equal Pay Act

• The 1975 Discrimination Act

• Women in employment has risen from 53% in 1972 to 73% in 2022
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Impact on achievement:

• Girls will desire to get good grades to see their futures as having paid work instead of being housewives

• Role models of successful women encourages girls to work hard

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Evaluation:

• There is a ‘glass ceiling’ hindering women from progressing in their work (becoming CEOs)

Ambition

Study: Sharpe 

• 1974 - girls had low ambitions as they believed educational success was unfeminine + being ambitious was unattractive. 

• Instead, their priorities were love -> marriage -> husbands -> children -> jobs and careers. (this order more or less)

• 1990s - girls had higher ambitions and a different order of priorities - the first being careers.
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Impact on achievement:

• Girls see themselves as being able to support themselves and not relying on a husband and his income.
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Evaluation:

• Doesn’t explain why girls outperform boys.

Literacy (for boys)

• Boys have poorer literacy and language skills due to:

- parents spending less time reading to their sons

- mothers do most of the reading to children, so boys see reading as a ‘feminine’ activity

• Boys leisure activities, such as football, do little to help their literacy and language skills

• Girls have a ‘bedroom culture’ - centred on staying in and talking to friends, which helps their language and communication skills.

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Impact on achievement:

• Poor language and literacy skills affects boys’ performance across a wide range of subjects

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Evaluation:

• Government introduced ‘The Reading Champions’ scheme - role models show their own reading interests

Campaigns:

• Premier League Reading Stars

• Fathers Reading Every Day

↳ successful campaigns

Decline in traditional male employment

Mac an Ghail:

• Claims a decline in traditional male working-class jobs is why W/C boys underperform. 

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Impact on achievement:

• They lack ‎motivation and ambition to seek new skills for new jobs, as industrial jobs require no qualifications, believing that qualifications will not get them anywhere -> lack of effort in education -> lower performance due to having a low self image + lack of self-esteem.

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Evaluation:

• Only explains why W/C boys underperform girls. BUT girls still outperform M/C boys - who are less likely to associate masculinity with factory work.