Gender and educational achievement

Why has girls achievement improved?

Better socialisation for schooling

The job market

Family changes

Female expectations

Feminism

Better socialisation for schooling

External factor

Edwards and David suggest that gender differences in primary socialisation gives girls an advantage in primary and secondary school.

Differences in socialisation:

Mothers talk to baby girls more than boys = better language skills, experienced in listening and talking

Parents allow boys to be louder than girls = boys are more likely to break rules, have trouble concentrating, not do classwork

Girls are taught to confrom to more formal standards of behaviour = familiarises girls with whats expected in the classroom, more likely to pay attention and listen to rules.

Girls also read more books than boys.

Peer groups

Hannan showed that girls spend their leisure time differently to boys:

Boys relate to eachother by doing i.e. being active whereas girls relate to one another by talking (bedroom culture).

This puts girls at an advantage because school is a language experience and girls are also happy to accept help from others whereas boys aren’t.

Kirby

Suggested that communicative play has been replaced by TV, DVD and computer games.

There has also been a decline in family discussion time through things such as mealtimes.

Both of these changes have reduced opportunities for boys to catch up with girls in terms of language development.

Impact of gender socialisation in school

The differences in socialisation are reflected in attitudes and behaviour in school. For example, girls generally work harder, are more motivated, better organised, put in more effort, have more realistic standards and so work harder to achieve their goals. Compared to boys who regard school as feminine, talk back to teachers, are disruptive, involve themselves in bullying, are overconfident and have unrealistic standards.

The job market

Due to post industrialisation there are increasing job opportunities for women in the service sector while the availiability of traditional male manual work has declined. Recently there has been a feminisation of the economy and the workforce (rise of female breadwinner, breaking through the glass ceiling).

Helen Wilkinson

Feminist sociologist that relates girls success to post industrialism which has changed the attitudes of women and depressed the expectations of men. This means that girls might believe that the future offers them more choices and they are provided with the incentive to seek economic independance.

Family changes

Long term increases in divorce, increased age at first marriage, increased age at birth of first child (adulthood postponement), growth of lone parenthood and more individuals living alone (rise of the singleton).

Impact of family changes

Means more women need to take on the role of the major income-earner and the need for good qualifications is made clear to achieve this.

Many girls also have mothers in paid employment which provides them with a positive role model therefore girls recognise that the future offers them more choices and encourages them to seek economic independance.

Beck

Sees the family changes as part of the growth of risk and uncertainty - both relationships and jobs are insecure. This creates an individualised scoiety in which both men and women have to be self reliant and financially independant.

Increases the incentive for girls to achieve educational success to that they don’t have to rely on a man.

Female expectations

Wilkinson argues that female apsirations underwent a radical transformation in the last two decades.

Suggests that young women experienced a genderquake in terms of changes in their attitudes and expectations about their futures. They are more committed to education rather than family life and becoming a hosuewife.

Sue Sharpe

In 1976, discovered that working class girls’ main priorities were marriage and children whereas in 1994 she found that the priorities had changed to job, career and being able to support themselves.

Feminism

Wilkinson and Sharpe say that feminist ideas were filtering down through the media and education system and into family life. These movements were responsible for increased opportunities for females in education and work.

The work of feminist sociologists also led to greater emphasis on equal opportunties in school - teachers are now more sensitive about avoiding gender stereotyping in the classroom.

Internal factors affecting girls’ educational achievement

Gist and Wise = girls are encouraged in schools to pursue careers in non-traditional areas.

Mitsos and Browne = coursework favours girls and therefore they perform better at it.

Removal of gender stereotypes from books in schools.

Rise of female headteachers providing a positive role model.

External explanations for boys’ underachievement

Changes in the job market/status frustration

Peer group status

Unrealistic attitudes

Changes in the job market

Mac and Ghaill suggest that working class boys are experiencing a crisis of masculinity: they are socialised into seeing their male identity in terms of having a job and being a breadwinner.

The decline of manufacturing industry and the rise in long term unemployment makes it increasingly unlikely that males will occupy these traditional roles.

New jobs in the service sector are more suited to women.

Females might be the primary breadwinner in some households.

This means that traditional masculine roles are under threat.

Peer group status

Jackson says that boys conclude that education is irrelevant and therefore don’t try hard. This means that they are likely to look for alternative sources of status which might be achieved by exaggerating their masculinity through delinquent anti-school subcultures.

They use laddish behaviour to restore a sense of masculine pride.

Jackson’s study

Study of eight schools. Jackson found that they were dominated by a culture of hegemonic masculinity that valued toughness, power and competitiveness.

Academic work was seen by boys as being feminine and uncool. Therefore, boys tend to mess around to impress their peer group - they act out a culture of laddish masculinity (laddism).

Some boys did want to succeed but to avoid being seen as uncool they do their work at home - this disadvantages working class boys who have poorer facilities at home.

Unrealistic attitudes

Signs that boys’ overconfidence blinds them to what is actually required for educational successs.

They are surprised when they fail exams and put this failure down to bad luck rather than lack of effort.

Girls are more realistic and try harder to ensure success.

Francis

Notes that boys are more likely to have career aspirations that are not only unrealistic but are less likely to require academic success whereas girls’ career ambitions require academic success.

Internal explanations for boys’ underachievement

School environment

Changes in assessment and curriculum

School environment

Rothermel found that among home schooled children boys achieve the same as girls - this suggests its something inside school that causes their underachievement.

Epstein

Identified a poor boys discourse that blamed schools for failing to cater for boys. He said that teachers, the exam system and female concerns/interests ignore boys’ learning needs.

Some sociologists suggest that the school environment has become feminised.

Sukhnanda et al

Found that boys generally feel they recieve less support and encouragement from teachers.

They think that teachers have higher expectations of girls and are more critical of boys for non-academic reasons. This means they view schools as alien places.

Mitsos and Browne

Teachers aren’t as critical with boys as with girls. They might have lower expectations of boys, expecting them to be late and disruptive.

These expectations might lead to a self fulfilling prophecy meaning that boys achieve worse than girls.

Coffey and Delamont

Not all sociologists see the school environment as favouring girls. They argue that schools have always been patriarchal.

For example, most senior staff in schools are male, education remains hierarchical and competitive (male traits) and the ethos of most schools is still masculine.

Myhill

Argues that girls’ success may be down to them being passive and compliant learners but that boys might be getting a better education because teachers interact with them more frequently.

Changes in assessments

The move from O levels to GSCE’s increased the amount of coursework that could be done.

Pirie argued that O-levels were a boys exam whereas coursework involved in GSCE’s is more suited to girls. This explains why the performance of girls improved more rapidly than boys following the change in exam system.

Curriculum changes

Changes in subject content might have been more to the taste of girls than boys which might have impacted their achievement.

Bleach observed that in English girls tend to favour fiction over non-fiction and creative writing over factual writing. Boys dislike lengthy fiction which is an essential part of the national curriculum.

Bleach therefore concluded that the English curriculum in schools favours girls strengths over boys.

Solutions to boys’ underachievement

Epsteins poor boys discourse = to fix this people argue that schools should be made more masculine and attention and resouces should be directed at boys rather than girls.

Boys will be boys discourse - suggests boys are lazy and unmotivated = solution is to set clear targets for boys and strong discipline while respecting their masculinity.

Francis and Skelton

Problem boys discourse - suggests that boys are to blame for their own underachievement = the solution is strong discipline and more social control.

Boys at risk discourse - sees boys as vulnerable, confused and insecure with low self esteem = solution is that schools need to be sensitive to this and provide opportunities for boys to rebuild their sense of worth.

Feminist criticisms

Some femininst sociologists are concerned that girls are still underachieving beacsue of disruptive boys. Teachers are so focused on controlling boys that girls dont get the attention they deserve.

Whilst girls educational achievement has improved they suggest that without boys holding them back it would have improved even more.

Weiner et al

Believes that the concern about boys and achievement is a moral panic. Argues that the media see the underachievement of Black and working class boys as a problem because it might lead to the creation of a dangerous underclass.

Gillborn and Mirza

Class has over five times the effect on educational attainment as gender and ethnicity has twice the effect.

This suggests the focus on boys has diverted attention from not only underachieving girls but from pupils disadvantaged by theri class and ethnic background.

Gender and subject choice

There is a difference between the subjects that males and females do at GCSE, science subjects have been seen as more masculine whilst English and arts subjects are seen as feminine.

Reasons for differences in subject choices

Gender socialisation

Subject counselling

Subject images and peer pressure

The teacher/teaching method

Gender socialisation

External factor

Pupils subject choices are rooted in primary and secondary socialisation where the social norms linked to stereotyped gender roles are learnt.

From an early age boys and girls are encouraged to play with different toys and do different activities.

Lobban found that books contain gender stereotyping with women linked to traditional domestic roles.

This socialisation might encourage boys to develop more interest in technical and scientific subjects and discourage girls from taking them.

Subject counselling

Internal factor

When giving subject/career advice teachers might be reflecting their own socialisation and expectations by channelling boys and girls into choosing different gendered subject options.

Subject images/peer pressure

Internal factor

Colley found that the gender perceptions of different subjects are important influences on subject choice with some subjects being seen as feminine and others masculine.

Paechter found that sport was seen primarily as a masculine activity which encouraged some girls to opt out of PE.

Kelly suggests that boys tend to dominate science classrooms which intimidate them from taking the sbubject.

The subject choices of girls and boys may therefore reflect their desire to select subjects which they see as having an image appropriate to their gender.

Teacher/teaching method

Internal factor

Colley found that traditional cultural beliefs about gender might still be held by teachers. These then might be passed down to pupils through teaching styles. For example, the teachers of subjects more popular with boys are more likely to be men and might use more formal teaching styles because of the nature of the subject.

Solutions to differences in subject choices

Colley suggested that the changing content of the curriculum of some subjects can change its gender identity and therefore the people who choose it.

Colley also notes that girls in single-sex schools are twice as likely to study maths at university because the cultural pressures aren’t there because of the positive female role models offered to them at school.