Gender and Inequality in Education Cartes | Quizlet

Why females outperform relative to males

1. Schools are 'feminised';

2. Coursework favours girls;

3. Female friends are more likely to be a part of pro-school subcultures;

4. march of progress = more opportunities;

5. Girls are more pressured to do well in their GCSEs/ A-Levels (67%. Though it was important for their daughters to go to uni).

Why males underperform relative to females

1. Lack of male role models;

2. They are good at 'practical tasks';

3. They are more likely to be a part of anti-school subcultures, with lower expectations placed on them.

Attainment of boys compared to girls in GCSEs since 1989

Boys' attainment has always been lower.

1989: 48% passed by girls, 4% point gap to boys.

2000: 9% point gap.

2010: 76% passed by girls, 7% point gap to boys.

2019: 9% point gap.

Boys are 22% points better today than in 1989 when GCSEs were introduced.

AO1 Feminisation of the School Environment - Epstein

Epstein argues that there is a 'poor boys' discourse that blames the school environment for the failure of boys.

AO2 Feminisation of the School Environment - Epstein

90% of primary school teachers are female - meaning that there is a lack of positive role models for boys meaning that the environment becomes alienating. Teachers don't understand masculinity and provide girls with more attention.

AO1 Feminisation of the School Environment - Abraham

However, Abraham argues that deviant boys receive more attention from some teachers.

AO1/3 Feminisation of the School Environment - Abraham

Mitsos and Browne argue that teachers are less critical of boys than girls.

AO2 Feminisation of the School Environment - Abraham

More female teachers and leaders act as a role model for girls. Girls also produce work timely, of high standard and well-presented, and boys are the opposite, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

AO2/3 Feminisation of the School Environment - Abraham

Marketisation and League tables have seen schools trying to recruit more girls that outperform boys and exclude more boys who underperform.

AO3 Feminisation of the School Environment

1. Carrington argues that there is little evidence of the link between the teacher's gender and male outcomes;

2. Read studied the use of discipline by over 50 male and female primary school teachers. Both were as likely to use a male discipline discourse - authoritarian, loud, and sarcastic;

3. Schools remain very patriarchal: competitive, hierarchical - with more senior positions, authoritarian, sexist;

4. Girls bodies and uniforms are more tightly controlled;

5. The pressure placed on girls makes them more vulnerable to eating disorders, self-harming and depression;

6. Girls throughout all tiers of education have been victims of sexual assaults - e.g. Everyone's invited website.

★ AO1 Subject Choice - Skeleton and Francis

There are considerable differences between boys and girls in subject choice at A-Level. Boys follow technical and science-based courses. Whilst girls follow caring subjects, such as arts, humanities and social science subjects.

AO2 Subject Choice - Skeleton and Francis

Females end up in relatively lower paid and lower status jobs as a result.

AO3 Subject Choice - Skeleton and Francis

However, more women are now studying medicine, dentistry and law than men.

AO1 Subject Choice

Parents, teachers and peer groups steer students towards certain subjects.

AO2 Subject Choice

This often steers students into subjects based on their gender. Subjects that females are drawn to are mostly taught by women with more discursive teaching styles. Subjects that males are drawn to are mostly taught with more traditional teaching styles.

AO3 Subject Choice

In single-sex schools, the subject choice gap is narrowed, showing the importance of peer pressure and teacher labelling on subject choice (e.g. girls in single-sex schools are 2.5x more likely to choose physics at A-Level).

Science is seen as a boys' subject because...

1. Science teachers are more likely to be male.

2. The examples teachers and textbooks use are often drawn to boys' interests.

3. In science lessons, boys dominate the laboratory.

AO3 Science is seen as a boys' subject because...

1. Underachievement of boys is a moral panic.

2. It has been amplified by press on rioting and gang violence that underachieving boys go on to become involved in.

3. Ignores the other factors (e.g. social class has 5x the impact on attainment. Ethnicity has twice the impact.