Gender Inequality in Eduaction

Gender inequality in education

• Females outperform relative to males because schools are too ‘feminised’, coursework favours girls, female friends are more likely to be part of pro-school subcultures, march of progress- more opportunities, and girls are more pressure to do well in GCSES and A-Levels (67% thought it was more important for their daughter to go to university)

• Males underperform relative to females because there are a lack of male role models, they are good at ‘practical tasks’ and they are more likely to be part of anti-school subcultures, with lower expectations placed on them.

Females outperformance statistics

• The attainment of boys compared to girls in GCSEs since 1989 has always been lower.

• The percentage of GCSEs passed by girls in 1989 was 48% with a 4% point gap to boys.

• Boys are 22% points better today that in 1989 when GCSES were introduced.

Feminisation of the school environment

• AO1-Epstein argues that there is a ‘poor boys’ discourse that blames the school environment for the failure of boys.

• AO2- 90% of primary school teachers are female- meaning that there is a lack of positive role models for boys meaning that the environment become alienating. Teachers don’t understand masculinity and provide girls with more attention.

• HOWEVER

• AO1- Abraham argues that deviant boys receive more attention from some teachers.

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

• AO2- More female teachers and leaders act as a role model for girls. Girls also produce work timely, of high standards and well-presented, and bouts are the opposite creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

• AO2/3- Marketisation and League tables have seen schools trying to recruit more girls that outperform boys and exclude more boys who underperform.

Feminisation of the school environment (AO3)

• Carrington argues that there is little evidence of the link between the teacher’s gender and male outcomes.

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

• Schools remain very patriarchal:

  • Competitive

  • Hierarchal- with more men in senior positions

  • Authoritarian

  • Sexists

• Girl’s bodies and uniforms are more tightly controlled.

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

• Girls throughout all tiers of education have been victims of sexual assaults.

• E.g. everyone is invited.

Subject Choice

Men more likely to go into:

• Engineering

• Computing

• Maths

• Physical sciences

Women more likely to go into:

• Veterinary courses

• Psychology

• teaching

Subject choice- Skelton and Francis

• AO1- There are considerable differences between boys and girls subject choices at A-levels. Boys follow technical and science-based courses. Whilst girls follow caring subjects such as arts, humanities and social science subjects.

• AO2- Females end up in relatively lower paid and lower status jobs as a result.

• AO3- However, more women are now studying medicine, dentistry and law than men.

AO3 Of subject choice:

• Underachievement of boys is a moral panic.

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

• Ignores other factors like social class which has five times the impact on attainment. Ethnicity has twice the impact.