S

1.4 differential educational achievement: gender

Statistics

  • girls outperform boys

  • Girls consistently get more As than boys

  • Girls attainment score was 48.6 and 44 for boys

  • Girls are more likely to do a levels, boys are more likely to do vocational courses

Out of school factors

Why do girls overachieve

  • used to be argued that boys brains were biologically better designed for education. Better at rational thought whereas girls are too emotional

  • Due to the feminist movement there are changes in the status and role of women in society

  • Sue Sharpe found through interviews that girls priorities had changed from family and marriage to work and education. This is due to changes in the law that were occurring at that time: equal pay act, sex discrimination act.

  • Biological explanations — girls mature faster than boys so they may do so intellectually too, girls have stronger linguistic abilities

  1. The feminist movement changed attitudes regarding women’s roles in society

  2. The change in the nature of work for women

  3. The change in family life and family structure, the move towards for symmetrical families

  4. Change in media representations of women and girls

Why do boys underachieve

  • the empowerment of women has led to a crisis of masculinity, suggested by Mac an Ghaill. This is where men are unsure of their role in society as they are no longer needed in the same way as before.

  • New right sociologists like Charles Murray suggest that the presence of benefits have led to boys having no aspirations beyond unemployment

  • Moral panic in the media suggest that boys are performing worse, whereas its just that girls are improving faster

Evaluation

  • Sharpe suggests that women are still oppressed. There is still a gender pay gap, unequal roles in the home and a ‘glass ceiling’.

  • New right blames the victim. In this case, blaming the boys for not trying hard enough in school, without taking into account other variables

In school factors

Why girls used to underperform (Michelle stanworth)

  • teachers had lower expectations of girls

  • Resources such as textbooks and reading schemes reinforced gender stereotypes

  • Boys dominated the classrooms and stole the teachers attention

  • Schools encouraged passivity in girls and competitiveness in boys

  • Intelligence was seen as an unfeminine trait

  • Schools careers guidance pushing girls towards low-paid or domestic roles

  • Gender division of subjects

Why do girls overachieve

  • due to the feminisation of education. More female teachers and role models (suggested by Sewell). Also that education is incorporating skills that girls excel at, for example introducing more coursework. Mitsos and Browne found coursework is better suited for girls as they have better organisation skills

  • Initiatives introduced to support girls’ education. GIST (girls into science and technology) and WISE (women into science and engineering)

  • The national curriculum leads to less gender division of subjects, so more girls aspiring to perform well in these subjects. Also league tables mean schools must also focus on improving girls’ achievement in order to move up the league table

  • Interactions between girls and teachers are educational whereas boys interactions revolve around discipline

  • Boys are more likely to join anti-school subcultures (Willis’ lads)

  • Teachers turn a blind eye to some ‘laddish behaviour’, so the boys education is suffering (not just those who are being deviant, but also their peers)

Evaluation

  • coursework is being removed from GCSE’s and Alevels. Shown during Covid that girls benefit better from centre-assessed grades rather than exams, so the education system is better suited to boys

  • It implies that boys are falling behind in education, but boys are also improving. They are just doing so at a slower rate to the girls.