GENDER
OFFICAL STATISTICS → 2023, girls achievening a grade 4 or above, girls 71% boys 64%, only in maths do boys achieve higher grades. Alevel, A/A* → girls 46%. boys 41%. End of primary school, only 56% of boys made required maths and reading age and 63% of girls did
EXTERNAL FACTORS →
primary socialisation, bedrooom culture (1970) mcrobbie, girls are socialised in more domestic environments such as cooking cleaning and in quiet places. meaning when the shift comes to school life they are more adapted to sitting and listening. boys are socialised in outdoors and are viewed as wild and free meaning its difficult to adapt to school. parenting styles, girls are read to more as children compared to boys, however boys are more likely to have toys which focus on solving puzzels whilst girls have material toys. harley and sutton (2011) boys under performance due to being silly boys AO3→ stats from primary school attainment, but not all parenting styles are the same, push towards gender neutraility
feminism + male identity crisis, increase of women entering the work force in 2020 72% employment rate, which gives young girls a role model to look up to, whilst boys may consider certain jobs feminime and thus not want to do those subjects. over the last few years there has been a decrease in traditionally masciline jobs such as mining and labouring which has led to an indentity crisis amounst men, meaning more focus on education (link to willis study of wc boys) AO3 → irony as gender pay gap + 77% of work force is male, not just boys struggling also girls from wc backrounds
changing roles in the family, average first time mother in 2020 = 30 years old, more women putting their carrereas first before family so a shift from steryotypical house wifes thus girls more focused on education to start this carrera. increased divorce rates and single parent families which places empthasis on strong female role models. AO3→ women are still treated badly by capitailism and society, men still on average the breadwinner of the house and tend to make most of the desisions.
INTERNAL FACTORS →
teacher student relationships, girls get less praise from teachers since they are held to higher levels whilst boys get more praise (positive discrimination). beckers ideale pupil, white mc boys tend to be this, and teacher steryotyping which oftern leads to the self fufufling prophecy where students become the type of student their teacher views them as. having a good relationship with teachers is important to attainment as they mark work but also help students like a subject or not like it. AO3→ stanworth 1983= teachers more likely to mark boys up and girls down, however boys are stilled oftern viewed as dispruptive… swann + grodol 1994, boys viewed as dispruptive to learning and had lower expectations than girls. key to note that not all students sucome to the self fufling prophecy (determinstic)
curriculum content, lack of women in the content, history and english since its mainly white middle class men who write the curriclulum so they lack a diversity. books for young children often contain sterotypes on girls and boys, with make up and shopping compared to adventure. (you cant be what you cant see), students who cant relate to the content often dont try as hard as they simply not intresseted in it. AO3→ J ellwood, ‘not netural and dominated by powerful groups’, 1998 sats test a= evacuating children b= spiders, boys did better on paper b and girls it didnt matter. talyor et al, 1996 1902 education act has been largely replaced by gender neutral subjects for everyone
hidden curriculum, boys overall are rewarded more than girls, as teachers under estimate them thus are more likely to reward for smaller tasks. uniform, girls told of for skirts but boys also for shirts however boys told of more as male teachers din t usually tell of the girls as much. sexist language is also used in schools with biys oftrn promoting misogony which teachers dont always tell them off for. AO3 → primary schools trying to become more gender netural with same uniform and unisex toilets to try and improve mental health and stop early sterotyping of girls and boys. Archer et al (2010) street style often liked by wc boys doent fit in with the soicety at school which leads to bad relationships with teachers thus a bad school expreinence
organisation of teaching and learning, teacher work force is pradomitaly female 76%, which leads to education being viewed as a feminine activity thus boys dont want to persaue academia due to it being to female dominated. the daily routine of school favours girls due to its stucture. AO3 → mitosis and brown, boys are better at testing (gcse only really testing now making it fair) and are competive leading them to dominate class discussions. meanwhile girls are better at group work and coursework.
student identity and the peer group, boys who put academic effort in are more likely to be subject to verbal homophobic slurs and langauge which discoruages high attainment, masculinity is constucted in the school leading the groups of lads negatively impacting eachother. there is male dominance over females through abusive langauge + indimidation as well as sexual assult which oftern happens in the school. girls are more likely to enjoy school however are sexuailised by the peer groups which may lead some to have negative expreinces. AO3→ archer et al, mascilunty is centered around clothes, girls who lack cultural capital are more likely to find social capitial in the school. companies such as feministia are trying to tackle sexism in schools by giving teacher training and providing rescources (e.g - schools having a girls atro day to encourage playing sports)