Gender and external factors

Girls:

  • Girls have consistently outperformed boys by about 6 or 7% since the 1980s as measured by GCSE results

  • BUT boys have still outperformed girls in STEM

  • gender role socialisation - one of the principal explanations for this attainment gap - Fiona Norman argues that girls are encouraged to be more communicative be it through talking, listening and reading which then advantage girls in the classroom

  • BUT the change is more recent so changes in economy and families must be considered

Economic changes:

  • Job market has opened to women since the influence of feminism and subsequent polices such as the 1970 Equal Pay Act and 1975 Sex Discrimination Act

  • Girls more encouraged to consider going to universities and getting careers rather than just the domestic role

  • The changed structure of the economy has also resulted in more jobs favourable to females in the service sectors such as retail, hospitality, leisure and more

  • As more females have had successful careers in these sectors it has affected the ambitions of young females at school.

Influence of feminism:

  • Mitsos and Browne - the women’s movement since the 1960s has improved girl’s self-esteem and caused them to raise their expectations and ambition

  • Sue Sharpe - study done in 1970s showed most girls’s first priority were marriage, husbands and children rather than careers contrasting to a second study done in the 1990s when this was reversed.

  • The decline in desire to get married and have a family has changed attitudes and young girl’s ambitions - this has been increased by improved reproductive rights, the 1967 abortion act, 1969 Divorce reform act and more

Influence of Individualisation in late-modern society:

  • Beck - in a precarious and uncertain world, there is more emphasis on individual choice and efforts which has diverted the previously common attitude that women could be dependent on their relationships and seek security in them - now girls are motivated to focus on their individual future choices and individual success

Critique:

  • Social class is more significant - Biggart - motherhood is preferable than employment for many young working class girls due to it ensuring more security and stability.

Boys:

  • Boys are encouraged to be active and engage in physical activities from an early age which require little communication and quiet concentration - gender role socialisation

Deindustrialisation:

  • There has been a large decline in heavy industry jobs

  • These heavy industry jobs had previously been guaranteed work for young men

  • Mitsos and Browne - claim that a crisis of male identity has developed

  • Studies show how most men aspire to hegemonic masculinity - an overtly heterosexual identity that includes, displaying physical strength, hiding emotions, achieving power over women and independent earning power

  • Therefore the disappearance of guaranteed work in industry has damaged male confidence and ambition in education

  • Ward - studied male students in a deindustrialised area of South Wales - the disappearance of industrial jobs meant the ‘Boiz’ (as he called them) found other ways to express their hegemonic masculinity

  • ^^ this consisted of drinking heavily, playing rugby and mocking the educationally successful - mostly middle class boys who they considered effeminate (feminine)

  • ^^ previously, these boys would have left education immediately to go out to work - BUT - most of the boys he studied continued education taking vocational courses or did STEM subjects in order to maintain their masculine identity

  • ^^ two thirds of them did not go to university

  • It is often argued that in the post-industrial age, masculine identities are embraced even more due to the lack of status of physical manual work - any behaviour or activities that may be perceived as remotely effeminate are avoided such as reading, studying etc

Critique:

  • Ringrose - moral panic - focus on supposed failing boys and raising boys’ achievement instead of tackling other problems such as the underachievement of pupils from low-income households and some ethnic minority pupils in addition to the problems girls face such as sexual harassment, bullying, mental health issues, eating disorders and self-harm