1: Gender And Educational Achievement Flashcards
External: Impact of Feminism
McRobbie studied girls’ magazines from the 1970s and 1990s. In 1970s magazines emphasis the importance of getting married whilst in the 1990s magazines emphasised the importance of strong independent women
Criticism: w/c girls still have lower aspirations for careers as they face limited job opportunities - marriage and motherhood is a more achievable goal
External: Changes in the family:
Driver: The increase in divorce and lone parent families has created a new positive role model for girls (a strong independent financially stable woman). To achieve this independence, women need well paid jobs which need qualifications and this encourages girls to work hard in school.
Criticism: New Right would say that lone mothers are negative role models as they are dependent on benefit
External: Increase in women’s employment opportunities
increase in working women due to the growth of the service sector (tertiary sector) which tends to employ women = gives girls an incentive to get qualification as there are employment opportunities for them in the job market.
Criticism: Quaternary sector is replacing service sector and it prefers to employ men (Google’s employees are 70% male) so jobs for boys yet it doesn’t seem to be having an impact on their ambitions and motivation.
Internal: Equal opportunities policies
Initiatives such as GIST (Girls into science and technology) encourage girls to choose science related education and careers and motivates STEM careers which need qualifications so girls work hard at school.
Criticism: girls are still choosing more ‘feminine’ subjects such as Social Sciences so the equal opportunity policies have failed to attract girls to sciences.
Internal: Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum:
Research has found textbooks in 1970s/1980s portrayed men and women in traditional, stereotypical roles and since then these sexist images have been removed from textbooks. Weiner argues that because teachers now challenge prejudice and sexist learning material has been removed, girls are presented with positive images of women
Criticism: Feminists would say education is still patriarchal, e.g. History lessons focus on men.
Internal: GCSE and coursework:
Mitsos and Browne - girls do better in coursework because of gender socialization that encourages girls to be neat, tidy and patient.
Criticism: Elwood - not a huge difference - exams have more influence than coursework on final grades
Internal: Positive role models
There has been an increase in female teachers and head teachers. These women in positions of authority act as positive female role models to girls
Criticism : most senior teachers such as Head Teachers are male so boys do have positive male role models yet underachieve.
Internal: Selection policies (marketisation - league table competition):
Jackson argues girls are seen as more desirable candidates for high performing schools - their exams results are better and this can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of success.
Criticism: this only benefits middle class girls as working class girls get rejected by good schools.
Laddish’ counter-school subcultures
Epstein – high achieving working class boys are labelled as ‘swots’ by their peers and tend to be harassed. Francis – educational achievement is seen as feminine so boys do little or no schoolwork and mess about in lessons to avoid being labelled as ‘swots’
Criticism: deterministic
Lack of positive male role models
There is a lack of positive male role models both at home and school therefore, boys have no male role models to look up to and whose example they can follow.
Criticism: Read studied primary schools and the way in which both female and male teachers discipline both female and male students. Both female and male can be authority figures as teachers use the same masculine, disciplinarian discourse (e.g. raised voice) to ensure students behave - this shows that schools have not become feminised.
Feminisation of education
Feminisation of education: Sewell - schools do not encourage masculine characteristics such as competitiveness and leadership, instead they encourage traits associated with femininity such as methodical work and attentiveness.
Criticism: Ringrose argues Sewell has created a moral panic about boys’ underachievement and the fear in society that underachieving boys will grow up to be a dangerous, unemployed underclass. Ringrose believes these views detract from the problems faced by girls at school such as sexual harassment, gendered subject choices, bullying and low self-esteem.
Decline in traditional men’s jobs (manufacturing industry)
Mitsos and Browne - since the 1980s there has been a decline in industries requiring hard manual labour which traditionally employed men and this has led to a crisis of masculinity as men are unsure of what it is to ‘be a man’. This lack of traditional male jobs makes boys believe they will not be able to get a job which leads to a lack of motivation so they give up on trying to get qualifications.
Why do working class underachieve
Archer et al: w/cs girls underachieve because ofconflict between their w/c feminine identity and the values of the school. w/c girls adopt a hyper-heterosexual femine identity and focus on boyfriends and being loud because it gains them symbolic capital however this leads them in conflict with the education system as girls get dresscoded for wearing revealing clothes/make up and for questioning teacher authority. Boyfriends are also a distraction to girls as instead of pursuing higher education, they now wish to settle down by marrying and having children
Criticism: deterministic
