Boys’ underachievement Flashcards
Boys’ and achievement
Boys ARE achieving in school – but at a much
slower rate to girls
At age 6 – boys are behind girls in reading and writing
Boys are behind girls at GCSE
Boys are more likely to be excluded from school than
girls
Poor literacy skills (external factor)
Boys have poorer literacy and language skills than girls. This
affects their achievement across a wide range of subjects.
Studies show that most of the reading to children at home is
done by mothers so the activity becomes associated with
femininity. Thus boys reject it. Also, parents spend less time
reading to their sons.
Leisure (external factor)
Boys’ leisure pursuits such as football and console
games do not contribute to developing literacy skills.
On the other hand, girls have a bedroom culture –
staying in and talking to friends. This develops
communication skills – listening and speaking –
which helps girls do well at school as these skills are
crucial for educational success.
Decline in traditional men’s jobs (external factor)
Mitsos and Browne claim this has led to a crisis of masculinity – men are unsure
of what it is to ‘be a man’ as they now have fewer opportunities to be
breadwinners for their families which undermines their sense of masculinity.
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.
+C of Mitsos and Browne
these jobs (factory work) are manual jobs so they don’t require
qualifications so it is wrong to say that in the past boys were motivated to do well at school as there were jobs out there for them, when those jobs didn’t need qualifications in the first place. Also, the new quaternary sector tends to employ men so there are jobs out there for boys now once again, yet that has not motivated them to work hard at school to gain qualifications as they’re still underachieving.
Feminisation of education (internal factor)
Sewell argues that education has become feminised - schools do not encourage masculine characteristics such as competitiveness and leadership, instead they encourage traits associated with femininity such as methodical work and attentiveness. This puts boys off learning as they associate it with femininity.
Furthermore, he argues that coursework is a major reason for boys’ underachievement as they tend to lack organisational skills.
+c of Sewell
Ringrose argues sociologists like Sewell have created a moral panic about boys’ underachievement and the fear in society that underachieving boys will grow up to be a dangerous, unemployed underclass. For Ringrose, these views detract from the
problems faced by girls at school such as sexual harassment, gendered subject choices, bullying and low self-esteem. She also argues that the focus on boys’ underachievement is leading to the neglect of working class girls and some e/m who are also underachieving in education.
Lack of positive male role models
There is a lack of positive male role models both at home – large numbers of boys are being brought up in the 1.5 million female-headed lone parent families in the UK – and at school where only 16% of primary school teachers are male.
Therefore, boys have no male role models to look up to and whose example they can follow. Some argue that female teachers can’t control boys’ behaviour and male teachers are needed to impose discipline and concentration needed for learning.
+C of lack of positive male role models
– Read studied primary schools and the way in which both female and male teachers discipline both female and male students. She found that both female and male teachers use the masculine, disciplinarian discourse (explicit discipline, e.g. raised voice) to ensure students behave. This shows that schools have not become feminised. It also shows that both female and male teachers can be authority figures in relation to students.
Also, most Head Teachers are male so boys do have positive role models to look up to at school.
‘Laddish’ counter-school subcultures
Epstein – argues that anti-school subcultures contribute to boys
underachievement by discouraging educational success. For
example, high achieving working class boys are labelled as
‘swots’ (nerds) by their peers and tend to be harassed and
subjected to homophobic abuse simply because they are doing
well at school.
Francis – being labelled as a ‘swot’ is a threat to boys’
masculinity so boys try to avoid being labelled as ‘swots’ in order
to assert their masculinity in front of their peers. This is because
educational achievement is seen as feminine so they do little or
no schoolwork and mess about in lessons which leads to
underachievement.
