boys underachievement

Question 1

list the main key factors in boys underachievement

Answer 1

feminisation of education
laddish subcultures
leisure pursuits and poor literacy skills
decline in traditional male jobs
lack of positive male role models and less male primary school teachers
expectations of boys

Question 2

outline and evaluate feminisation of education

Answer 2

Sewell - argues schools don’t encourage male characteristics like competition and leadership, instead characterise female ones like methodological working ect. can be seen as introduction of coursework has been a large reason for boys underachievement.

N/A Criticism

Question 3

outline and evaluate leisure activities and poor literacy skills

Answer 3

boys more likely to go out/ play video games, which has no benefits to improve literacy skills vs girls who have bedroom culture and more likely to do homework or talk to friends on phone - improves speaking and listening skills.

N/A Criticism

Question 4

outline and evaluate lack of positive role models and less male primary school teachers

Answer 4

lack of male role models at home as well as in school. A lot of boys raised in the 1.5 million lone parent male headed families in the UK and Yungov found in a study that 14% of primary teachers = male and 39% of boys 8-11 have no lessons with a male teacher when 42% say male presence makes them work harder.

criticism - Read, who did a study on how both male and female teachers in primary schools discipline both male and female students. Found = both male and female teachers used the masculine, disciplinarian discourse to ensure they behave, which shows schools haven’t become feminised.

Question 5

outline and evaluate laddish subcultures

Answer 5

Eipstein and Francis.
Eipstein found that boys who achieved well were labelled as ‘swots’ and given abusive homophobic labels bc educational achievement is seen as feminine.
Francis found that to prevent themselves from acquiring labels like ‘swot’ they instead avoided achievement so did little or no schoolwork or homework.

N/A criticism

Question 6

outline and evaluate decline in traditional male jobs

Answer 6

Since 1980s there’s been a decline inn traditional male jobs like coal, steel, iron, shipbuilding etc.
Mitsos and Browne state this leads to the myth of masculinity where men no longer understand what it is to be a man.
Due to the lack of jobs boys feel they won’t be able to get jobs anyways so don’t bother with qualifications.

N/A Criticism

Question 7

outline and evaluate expectations of boys

Answer 7

despite being less strict with boys they are more disruptive and get sent out more.
parents expect less of them - Kirkland Rowell study found out from 500 secondary schools in the UK that 67% of parents wanted daughters to go to uni and 62% wanted boys to. influenced the kids as 80% of girls wanted to vs 75% of boys.

Also Myhill studied 144 students in year 10-11 and found theyb believed teachers have a more negative view of boys.