Education

Question 1

Heaton and Lawson (1996)

Answer 1

The Hidden curriculum

Question 2

What is the Hidden/Patriarchal curriculum?

Answer 2

a form of socialisation where boys and girls are socialised into different gender roles. They see parallels between what happens in school to gender expectations in wider society (the hidden curriculum).

Question 3

5 Ways the Hidden curriculum operates

Answer 3

• Through a patriarchal curriculum where lessons and subjects are gender specific despite the national curriculum in place
• A lack of positive role models
• Teachers expectations and attitudes
• Through students, where girls are made to feel uncomfortable in certain spaces (Culley 1986)
• Through books (Kelly 1987)

Question 4

Heaton and Lawson Evaluation

Answer 4

• the education system is increasingly resulting in female success and male underperformance. If this is a system designed to ensure men are in the top positions in society and women are marginalised into a domestic role, then it would appear to be failing.

Question 5

Walby (1999)

Answer 5

Triple System Theory of Patriarchy

Question 6

Triple Systems Theory

Answer 6

Walby believes that experiences of ethnicity and class complicate how we think about what it is to be female. Walby argues that to understand the issues women face, we need to understand them from three structures of power and difference 
- patriarchy, racism and capitalism.

Question 7

Six ways women are exploited

Answer 7

1. The patriarchal mode of production where women’s labour is exploited within the household by men.
2. Patriarchal relations in paid work where women are segregated and paid less.
3. Patriarchal relations in the state where the state operates in the interests of men rather than women.
4. Male violence against women through rape, sexual, emotional and physical assault.
5. Patriarchal relations in sexuality where women face double standards as their sexuality is viewed differently to men’s.
6. Patriarchal relations within cultural institutions and the creation of masculine and feminine identities through the media, education and religion.

Question 8

How does Walby’s Triple Systems Theory link to education

Answer 8

Focus on the patriarchal relations within cultural institutions and the creation/socialisation of masculine and feminine identities through education.

Question 9

Osler (2006)

Answer 9

Ethnicity, gender, and learning

Question 10

What did Osler pick up on?

Answer 10

• schools have focused so much on boys, they have diverted attention from not only underachieving girls but from pupils disadvantaged by their class and/or ethnic background.
• Schools have been set a target to ‘reduce school exclusions among boys and certain ethnic-minorities’. She points out that the current focus on boys’ exclusion (and underachievement) is masking a serious problem of exclusion and underachievement among girls, which is increasing at a faster rate than that of boys

Question 11

Osler on girls in school

Answer 11

African-Caribbean girls are often hailed as one of education’s success stories. Yet girls classified as African- Caribbean are more vulnerable to disciplinary exclusion than their white female peers. Despite this, mentoring schemes and other support systems are targeting Black boys. Furthermore, girls who are excluded from school are less likely than their male counterparts to access appropriate support or secure
places in pupil referral units or other alternative schemes. Osler sees this as their right to an education being denied.

Question 12

Why doesn’t Osler claim herself as a Feminist?

Answer 12

her main argument is that we should move away from this ‘gender seesaw’ where schools focus on boys, then girls and then boys again. She reveals one of the problems with schools focusing solely on the group they perceive to be the most disadvantaged. She is able to show how class, gender and ethnicity can intersect and how this complicates the experiences girls have in school. That being said, the way she understands how class, gender and ethnicity intersect shows an element of intersectional feminist influence.

Question 13

Osler Evaluation

Answer 13

Useful as she is able to show how class, gender and ethnicity can intersect and how this complicates the experiences girls have in school.

Question 14

Francis (1998)

Answer 14

Gender and Learning

Boy’s impairment on girl’s learning experience

Question 15

What was Francis’ overview on education?

Answer 15

Despite boys underachieving in schools compared to girls, feminists like Becky Francis (1998) suggest that girls are still underachieving in school because of disruptive boys. Teachers may be so tied up with controlling boys, that girls don’t get the attention they deserve.

Question 16

What study did Francis conduct?

Answer 16

In 2005 Francis carried out a study on ‘the impact of gender constructions on pupil’s learning and educational choices.’

Question 17

What did Francis’ study ‘the impact of gender

constructions on pupil’s learning and educational choices.’ in 2005 entail?

Answer 17

• Observation was used to record classroom interaction and student behaviour during VCSE lessons.
• She also carried out individual interviews with students.
• The schools were all mixed-sex comprehensives with a large majority of working-class students. Approximately one third of the sample were from African-Caribbean origin, one third were White and one third from other ethnic groups.
• The observation was conducted in English lessons (traditionally feminine subject) and Maths (traditionally masculine subject). A
  top set and lower set lesson were observed, so four observed in each school (12 observations in total). Each class had 3 lessons observed (36 observations in total).

Question 18

What did Francis’ study ‘the impact of gender

constructions on pupil’s learning and educational choices.’ in 2005 discover?

Answer 18

In terms of power, boys gained status by taking up ‘laddish’ or ‘class clown’ roles. In 8/12 classes observed, boys dominated the classroom interaction by being louder than girls, making greater use of the classroom space, shouting out questions and answers, being disruptive and/or taking up more of the teachers’ attention.
- However, the research also showed how the view of femininity as ‘sensible’ fits more easily with the qualities
required for educational success such as concentration and hard work. Francis perceived that their ambition for a good job and the need to compete with men was motivating them to perform well at school.

Question 19

Francis evaluation

Answer 19

A limitation of her classroom observations was an inability to faithfully record all the interaction, due to the sheer noise levels in some of the classes, however this can further proves her point on male disruption in lessons

Question 20

Sue Sharpe (1994)

Answer 20

Changing Aspirations

Question 21

What did Sue Sharpe study?

Answer 21

the attitudes of working-class girls in London

Question 22

What time periods did Sue Sharpe compare in her study of the attitudes of working-class girls

Answer 22

1970s and 1990s

Question 23

What did Sue Sharpe discover about the 70s in her study ?

Answer 23

In a 1976 survey, Sue Sharpe discovered that girls’ priorities were ‘love, marriage, husbands and children’ then followed by ‘jobs, careers’ – more or less in that order.

Question 24

What did Sue Sharpe find in the 90s survey

Answer 24

When the research was repeated in 1994, she found that their priorities had changed to ‘job, career and being able to support themselves’ above all other priorities.

Question 25

Sharpe Evaluation

Answer 25

Such changes have been demonstrated by other researchers such as Becky Francis.

Question 26

Kelly (1987)

Answer 26

Gendered Language in textbooks

Question 27

What was Kelly’s main focus ?

Answer 27

focused on a particular aspect of the patriarchal curriculum - gendered language in education

Question 28

Kelly Overview

Answer 28

• women were invisible in science textbooks and dependent on men in Children’s books.
• Teachers reflect patriarchal values when they are speaking about a group of people and tend to use masculine gendered pronouns

Question 29

Kelly Evaluation

Answer 29

Education is becoming a more female-dominated field (most teachers are women, an increasing number of managers are women because they are drawn from the available teachers)

Question 30

Culley (1986)

Answer 30

School teach girls to accept marginalisation

Question 31

According to Culley, how are girls marginalised in school?

Answer 31

Culley found that boys ‘colonise’ or take over spaces.
Examples of this are computer rooms and playgrounds.
Boys tend to play ball games centrally and the girls find themselves pushed to the edges.

Question 32

Culley evaluation

Answer 32

it is still clear that there is a glass ceiling and a gender pay gap so the education system might be creating lots of highly-qualified girls, they are still losing out to their male peers when it comes to top jobs and higher incomes. the education system largely normalises this and so even highly-qualified women often accept this as inevitable or normal. At the same time men are socialised to also consider this normal.