EDUCATION: Gender - general Flashcards
What was the gender gap in 2019 GCSE results (guardian infographic)
- 8% gender gap
- 71.7% of females getting 4(+) compared to only 62.9 males
How does the gender gap vary by subject in GCSES?
- Girls tend to achieve better in english - outperform boys by 16%
- In maths, boys outperform girls by 0.5%
- What was the gender gap in 2019 A level results
- How many a level entries were for girls and boys
- Why do you think this is?
3.9%
- But, boys are much less likely to do a levels than girls:
ENTRIES: 440,379 a level entries were female compared to 360, 623 males in 2019
WHY: Males are more likely to do vocational qualifications or apprenticeships than girls
Gender identity
- What
- How are boys in particular expected to behave
WHAT: There is pressure in school to conform to traditional gender roles
BOYS: Sporty, competitive and if they show feminine traits, they are criticised
Mac an Ghail
- Study / what did he find
- How did this apply to Working class boys
- How did this apply to middle class boys
- Conclusion
STUDY: Parnell school, found male peer groups put boys under pressure to not take school work seriously. These differed among social classes:
WC BOYS: ‘Real boys don’t try hard at school’ and they’re most interested in messing around. Boys who wanted to do work were called ‘queer’ or ‘gay’
MC BOYS: Behind the scenes many of them would work hard, but in public they projected an ‘effortless achievement’ image and being smug
CONCLUSION: WC boys thought working hard was not part of WC masculinity, and MC boys thought not being SEEN working hard was part of MC masculinity
Reay
- What did she find out about 11 year old Shaun in her study
STUDY: Shaun, a white working class boy struggled to redefine himself as a hard working pupil when he moved from primary to secondary school
- In primary school, he held the identity of the toughest guy in school and being a good footballer
- In secondary, he tried to positively redefine himself, but found this hard as he still valued his relationship with his old friends and his identity from primary school
Archer
Female peer groups
What does Jackson say about this
STUDY: Interviewed 89 young people, looking at the identities of young WC girls
WHAT: Girls who didnt conform to traditional gender identities came into conflict at school
- For many girls, constructing a heterosexual, sexy feminine image was the most important thing to them
JACKSON: Laddishness among girls is increasing - being loud and aggressive
- This however allows girls to seam carefree about education, reducing the risk of them losing face if they fail
Verbal abuse reinforcing traditional gender identities
- Cornnel
- Paetcher
- Lees
CORNNEL: Verbal abuse if one way in which dominant gender and sexual identities are reinforced
PAETCHER: Male pupils use terms like ‘gay’ in a derogatory way - these labels are often given to students who are bad in sport or prefer feminine subjects
LEES: Boys call girls ‘slags’ if they seemed to be sexually available, and ‘drags’ if they weren’t.
- To Lees, this is one way male dominance starts to assert itself
Teachers reinforcing traditional gender identities
- Haywood
- Abraham
HAYWOOD: Male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests than girls.
- They also ignored boys’ verbal abuse to girls
ABRAHAM: A teachers idea of a ‘typical girl’ was well-behaved and studious, but ‘typical boys’ were troublemakers and thus they gained more negative feedback
Tutors and subject advisors
- How does this cause gender identity pressure
- If male students want to do traditionally female subjects, tutors are likely to question them, meaning they are under more pressure to avoid those subjects as they dont fall into their traditional ‘gender domains’
