Education- Gender: Internal factors Flashcards
Boaler
Sees the impact of equal opportunities policies (G.I.S.T and W.I.S.E) as a key reason for the changes in girls achievement. Many barriers have been removed and schooling has become more meritocratic.
Pirie
A shift towards course work benefitted girls because research suggests boys tend to cram for exams quite effectively, but are poor at organising themselves to be successful at coursework.
Mitsos and Browne
Girls do better with coursework because they are more conscientious and better organised than boys. Oral exams are also said to benefit girls as they have stronger oral skills than boys.
Swann
Boys prefer whole class discussions and often dominate these by interrupting, whereas girls prefer pair work and group work where they listen and cooperate. This might explain why teachers respond more positively to girls as they see them as cooperative, and more negatively to boys, as they see them as disruptive. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Jackson
The introduction of exam league tables have improved opportunities for girls as high achieving girls are attractive to schools, whereas low achieving boys are not. Because girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools, they are more likely to do well.
Coffey and Delamont
Schools have always been patriarchal- by 2014, most senior staff in schools were males, and in 2012, 61% of teachers in secondary schools were female but only 37% achieved a headship.
Stanworth
Education gives the following messages to women:
- Men are more important
- Boys careers are more important
- Boys are cleverer
- Senior positions are held by men
- Men should be dominant
Archer
Working class girls underachieve because they focus on creating a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity, having a boyfriend and being too loud.
Evans
Working class girls were reluctant to apply for universities like Oxbridge, as they felt a sense of hidden barriers, and had a strong attachment to their locality- their w/c neighbourhood gave them a sense of identity and feared losing it. However, they wanted to increase their earning power to help their extended families.
Francis and Skelton
The sudden concern about boys has been exaggerated in the media as a ‘moral panic’.
2 reasons why w/c boys underachieve
-Literacy skills; children are mainly read to by their Mothers so boys equate reading as a feminine activity. Boys leisure pursuits do not help their literacy skills.
- Globalisation; since the 1980’s there has been a decline in heavy industry jobs such as mining, which are thought to be ‘male jobs’. Without these jobs, men are having an identity crisis and many believe they have no chance of getting a job in the future.
