EDUCATION - GENDER Subject choice Flashcards
National Curriculum
When there is choice in the National Curriculum, girls and boys choose differently. E.g., design and tech is a compulsory subject, girls tend to choose food tech whilst boys choose graphics and resistant materials.
AS and A Levels
The gender differences become more apparent at A-Level when 93% of men opt for computer science and 75% of girls opt for sociology.
The effectiveness of policies such as WISE and GIST aimed at encouraging girls to take up subjects such as physics - girls opting for physics has stayed consistently at 20% over the last 2 decades.
Vocational courses
Gender segregation is still so apparent here - 1% of guys opt for Children’s care whilst only 2% of girls opt for construction.
WHY IS THERE GENDER SEGREGATION IN SUBJECT CHOICE?
Gender Role socialisation
Fiona Norman
Norman points out how from an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys, and are encouraged to take part in different opportunities.
Girls are expected to be quiet and submissive at school whilst boys are encouraged to be tough and show initiative.
This affects the way that boys and girls develop - boys read hobby books and information texts whilst girls read stories about people.
WHY IS THERE GENDER SEGREGATION IN SUBJECT CHOICE?
Gender domains
Gender domains = the tasks and activities that boys and girls see as male or female territory.
For example, mending a car is seen as part of the male gender domain.
Gender domain beliefs are shaped from the early experiences of children and their expectations of adults.
When given a task, children are more confident if the tasks are part of their gender domain e.g., mathematical tasks are better done by girls when they’re about food or nutrition. When tackling the same task, girls often focus on how people feel and boys focus on how things are made and work.
WHY IS THERE GENDER SEGREGATION IN SUBJECT CHOICE?
Single-sex schooling
Diana Leonard
These fellas tend to hold less stereotypical views about the subject and they tend to make less traditional subject choices.
Leonard found that on her data of 13,000 individuals, girls in girls’ schools were more likely to take maths, and science A-Levels - they were also more likely to study in male-dominated fields at university.
WHY IS THERE GENDER SEGREGATION IN SUBJECT CHOICE?
Gender Identity and peer pressure
Paechter
E.g., boys tend to opt out of music and dance because they seem to attract a negative response from their peers.
Paechter found that because pupils see sport as mainly within the male gender domain, girls who are sporty have to cope with an image that completely contradicts the conventional female stereotype.
Similarly, the Institute of Physics found that ‘there is something about doing physics as a girl in a mixed setting that is particularly off-putting’
Perhaps the reason why girls who go to all girls schools do physics and other male-dominated subjects is because the opposite gender is absent.
WHY IS THERE GENDER SEGREGATION IN SUBJECT CHOICE?
Gender, vocational choice and class
Carol Fuller
W.C pupils are more likely to make decisions based on their traditional gender identities e.g., most of Fuller’s W.C gals went into child care, hair or beauty careers.
Fuller found that the placements in the feminine, W.C jobs such as nursery nursing and retail work were overwhelmingly the norm for the girls in her study. She concludes that the school was implicitly steering girls towards certain types of jobs.
