EDUCATION - HOW GENDER IMPACTS ATTAINMENT Flashcards
patterns of achievement among boys and girls
-there are 2 main elements to the issue of gender and achievement:
->1. the increased attainment of girls
->2. the relative underachievement of boys
-girls outperformed boys at primary school, but until the late 1980s they underachieved at secondary school
-most girls were unlikely to go to college/university until the 1960s, where there was a significant increase in the education sector (although much of this was due to a demand for teachers)
->in the layer 1980s girls began to gain more GCSEs than boys, and by the mid-1990s they outperformed males in most subjects; by the mid-1990s they were even outperforming males at A levels
->there is now significantly more females at university than males, a gender gap that is predicted to continue growing
->there are marginally more females on degree courses that were traditionally a male preserve, like law and medicine
the increased attainment of girls
- CHANGING PRIMARY SOCIALISATION:
->forms of primary socialisation that have changed since the 1970s:
a) toys given to children:
–>toys for girls used to focus on housework and being maternal (eg. kitchen sets and dolls)
–>toys for boys focused on building and skills (eg. lego and tool sets)
b) activities that children do
–>girls spend a lot of time at home “helping mom”
–>boys go out and join sports clubs
c) parental expectations:
–>girls were expected to stay at home/not pursue higher education
–>boys were encouraged to attain high grades and pursue careers - EFFORT AND BEHAVIOUR:
->attitude to learning:
–>in the 90s, some commentators suggested that girls did more homework and were more concerned with presentation - this made them better suited to coursework
->reading:
–>reading is in decline in general
–>neither girls nor boys read recreationally nowadays
–>this has a negative impact on education - FEMALE EXPECTATION:
->Sue Sharpe (1976/94)
–>in the 1970s, girls priorities were marriage and a family, but by the 1990s their priorities were to get a career
–>by the 1990s, young girls were more ambitions and confident
->Francis and Skelton (2005)
–>Francis backed Sharpe and also found that some boys thought exams were easy and would blame failure on their teachers
–>Skelton found that feminisation of teachers did not matter, 65% of London schools also rejected this
->Helen Wilkinson (1994)
–>”women’s aspirations and their images of themselves have profoundly altered in the past quarter of a century”
–>70% of women say they want to develop their careers or find employment, and only 50% regard having children as a goal - CHANGING OCCUPATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES:
->the “feminisation of the labour market” has led to many more job opportunities for women, alongside legislation that has been put into place, such as:
–>the Equal Pay Act (1970)
–>the Sex Discrimination Act (1974)
–>the Equality Act (2010)
–>improvements in maternity pay and leave - FEMINISM:
->the education system is now much more aware of gender issues and are more sensitive to the need to avoid gender stereotyping
->since the 1960s, the feminism movement has rapidly changed the concept of gender, improving the confidence and self-esteem of women and girls
->Stanworth (1983) found that teachers had lower expectations of girls, and believed even the brightest would go on to be “a personal assistant to someone important”
->Spenders’ “Invisible Women” (1982) found that girls work harder than boys and yet get less attention as the teachers favoured the male pupils who dominated the class - CHANGES IN EDUCATIONAL ORGANISATIONS:
->GIST and WISE encourage more girls to pursue careers in non-traditional areas
->since the 1980s there is less gendered stereotyped images of women in textbooks
->Weiner argues that since the 1980s, teachers have challenged such stereotypes and sexist images have been removed from learning materials
the underachievement of boys
- CHANGES IN THE JOB MARKET:
->fewer manual jobs = the “crisis of masculinity”
–>since the1980s, there has been a decline in heavy industry such as iron and steel, mining, etc, due to the manufacturing industry relocating to china to take advantage of their cheap labour, therefore, many lost their jobs
->impact of women working/need for “soft skills”
–>DCSF (2007) found a gender gap in literacy and language skills - this is because parents spend less time reading to their sons, which does not develop communication skills whereas girls “bedroom culture” does
->the growth of NEETs
–>youths who are “not in employment, education, or training”
–>they are considered a social and economic drag on society and support Charles Murray and his underclass theory - “LADDISH” BEHAVIOUR/PEER GROUP PRESSURE
->anti-school subcultures
–>Epstein said that masculinity is constructed within school: working class boys experience homophobic verbal abuse if they appear to be “swots”
–>Willis found that working class lads said that “having a laugh” was the best way to deal with school - TEACHERS’ EXPECTATIONS OF BOYS:
->boys are expected to misbehave, already labelling them to have lower attainment than girls
->there’s also a lack of male role models at school as teaching is a female dominated industry (in 2021/22 it was reported that over 75% of teachers are female)
->there is overemphasis on “girl friendly” education, causing “lads” to feel less comfortable to say they revise or to be seen caring about their studies
subject choice
-subject choice is gendered by being heavily female/male dominated
->female dominated subjects are generally more expressive and involve a lot more writing (such as, English lit, sociology, art & design)
->male dominated subjects include computing, physics, and maths
->studies show that girls tend to be put off from taking more male dominated subjects for fear of being bullied or “out of their depth”, but are much more likely to take subjects like computing in an all-girls school
