Gender + Achievement Flashcards
What are the external factors in influencing achievement?
- Impact of Feminization
- Changes in the family
- Changes in women’s employment
- Girls changing Ambition
What internal Factor for DEA in Gender?
- Equal Opportunities Policies
- Positive Role Models in school
- GCSE & Coursework
- Teachers Attention
- Selection & League Tables
- Challenging Stereotypes in the Curriculum
What is Feminism?
a social movement that strives for equal rights for women in all areas of life
What has Feminism done, how is it reflected and how has this affect girls?
- challenged the traditional Gender roles of Women (housewife/mother)
- Raised women’s esteem/expectations
- Changes are reflected in the media with many examples of strong independent woman
- affected girls self-image and ambitions with regards to family and career thus leading to their educational success
What are the changes in the family?
- increase in divorce rate
- increase in a number of lone parent families
- smaller families
- decrease in the number of first marriages
- increase in cohabitation
How has changes in the family affected girls achievement
- increase in divorce rate have shown girls that it is unwise to reply purely on their husbands to be their provider. therefore, encouraging girls to obtain the qualifications needed for them to be self-sufficient
- increased number of female-headed lone parent families means that there is now more women undertaking the traditional breadwinner role which in turn creates a new positive adult role models for girls to aspire to - the financially independent women. Hence, to achieve this will need have well-paid job which can only occur if they obtain good qualifications.
- More women are single and start family later in life, therefore normalizing the idea of seeking and building a career for girls
What are the Changes in Women’s Employment?
- 1970 Equal Pay Act make it illegal to pay women less than men for work of equal value
- 1975 Sex Discrimination Act outlaws discrimination at work
- Since 1975, the pay gap has halved from 30% to 15%
- Proportion of women in employment has risen from 53% to 67%
- the growth of the service sector and flexible part-time work has offered opportunities for women
some women are now breaking through the glass ceiling with an increase in managerial roles due to their better communication skills
How do changes in Women’s employment affect achievement?
these changes have encourages girls to see their future is terms of paid work rather than housewives. Greater pay and the role models that successful career women offers have provided an incentive for girls to gain qualifications. Especially since the increase in career opportunities have made education more relevant than previously.
How has Girls changing ambition affected achievement?
- Fuller found that for some girls educational success have become a central aspect to their identity as they saw themselves as creators of their own future. Thus believed in meritocracy and aimed for a professional career that would enable them to support themselves. Thus tried hard at school to achieve highly and teacher positive label further encouraged them
- Sharpe interviewed girls in the 1970s and 1990s and found a major shift in the way girls see their future. In 1974, girls had low aspirations, believed that educational success was unfeminine and that appearing ambitious would be considered unattractive. However, by the 1990s, girls were more ambitious and had a different order of priorities were careers and being able to support themselves being the most important. Hence, strived in school to achieve this.
What did O’Connor found and what did Beck-Gernsheim link this to?
Found that 14-17 years old did not have marriage and children as a major part of their life plans in which Beck-Gernsheim linked this to the trends of individualization in modern society, where independence is valued much more strongly than in the past.
What has career become for women and why?
What has this lead to for girls?
- has become part of their life project because it promises recognition and economic self-sufficiency.
- in order to achieve independence and self-sufficiency, girls now the values of education
How has equal opportunities policies affected girls achievement?
- GIST and WISE have encourages girls to pursue careers in traditionally male domain subjects by raising male science teachers awareness of gender issues, providing non-sexist career adviser, having female scientist visit school to act as role models and learning materials in science have now developed to reflect girls interest as well
- National Curriculum have meant that girls and boys now mostly study the same subjects when previously this hasn’t been the case
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Feminization impact on girls achievements?
- The increase in feminization of Education has led to more role models for girls to see that breaking the glass ceiling is very much so possible as they see that top position can go to female teachers and headteachers
GCSE & Coursework impact on girls achievement?
- changes in the way students are assessed have favored girls and disadvantaged boys.
- Gorard found that the introduction of Coursework’s in GCSES had led to a sharp increase in the gaps of achievement thus concluding that gender gap in achievement is the product of the changed system in assessment. Mitsos and Brown further strengthen this view by suggesting that girls are better at coursework because they are more conscientious, meticulous and organized. These characteristics and skills are a result of primary gender socialization which became an immediate advantage in todays assessment system for girls. Hence helping girls achieve greater success than boys
- With GCSE came oral exam’s which favors girls more as they are better developed in their language skills due to primary socialization.
How has League tables & Selection Policies affected gender difference in achievement?
- Marketisation policies have created a more competitive climate in which schools sees girls as a desirable recruits because they achieve better exam result.
- Jackson noted that the introduction of exam league tables has improved opportunities for girls because the competitive climate created has led to schools seeing girls as desirable recruits because they were more likely to achieve better exam results which helps schools strengthen their rank. As a result, leading to the creation of a SFP because girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools, they are more likely to be labelled positively thus also more likely to do well.
- Slee argues that boys are less attractive to schools because they are more likely to suffer from behavioral difficulties and are 4 x more likely to be excluded. As a result boys are seen as “liability” students, an obstacle to schools in furthering their league table position. Hence, boys are more likely to be labelled negatively and undermined by their teacher resulting in lower educational achievement.
