Gender and achievement Flashcards
Gender socialisation
-Literacy skills: reading is feminised
-Girls are socialised into being more passive and obedient- the ‘ideal pupil’
-McRobbie- Bedroom culture: Girls are more likely to stay inside and do educational activities like reading from a young age (mothers likely to read to daughters)
-Boys are less likely to do as many educational activities and more sports activities like football (fathers likely to engage in physical activities with sons)
-Canalisation: Girls given toys to encourage them to be caring and nurturing
-Boys given toys that encourage them to be instrumental in nature e.g, construction kits
-Subject choices: Girls are socialised into the ‘softer’ humanities subjects rather than the ‘complex’ scientific subjects
Positive role models in school (internal factor)
-Increase in the number of females in leadership positions in schools
-Girls look at these women in senior positions as positive role models= a non-traditional goal for them to aim for
-Effect= Girls know that to reach senior position like this, they must have had to work hard at school- this acts as inspiration
Teacher attention (internal factor)
-Francis: Found that while boys got more attention, they were disciplined more harshly and felt picked on by teachers, who tended to have lower expectations of them
-Effect= May explain why teachers respond more positively to girls, whom they see as cooperative, than to boys, whom they see as potentially disruptive
-May lead to self-fulfiling prophecy
Equal opportunity policies (external factor)
-GIST- Girls into science and technology
-WISE- Women into science and engineering
-Effect= Boaler: Sees the impact of equal opportunities policies as a key reason for the changes in girls’ achievement- many barriers have been removed and schooling has become more meritocratic
-Shows a similarity between functionalists and liberal feminists as it argues that schools are meritocracies
The impact of feminism (external factor)
-McRobbie:
-Showed how feminism had impacted how women were portrayed in magazines- nowadays magazines contain images of independent women
-Effect= Raised expectations and self-esteem leading to improvement in achievement
Changes in family (external factor)
-Increase in divorce
-Increase in single lone parent families
-Decrease in the number of marriages
-Effect= More women taking on breadwinner role and getting good qualifications and a job
-This creates a new adult role model for girls
Changes in women’s employment (external factor)
-Acts such as the EPA (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) introduced
-Effect= Girls are now encouraged to see their future as outside of the home providing an incentive to work hard and achieve
-Some women break through the glass ceiling to higher professional jobs
Girls changing ambitions (external factor)
-Sharpe: Conducted a study in 1974= girls believed educational success was unattractive to future partners
-1994= conducted the study again- revealed girls saw their futures as an independent woman
-Effect= Girls focus on good results and see educational success as a key part of their identity (Fuller)
Hegemonic masculinity
-Actions that confirm powerful men’s dominant position in society and subordinates anyone that does not conform
Hyper-Heterosexual identity
-Where girls exemplify the key aspects of what is seen to be desirable for heterosexual men eg: hair and makeup
Symbolic capital
-Status, recognition and sense of worth gained from others, especially from those of a similar class
Verbal abuse
-Paechter: sees name calling as shaping gender identity- negative labels like ‘gay’ reinforce identity
-Effect on education= Labels can be negative which can knock a boy’s confidence or make them more of an absentee
Male peer groups
-Redman and Ghail: Believe the dominant definition of masculine identity changes throughout the schools year- e.g, different in year 11 than it would have been for boys in year 7 as a result of male peer groups
-Effect on education= If boys are being called names because they are doing well at school it may discourage them to keep doing well which will have a negative effect on their achievement
Female peer groups
-Currie: Believe girls juggle 2 identities:
-Girls who are not competitive vs girls that are too competitive
-Effect on education= Girls may become absentees due to name calling, so will miss lesson time etc
Why do boys underachieve? (external factor)
-Mitsos and Browne: believe in an ‘identity crisis’ for men as a result of a decline in male employment opportunities
-Therefore= little prospect of getting a proper job, so boys lack motivation and give up trying
