Gender Differences In Achievement Flashcards
What are the external factors that affect gender differences in achievement?
- the impact of feminism
- change in the family
- changes in women’s employment
- girls’ changing ambitions
How does the impact of feminism affect gender differences in achievement?
Feminism has encouraged women to fight for equal rights. Feminism has challenged the stereotypes of a women’s role as wife and mother. Women are encouraged today, not to see themselves as inferior to men but as equal. More broadly, feminism has raised women’s expectations and self-esteem. All of these changes have encouraged girls to value education highly and work hard.
How do changes in the family affect gender differences in achievement?
There have been major changes in the family since 1970s. These include:
- an increase in the divorce rate
- an increase in cohabitation and a decrease in the number of first marriages
- smaller families
- an increase in the number of lone-parent families
Girls are more likely to see lone-mothers which inspires them to work hard at school because they know that one day they may need to become financially independent.
Increases in the divorce rate may suggest to girls that it is unwise to rely on a husband to be their provider.
How do changes in women’s employment affect gender differences in achievement?
There are more jobs available for women particularly in the service sector. The 1970 Equal Pay Act: makes it illegal to pay one sex more than another for work of equal value.
Since 1975, the pay gap between men and women has halved from 30% to 15%.
The proportion of women in employment has risen from 53% in 1972 to 61% in 2013. The growth of the service sector and flexible part-time work has offered opportunities for women. There are more women in employment now than there ever was. Since 2010 it’s increased by 71,000 in 2019. Some women are now breaking through the ‘glass ceiling’ - the invisible barrier that keeps them out of high level professional and managerial jobs.
How do girls’ changing ambitions affect gender differences in achievement?
Research bu Sue Sharpe shows that girls’ ambitions changed from 1970s to 1990s. In 1974, the girls had low aspirations believing educational success was in feminine and that appearing to be ambitious would be considered unattractive. They gave their priorities as ‘love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs and careers, more or less in that order’.
By the 1990s, girls’ ambitions and reverse. Sharpe found that girls were now more likely to see their future as an independent woman with a career rather than as dependent on their husband and his income.
In the 1970s girls wanted to leave school as soon as possible. There were 30 kinds of jobs they wanted to do but a 1/4 of these revolved around office work. It included stuff like air hostess, receptionists etc.
Beck and Beck argue that there’s been a trend towards individualisation in modern society where independence is valued much more strongly than in the past. A career is much more important than in the past as well as economic self-sufficiency. Women/girls wanted a professional career where they could support themselves. Clearly, these aspirations require educational qualifications.
What are the internal factors that affect gender differences in achievement?
- equal opportunities policy
- positive role models in schools
- GCSE and coursework
- teacher attention
- challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
- selection and league tables
How does the equal opportunities policies affect gender differences in achievement?
After 1988, policy makers became more aware of gender issues and teachers became more sensitive to the need to avoid stereotyping. Boys and girls should be entitled to the same opportunities e.g. games.
Two well known policies in this area were GIST (Girls into science and technology) and WISE (women into science and engineering). They encouraged girls to pursue careers in these non-traditional areas.
The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 removed one source of gender inequality by making girls and boys study mostly the same subjects, which was often not the case previously.
How do positive role models in schools affect gender differences in achievement?
There has been an increase in the proportion of female teachers and heads. These women in senior positions may act as role models for girls, showing them women can achieve positions of importance and giving them non-traditional goals to aim for.
Women teachers are likely to be particularly importance because to become a teacher, the individual must undertake a lengthy and successful education herself,
How does GCSE and Coursework affect gender differences in achievement?
Some sociologists argue that changes in the way pupils are assess have favoured girls and disadvantaged boys,
Stephen Gorard found that the gender gap in achievement was fairly constant from 1975 until 1989, when it increased sharply. This was the year in which GCSE was introduced bringing with it coursework as a major part of nearly all subjects. Gorard concludes that the gender gap in achievement is a “product of the changed system of assessment rather than any more general failing of boys”
Mitsos and Browne supports this view concluding that girls are more successful in coursework because the are more conscientious and better organised than boys. Girls:
- spend more time on their work
- take more care with the way it is presented
- are better at meeting deadlines
- bring the right equipment and materials to lessons
Along with GCSE has come the greater use of oral exams. This is also said to benefit girls because of their generally better developed language skills. Sociologists argue that these characteristics and skills are the result of early gender role socialisation in the family. For example, girls are more likely to be encouraged to be neat, tidy and patient. These qualities become an advantage in today’s assessment system, helping girls achieve greater success than boys.
Janette Elwood argues that it’s unlikely to be the only cause of the gender gap because exams have more influence than coursework on final grades.
How does teacher attention affect gender differences in achievement?
When Jane and Peter French analysed classroom interaction, they found that boys received more attention because they attracted more reprimands.
Becky Francis also found that while boys got more attention, they were disciplined more harshly and felt licked on by teachers, who tended to have lower expectations of them.
Swann found that boys dominate in whole class discussion, whereas girls prefer pair-work and group-work and are better at listening and cooperating. When working in groups, girls’ speech involves turn taking, and not the hostile interruptions that often characterise boys’ speech.
This may explain why teachers respond more positively to girls, whom they see as cooperative. This may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy girls’ self-esteem and raise their achievement.
How does challenging stereotypes in the curriculum affect gender differences in achievement?
Research in the 1970s and 80s found that reading schemes portrayed women mainly as housewives and mothers, that physics books showed them as frightened by science, and that maths books depicted boys as more inventive.
Gaby Weiner argues that since the 198”s teachers have challenged such stereotypes. Sexist images have been removed fro, learning materials which may have helped to raise girls’ achievement by presenting them with more positive images of what women can do.
How does selection and league tables?
Marketisation policies have created a more competitive climate in which schools see girls as desirable recruits because they achieve better exam results.
David Jackson notes that the introduction of exam league tables has improved opportunities for girls: high-achieving girls are attractive to schools, whereas low achieving boys are not. This tends to create a self-fulfilling prophecy - because girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools, they are more likely to do well.
Roger Slee argues that boys are less attractive to schools because they are more likely to suffer from behavioural difficulties and are four times likely to be excluded.
As a result, boys may be seems as ‘liability students’ - obstacles to the school improving its league table scores. They gave the school a ‘rough, tough’ image that deters high-achieving girls form applying.
What are the two views of girls achievement?
Liberal feminists celebrate the progress made so far in improving achievement. They believe that further progress will be made by the continuing development of equal opportunities policies, encouraging positive role models and overcoming sexist attitudes and stereotypes.
This is similar to the functionalist view that education is a meritocracy where all individuals, regardless of gender, ethnicity or class, are given an equal opportunity to achieve.
Radical feminists take a more critical view. While they recognise that girls are achieving more, they emphasise that the system remain patriarchal and conveys the clear message that it is till a man’s world. For example:
- sexual harassment of girls continues at school
- education still limits girls’ subject choices and career options
- although there are now more female head teachers, male teachers are still more likely to become heads of secondary schools
- women are under-represented in many areas of the curriculum. For example, their contribution to history is largely ignored. Weinar describes the secondary school history curriculum as a ‘woman-free zone’.
Identity, class and girls achievement - Symbolic Capital
According to feminists such as Louise Archer one reason for class differences in girls’ achievement, is the conflict between working class girls’ feminine identities and the values of the school.
In her study of WC girls, Archer said by performing their WC identities girls gained symbolic capital from their peers. However, this brought them into conflict with school preventing them from acquiring educational capital (qualifications) and economic capital (MC careers).
Archer identified several strategies that the girls followed for creating a valued sense of self. These included adopting a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity, having a boyfriend and ‘being loud’.
How does the development of hyper-heterosexual feminine identities affect achievement?
Girls achieved status from their female peer group by spending a lot of money and time on their appearance. They combined black urban American styles with unisex sportswear and ‘sexy’ clothes, make-up and hairstyles.
However it brought them into conflict with school e.g. they were punished for wearing the wrong clothes - jewellery, make-up etc. Teachers saw this preoccupation with appearance as a distraction from education.
The school shows the girls symbolic violence and regards them and their culture as ‘not one of us’ and not worthy of respect. Regard them as incapable of educational success.
