Gender Differences In Education Flashcards
What are the recent statistics based around gender and education ?
In recent statistics girls are shown to outperform boys in educational achievement.
What are the external factors for the gender differences in achievement (girls) ?
The impact of feminism
Changes in the family
Changes in women’s employment
Girl’s changing ambitions
How has the impact of feminism changed gender difference in achievement ?
McRobbie studied girls magazines and found that that in the 1970s they emphasises the importance of getting married. However, nowadays, they contain images of strong, assertive and independent women. It affects girls self-image and ambition explaining why they try harder in school.
How have changes in the family affected gender and achievement ?
Due to the increase in divorce, smaller families, cohabitation and lone-parented families, there has been an impact to girls ambition and how they perceive school. Due to lone-parented families mostly being headed by a female they have to take the breadwinner role, so girls may take this as a role model.
How have changes in women’s employment impact gender and achievement ?
Changes in the law have improved the position of working women , for example the Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act. These have influenced girls to see their future as in pad work rather than in housewife roles.
How have girls changing ambitions impacted gender in achievement ?
Sharpe interviewed girls and found that their ambitions in the 1970s were to marry and have children, and saw their future in terms of a domestic role. However, in the 1990s the girls priorities had changed to careers and wanting to be independent.
What are the internal factors impacting gender differences in achievement (girls) ?
Equal opportunities policies
Positive role models in schools
GCSE + coursework
Teacher attention
Selection and league tables
How has GCSE and course work impacted gender in achievement ?
Mitos and Brown found that girls do better than boys in coursework because they are more conscientious and organised. Gorad found that the gender gap in achievement increased sharply when GCSE was introduced.
How has the equal opportunity policies impacted gender in achievement?
The belief that girls and boys are entitled to the same levels of achievement in education. Programs like GIST and WISE encourage girls to take science and technology. National curriculum - girls and boys largely study the same subjects.
How has positive role models in schools impacted gender in achievement?
Since there are more female teachers in schools, it has feminised the school environment and encourages girls to see school and learning as a part of female gender domain.
How does teacher attention affect gender and achievement?
Swan founded that boys dominate class discussions , whereas girls are better ate listening + cooperating since they were more graceful and put together. Teachers respond more positively to girls and give them more encouragement. French and French found that teachers paid boys and girls the same amount of attention for academic reasons, but boys received more attention overall because they received more discipline.
How has selection and league tables affected gender in achievement ?
Marketisation policies have led to an increase in competition between schools. Schools therefore have the incentive to recruit more able students. Girls are generally more successful than boys, so more attractive to schools.
What is symbolic capital ?
Archer founded the idea of ‘symbolic capital’ and it refers to the status, recognition and sense of worth that we are able to obtain from others.
What did Archer find about working class girls in achievement ?
Archer found that by performing their working-class feminine identities the girls gained symbolic capital from their peers. However, this brought them into conflict with school, preventing them from gaining educational capitals + economic capital. Archer identifies several strategies that W/C girls followed for creating a valued sense of self. These included adopting a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity , having. Boyfriend , and being loud.
What did Evan’s find about successful working class girls ?
She found that girls wanted to go to university to increase their earning power. However, this was not for themselves but to help their families. The girls motivation mirrored their working class feminine identities as ‘caring’ is a major part of this. The girls in Evan’s study wanted to stay at home even while going to university so this limited their choice of university and impacted their achievement.
