Gender differences in educational achievement

Question 1

Perry and Francis (2010) point out that

Answer 1

although girls on FSM outperform boys on FSM, they are still outperformed by everyone else
and although middle class boys perform worse than middle class girls, they still perform better than working-class girls

Question 2

In state funded schools, 52.7% of girls achieved at least a 5 in both english and maths GCSE
(uk gov)

Answer 2

compared to 47% of boys

Question 3

57% of UK uni students are female

Answer 3

(HESA - Higher Education Statistics Agency)

Question 4

76% of teachers are female

Answer 4

UK gov

Question 5

8.8% of grades at A level for girls were A*

Answer 5

compared to 9.1% of boys (UK gov)

Question 6

Explanations for underachievement of boys in education - Mitsos and Browne (1998)

Answer 6

• girls are more motivated and work harder
• peer group pressure and anti-learning subcultures affect boys more
• equal opportunities have benefitted girls more than boys
• teachers have lower expectations of boys
• boys have poorer behaviour in class
• fewer opportunities for male employment and male ‘identity crises’
• boys have poorer language skills
• boys mature later
• boys overestimate their ability so don’t work hard enough

Question 7

Reasons for girls outperforming boys - the women’s movement and feminism

Answer 7

• improved workplace rights (1970 Equal Pay Act)
• raised expectations and self-esteem of women]
• challenged stereotypical expectations of women’s roles as housewives and mothers
• raised awareness for problems of the patriarchy, helping to prevent further discrimination

Question 8

Reasons for girls outperforming boys - equal opportunities

Answer 8

• work of feminist sociologists highlighting past female underachievement has led to schools placing more emphasis on equal opportunity
• policies including monitoring teaching and teaching materials for gender bias
• campaigns such as WISE (Women into Science and Engineering) inspire girls to follow traditionally male-dominated career paths
• teachers may be more sensitive about avoiding stereotyping

Question 9

Reasons for girls outperforming boys - growing ambition, more positive role models and more employment opportunitites for women

Answer 9

• decline in recent years for traditional ‘men’s jobs’ (manual unskilled/semi-skilled labour) and more employment opportunities in the traditionally female service sector
• girls as less likely to have being a housewife and mother as their main goal
• 75.6% (2023, ONS) of mothers are in employment, providing role models for daughters
• Francis (2000) conducted interviews with girls in London secondary schools and found that many girls were very ambitious and aiming for highly professional jobs like doctor or lawyer
• McRobbie (2008) argues that changes in the job market have meant that more young women now expect to get a degree as a requirement for a fulfilling career, an aspiration which in many ways has replaced marriage and motherhood

Question 10

Sharpe (1976, 1994) found that in 1976 girls’ priorities were “love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs and careers, more or less in that order”

Answer 10

then in 1994 she found that these priorities had changed to “job, career, and being able to support themselves”

Question 11

Reasons for girls outperforming boys - girls work harder, are better motivated and have more peer group support

Answer 11

• girls spend longer on homework, take more care wit the presentation of their work, care more about their teachers’ opinions and have better concentration
• research has shown that the average 14 year old girl can concentrate for 3-4x longer than male students
• Francis suggests that the development of feminine identity in schools involves cooperative and conciliatory attitudes to teachers, other pupils and authority in general, linked to a supportive attitude to schoolwork and enhanced by a pro-school peer group

Question 12

Reasons for girls outperforming boys - girls mature earlier

Answer 12

• by the age of 16, girls are estimated to be more mature than boys by up to 2 years, so they are more likely to view exams in a more responsible way and recognise the seriousness and importance of academic and career choices

Question 13

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - lower expectations

Answer 13

• teachers are less strict with boys - they’re more likely to extend deadlines, be more tolerant of disruption and accept more poorly presented work
• Swann and Graddol (1994) found that teachers are more likely to view boys as disruptive
• these lower expectations could create a self-fulfilling prophecy contributing to boys’ underachievement

Question 14

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - boys are more disruptive

Answer 14

• 80% of permanent exclusions from school are male (UK gov)
• the most common reason for exclusions is persistent disruptive behaviour, with exclusion usually being the final punishment after a series of others
• male peer groups often devalue schoolwork and boys may achieve peer-group status through aggression and disruption

Question 15

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - masculinity and the anti-learning subculture

Answer 15

• Forde et al (2006) - peer-group pressure encourages boys to maintain a dominant masculine identity, partly developed through resistance to schoolwork, often rejecting academia as feminine
• Epstein et al (1998) found that working-class boys risked harassment and bullying if they appeared to be hardworking at school
• an example of male anti-school subculture is that adopted by ‘the lads’ in Willis’ ‘Learning to Labour’
• Francis (2000) - boys achieve more peer-group status by resisting teachers and schools through disruptive behaviour
• teaching is a predominantly (76%) female profession, so there’s a lack of academic positive male role models

Question 16

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - declining traditional male employment opportunities and the male identity crisis

Answer 16

• Mac an Ghaill (1994) - decline in traditional male WC jobs is a factor in boys’ underperformance in education, due to a potential lack of ambition and prospects
• changing employment patterns have impacted the self-esteem and expectations of boys
• the collapse of the traditional male breadwinner role within the family has led to a crisis of masculinity - an identity crisis for boys who feel insecure about their masculine role and position, so they don’t see the point in working hard in school (fatalism)

Question 17

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - overestimating their ability

Answer 17

• Stanworth (1983) found that girls lacked confidence in and underestimated their ability
• Renold and Allen’s (2006) research suggests this remains true - their research in 2 primary schools in Wales found that girls were torn between being seen as clever and being attractive to boys, so downplayed their abilities to be seen as attractive
• Barber (1996) - ‘more boys than girls think they are able or very able, and fewer boys than girls think they are below average’ so boys don’t work as hard as they presume they’ll do well
• Francis (1998) - research in 3 London secondary schools found that some boys thought it would be easy to well in exams without much effort, then blamed their teachers or their own lack of effort for their failure, rather than lack of ability

Question 18

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - different forms of leisure time

Answer 18

• boys tend to spend leisure time in ‘doing things’ (sports, computer games etc), while girls tend to spend it talking, developing their language and communication skills more

Question 19

Reasons for boys’ underachievement - boys don’t like reading

Answer 19

• reading is a ‘feminised activity’ so girls
• research suggests boys become disinterested in reading by age 8
• girls tend to read fiction whilst boys read non-fiction - learning to read in school mostly uses fiction books
• Oakhill and Petrides (2007) - boys’ ability to understand a text is dependent on their interest in its content, whereas girls can better understand subjects which don’t personally interest them

Question 20

Males and females doing different subjects - Skelton et al (2007) suggest that the stereotypically masculine subjects (technology, engineering, sciences)

Answer 20

are seen as more difficult and higher status than the ‘soft’ subjects that girls tend to opt for (arts, humanities, social sciences)

Question 21

Reasons for differences in subject choice - gender socialisation

Answer 21

• from a young age boys and girls are encouraged into different activities
• Lobban (1974) - research found evidence of gender stereotyping in children’s books, with women in more domestic roles
• Best (1993) found little change since Lobban conducted her research
• this socialisation encourages different subject and career choices for boys and girls

Question 22

in 2021, 27% of STEM graduates were female

Answer 22

(source: Women in STEM)

Question 23

Reasons for differences in subject choice - subject counselling

Answer 23

• teachers and career counsellors may reflect their own gendered socialisation through the subject choices they encourage girls and boys into

Question 24

Reasons for differences in subject choice - Subject images, gender identity and peer pressure

Answer 24

• Skelton et al (2007) - men and women tend to be drawn to different subjects based on their own ideas of what is appropriate for their gender
• Mitsos (1995-6) - interviews with Y11 boys and girls at Coventry inner-city school found that boys’ unfavourable responses to studying english were usually voiced in terms of gender stereotypes (“girls do english because they don’t mind getting things wrong”)
• Paechter (1999) - PE is seen as masculine and girls who choose sport have to work hard in other ways to express their femininity, or they’re labelled as unfeminine
• Kelley (1987) - boys tend to dominate science classrooms, grabbing equipment first, answering more questions and ridiculing the questions and answers of female students

Question 25

Reasons for differences in subject choice - Subject images, gender identity and peer pressure
Colley (1998)

Answer 25

• gender perceptions of different subjects are important influences on subject choice, with arts and humanities seen by students as feminine, whilst STEM subjects are seen as masculine
• noted that ICT and work with computers is seen as masculine
• suggested that changing content of subjects can alter their gender identity and therefore the gender of its students
• she viewed the more digital-based content in music as the ‘masculinisation’ of the subject, and the reason for boys going from 43% of A level music entries in 2001 to 59% in 2014

Question 26

Francis (2005) - gender is a key part of our social identity

Answer 26

and fitting in at school usually means conforming to gender stereotypes, with failing to do so risking peer-group marginalisation and bullying

Question 27

Skelton et al (2007) points out that boys and girls act out their gender roles as opposites (opposite behaviours)

Answer 27

and children act-out deep seated gender roles without necessarily being aware of them, furthered by the impact of peer groups, which normally involve same-sex friendship groups who ‘police’ the gendered behaviour of their peers

Question 28

Francis (2005) picks out the following elements as key parts of the process of creating and reinforcing gender identities and patriarchal relations in schooling

Answer 28

• Gendered verbal behaviour - boys dominate class discussion and are frequently more verbally aggressive, reinforcing male identity and the patriarchy by defining men as dominant
• Gendered physical behaviour - boys and girls tend to sit in separate groups , girls may resist schooling more passively (not paying attention) whereas boys are more disruptive
• Gendered pursuits - female discussions are more likely to be about efforts to be attractive to what Mac an Ghaill calls “the male gaze”
• Gendered classroom behaviour - girls support boys more through help with work, clearing up etc, and outspoken or confident girls may be silenced, ridiculed or sexually harassed, reinforcing patriarchal power
• The role of teachers - Francis suggests that teachers contribute to gender stereotypes through different expectations for boys and girls and heavier penalisation of girls who don’t conform to what is expected as gender appropriate behaviour

Question 29

Teachers focus more attention and spend more time on boys

Answer 29

• Spender (1982) - teachers spend more time on troublesome boys than girls who are keen to learn
• Stanworth (1983) - students themselves believed teachers gave boys twice as much attention as girls
• Francis (2000) - classrooms are dominated by boys so girls get less attention
• Francis (2005) - despite improvements in education policy, overt and hidden curriculums as well as interactions with boys and teacher expectations continue to negatively affect girls’ self-esteem and experiences

Question 30

Feminist researchers like Jackson et al (2010) have become increasingly angry with the way that educational policy in recent years has ignored girls, being almost exclusively concerned with boys’ underachievement

Answer 30

• point out that attempts to increase boys’ attainment can negatively affect girls
• girls remain marginalised as boys’ needs are seen as the priority
• suggest there needs to be a new focus on issues like how peer pressure and demands for femininity can be damaging to girls’ self-concepts
• emphasise the continuing issues of gendered subject choices and boys’ domination of school space and teacher time

Question 31

Girls may still be underachieving, even if they outperform boys, due to

Answer 31

• lack of confidence and underrating themselves
• getting less of teachers’ time
• the domination of boys in classrooms

Question 32

Women still only make up 10% of the Forbes top 500 CEOs

Answer 32

and do more housework (52% of women in heterosexual relationships do all of the cleaning - Starling Bank)