gender ext factors

Question 1

impact of feminism

Answer 1

McRobbie (1994):
-Study of girls magazine in the 70’s emphasised the importance of marriage and not being ‘left on the shelf’
-Whereas nowadays, magazines are filled with powerful independent women e.g. Michelle Obama

Question 2

Changes in the family

Answer 2

-increase in divorce rates due to changes in legislation
-Increase in lone-parent families

-These changes affect girls attitude towards education, e.g. seeing their mother take on the breadwinner role in a lone-parent family creates a new role model- a financially independent woman

Question 3

Changes in women’s employment

Answer 3

Equal Pay Act 1970:
-Illegal to pay women less than men for work of equal value + the outlaw of discrimination was promoted with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975
-Proportion of women in work has increased from 53% in 1971 to 67% in 2013
-Women are breaking through the ‘glass ceiling’

Question 4

Changing in girls ambition

Answer 4

Sharpe (1994):
-Interviews girls in the 1970s + 1990s
-1974= girls had low aspirations, saw educational success as unfeminine + priorities lay with finding a husband and being a good housewife
-1990= girls ambitions had changed + became more career orientated

Fuller (2011):
-Girls saw themselves as creators of their own future + had an individualised notion of self
-Aimed for a professional career that would allow them to support themselves.

Question 5

Class + gender ambition

Answer 5

Biggart (2002):
-Girls from a w/c background are more likely to see motherhood as the only viable option and don’t see the point in education