Gender - Girls Achievement

Question 1

Which sex generally perform better academically?

Answer 1

Females

Question 2

What is the percentage difference of girls achieving more/less than boys in GCSE’s (5A*-C) ?

Answer 2

Girls 10% more likely

Question 3

What are the 4 external factors affecting girls achievement?

Answer 3

• impact of feminism
• changes in the family
• changes in women’s employment
• girls changing ambitions

Question 4

What is feminism?

Answer 4

Feminism is a movement that strives for equal rights for women in all areas of life
Challenges traditional stereotypes regarding gender roles

Question 5

Who did a study of seeing how the impact of feminism affects women’s views? What was it?

Answer 5

McRobbie (1994)

- a study involving a comparison of girls magazines from the 1970s VS. The 1990s - very different expectations of women

Question 6

How have families changed?

Answer 6

Since the 1970s, there has been several major changes to the family

• increase in divorce rate, cohabitation, lone parent families (headed by females)
• decrease in first marriages

Question 7

How does changes to the family affect girls view of education?

Answer 7

• single mum acts as a role model for young girls

- inspiration and motivation to work hard in education

Question 8

What 2 policies have been introduced to change women’s employment?

Answer 8

• equal pay act (1970)

- sex discrimination act (1975)

Question 9

How has the amount of women in employment changed?

Answer 9

Proportion of women in employment up from 47%(1959) to 70%(2007)

Question 10

How has the pay gap changed since the equal pay act was introduced?

Answer 10

Pay gap since 1970 between men and women has fallen from 30% to 17%

Question 11

What does changes in women’s employment affect girls achievement?

Answer 11

Women are breaking through the ‘glass ceiling’ (getting high, too paid jobs) which provides a motive for working hard in school

Question 12

Who did a study on girls changing ambitions? What was this study? Results?

Answer 12

Sue Sharpe (1994)

• interviewed girls between 1970s and 1990s
• major shift in how girls view their future
• 1970s: girls had lower aspirations- education was unfeminine, priorities were ‘love, marriage, husband, children, jobs, careers’

Question 13

What are the 6 internal factors affecting girls achievement?

Answer 13

• equal opportunities policies
• positive role models in school
• GCSE and coursework
• teacher attention
• challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
• selection and league tables

Question 14

How did feminists have an input in the equal opportunities policies?

Answer 14

Feminists ideas were now widely spread in education; basic belief in gender equality (that boys and girls can achieve equally)
-it was now a social norm

Question 15

What was one of the programmes set up to ensure equal opportunities?

Answer 15

GIST (girls into science and technology)

Question 16

How did the curriculum help equal opportunities?

Answer 16

National curriculum changed to ensure all students had to study the same subjects (science = compulsory)

Question 17

What did these policies ensure for equal opportunities?

Answer 17

Meritocracy

Question 18

How do role models affect the internal factors in educational achievement?

Answer 18

• vastly more female teachers and head teachers than in the past, especially in primary schools
• the presence of more female teachers ‘feminises’ the learning environment, encouraging girls to see it as part of their ‘gender’ domain
• they might therefore perceive educational success as a desirable female characteristic

Question 19

Who found that girls GCSE results increased sharply when course work was introduced?

Answer 19

Gorad (1995)

Question 20

What did Mitos and Browne in 1998 find about GCSE and coursework?

Answer 20

Girls do better than boys in coursework as they are better organised and mature earlier than boys

Question 21

How did stereotypes in learning material affect girls achievement? Positively or negatively?

Answer 21

Negatively affected them.
-studies of reading schemes and textbooks have shown that in the past, were under presented or presented as subordinate to others

Question 22

How has the issue of stereotypes in learning material been reduced?

Answer 22

Since the 1980s, many sexist images have been removed and replaced with more positive images - boosting girls perception and aspirations

Question 23

Who found that teachers spend more time interacting with boys than girls? (Teacher attention)

Answer 23

Spender (1983)

Question 24

What did French and French in 1993 find out about teachers attention?

Answer 24

• they found that similar amounts of attention was spent on both genders for academic reasons
• boys get more overall attention because of misbehaving and requiring discipline

Question 25

What did Francis in 2001 find out about teachers attention?

Answer 25

Found that the teachers had lower expectations of boys, disciplined then more harshly

Question 26

What did Swann in 1998 find out about teachers attention?

Answer 26

Found boys dominate class discussions, girls prefer more group work, this finds favour with the teacher

Question 27

Do girls benefit or become disadvantaged from selection and league tables? Why is this?

Answer 27

Girls benefit

• incentive for schools to try and recruit more able students to secure good league table position
• girls are more successful than boys, and therefore more attractive to schools

Question 28

Do boys benefit or become disadvantaged from selection and league tables? Why is this?

Answer 28

Boys disadvantage from this

• Boys are lower achieving and more badly behaved
• seen as ‘liability students’ who will give the school a bad image and produce poor results

Question 29

What are the 2 views of girls achievement?

Answer 29

Liberal feminists

Radical feminists

Question 30

Explain how liberal feminists view girls achievement

Answer 30

-applaud the progress in improving girls achievement so far
- however, believe further progress will be made by:
•continuing to develop equal opportunities
•encouraging positive role models for girls
•overcoming sexist attitudes/ stereotypes
-believe education is a meritocracy

Question 31

Explain how radical feminists view girls achievement

Answer 31

-takes a more critical view
-argues the system is still patriarchal, it is still a ‘mans world’
•sexual harassment of girls still occur in schools
•subject choices and career options are still limited to girls
•male teachers are still more likely to become head teachers
•women are still under-represented in the curriculum (history is a ‘women free zone’)