Identity, class and girls achievement

Question 1

W/c girls and achievemen?

What did archer say, study and find?

Answer 1

• It is argued that although girls achieve better then before, it dont mean all girls are succesful as much - theres a social class difference in girls achievenment.
• Archer’s study found w/c girls gained symbolic capital from peers by performing their w/c female actions. However, this caused conflict with school as its stopping them from gaining qualifications and m/c careers. Archer found that strategies to adapt to the hyper hetero sexual feminine identity these girls used was having a bf and being loud.

Question 2

Hyper - heterosexual feminine identities

Answer 2

• when girls put lots of time and effort into their appearance to gain status from peers and not being ridiculed for not being trendy. However, it caused conflict with the school as its too much makeup and jewellery as they are ‘ distractions’ and so see those as over sexualised and w/c .
• w/c girld tend to be outspoken as part of their identities e.g challenging school rules which causes conflict with teachers as schools expect pupil to be passive and submissive but teachers see these w/c girls as aggressive and assertive.

Question 3

W/c girls identities and success

Answer 3

• either they gain symbolic capital or educational capital and the two conflict with eachother

Question 4

Successful w/c girls

Answer 4

• some w/c still do succeed and go into higher education
• however, Evans study show they are still at disadvantage
• she found that girls want to go uni to increase earnings but not for themselves but to give back to families. This motive reflects w/c identites as caring is a huge part of it.
• feared debt of uni aswell. They therefore studied at home but this limited uni choice and value of degree.