Sociology-Education-Gender

Question 1

What are statistics for gender in achievement on starting school?

Answer 1

In 2013, teacher assessments of pupils at the end of year one showed girls ahead of boys by 7-17% points in all severn areas of learning assessed, girls were better at concentrating, and boys were 2 and 1/2 times more likely to have statements of special educational needs

Question 2

What are statistics for gender in achievement at key stages 1 to 3?

Answer 2

Girls consistently do better than boys, especially in English where the gender gap steadily widens with age. In science and maths the gap is narrower but girls still do better

Question 3

What are statistics for gender in achievement at GCSE?

Answer 3

Gender gap stands at around 10 percentage points

Question 4

What are statistics for gender in achievement at AS and A-level?

Answer 4

Girls more likely to sit, pass and get higher grades than boys, though the gap is narrower than at GCSE, but even in ‘boys’ subjects, such as maths and physics, girls were more likely to get grades A-C

Question 5

What are statistics for gender in achievement on vocational courses?

Answer 5

Preparing students for a career, results show a similar pattern. Larger proportion of girls achieve distinctions in every subject, including those such as engineering and construction where girls are a tiny minority of students

Question 6

What are the external factors that cause girls to achieve more than boys?

Answer 6

The impact of feminism, changes in family, changes in women’s employment, and girls changing ambitions

Question 7

What is feminism?

Answer 7

Social movement that strives for equal rights for women in all areas of life, since 1960s, they challenged traditional stereotype of a women’s role as solely that of mother and housewife

Question 8

What did McRobbie 1994 find?

Answer 8

Magazine study, comparison from 1970s to today, which used to emphasise the importance of marriage, but today contain images of assertive, independent women

Question 9

How does feminism lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 9

The changes encouraged by feminism can affect girls self image and ambitions wit regard to families and careers

Question 10

What are some of the major changes in the family since the 1970s?

Answer 10

Increased divorce rate, increase in cohabitation/decrease in first marriages, increased lone parent families, and smaller families

Question 11

How do changes in the family lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 11

Affect girls attitudes to education, eg female lone parent families mean mother may be the breadwinner, giving girls higher aspirations and sense of independence which would come with higher education and careers, and increase in divorces, shows girls you don’t have to rely on husbands

Question 12

What are some important changes in women’s employment?

Answer 12

Equal pay act 1970, sex discrimination act 1975, since 1975 the pay gap halved from 30-15%, proportion of women in employment rose from 53-67% from 1971 to 2013, and some women are breaking through ‘glass ceiling’-invisible barrier keeping them out of higher level professional jobs

Question 13

How do changes in employment lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 13

Encourages girls to see their future in terms of paid work, rather than as housewives, because they have greater career opportunities and better pay, plus they have role models of successful career women now giving incentive to gain qualifications

Question 14

What did Sharpe 1994 find?

Answer 14

Girls changing priorities from 1970s to 1990s, 1970s = love, marriage, husbands, children jobs, careers. 1990s=prefer a career over relying on husbands income

Question 15

What did O’Connor 2006 find?

Answer 15

Study of 14-17 year olds showed marriage and children weren’t major parts of their life plans

Question 16

What did Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 2001 say?

Answer 16

Link the trend towards individualisation in modern society where independence is valued and so careers become part of a woman’s life project as it promises recognition and self-sufficiency

Question 17

How do girls changing ambitions lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 17

They recognise that in order to achieve independence and self sufficiency, they need a good education

Question 18

How does class link to gender and ambition?

Answer 18

There are class differences in how far girls ambitions have changed. Some working class girls continue to have gender stereotyped aspirations for marriage and children, and expect to go into traditional low paid women’s work

Question 19

What does Reay 1998 argue?

Answer 19

Girls ambitions reflect the reality of the girls class position. Limited aspirations reflect limited opportunities they perceive as being available to them, and the traditional gendered identity is both attainable and offers a source of status

Question 20

What did Biggart 2002 find?

Answer 20

Working class girls more likely to see motherhood and marriage as only viable future option, have low aspirations, and so see less point in achieving in education

Question 21

What are the internal factors of gender differences in achievement?

Answer 21

Equal opportunities policies, positive role models in schools, GCSE and coursework, teacher attention, challenging stereotypes in the curriculum, and selection and league tables

Question 22

How have feminists had internal effects on education?

Answer 22

Policymakers are much more aware of gender issues and teachers are more sensitive to the need to avoid stereotyping, and the belief that boys and girls are entitled to the same opportunities, is now mainstream thinking and influences educational policies

Question 23

What are examples of educational policies?

Answer 23

GIST (girls into science and technology) and WISE (women into science and engineering) that encourage girls to pursue careers in these non traditional fields, where female scientists visited schools to act as role models, efforts raised to raise science teachers’ awareness of gender issues, and no sexist career advice and learning materials

Question 24

What did the introduction of the national curriculum 1988 do?

Answer 24

Removed one source of gender inequality by making girls and boys study mostly the same subjects, which often wasn’t the case before this

Question 25

What does Boaler 1998 say?

Answer 25

Impact of equal opportunities policies are a key reason for change in girls’ achievement-barriers are removed and schooling has become more meritocratic, so girls who work harder than boys, achieve more

Question 26

How has there been an increase in positive role models in schools for girls?

Answer 26

Increase in proportion of female teachers and head teachers, who act as role models as they have senior positions, and show women can too achieve positions of importance, and gives girls non traditional goals to aim for, as you have to be highly educated to be a teacher

Question 27

What did Gorard 2005 find?

Answer 27

Gender divide was consistent until 1989 when GCSEs were used, with coursework in most subjects, and claims the gender gap in achievement is a “product of the changed systems of assessment rather than any more general failing of boys”

Question 28

What do Mitsos and Browne 1998 conclude?

Answer 28

Girls are more successful in coursework as they are more conscientious and better organised, take care with presentation and are better at meeting deadlines, which helps girls benefit more from the introduction of coursework

Question 29

Apart from coursework, why else did GCSEs create higher achievement in girls?

Answer 29

GCSEs brought greater use of oral exams, which benefit girls as they generally have better developed language skills

Question 30

What do sociologists argue that these characteristics and skills are the result of?

Answer 30

Early gender role socialisation where girls are more likely to be taught to be neat, tidy and patient, which helps girls in the assessment system

Question 31

What does Elwood 2005 argue?

Answer 31

Coursework is unlikely to be the whole cause for the gender gap as written exams have more influence than coursework on final grades

Question 32

What did French 1993 find?

Answer 32

Boys got more teacher attention because they needed to be reprimanded

Question 33

What did Francis 2001 also find?

Answer 33

Boys attracted more teacher attention but where also disciplined harsher and felt picked on by teachers and their low expectations of them

Question 34

What did Swann 1998 find?

Answer 34

Found gender differences in communication styles (boys dominate class discussion whereas girls prefer group work and turn taking) which may be why teachers respond more positively to girls as they seem more cooperative to boys who are seen as potentially disruptive

Question 35

How can teacher attention lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 35

Positive attention can lead to a self fulfilling prophecy due to interactions that promote their self esteem, and so raise their achievement levels

Question 36

What did research in the 1970s and 80s find about stereotypes in curriculum?

Answer 36

Reading schemes portrayed women mainly as housewives and mothers, physics books showed them as frightened by science, and maths books depicted boys as more inventive

Question 37

What did Weiner 1995 find?

Answer 37

Since 1980s, teachers have challenged stereotypes and sexist learning material has been removed

Question 38

How does changing stereotypes in the curriculum lead to achievement in girls?

Answer 38

Helps raise girls achievement by presenting them with more positive images of what women can do

Question 39

What did Jackson 1998 find?

Answer 39

Introduction of exam league tables improves opportunities for girls as the high achievers are selected to better schools and low achieving boys aren’t (self fulfilling prophecy)

Question 40

What did Slee 1998 argue?

Answer 40

Boys are less attractive to schools as they are likely to have more behavioural difficulties and are four times more likely to be excluded, so are seen as ‘liability students’ that are obstacles to the school improving league table scores

Question 41

What are the two different views of girls’ achievement?

Answer 41

The liberal feminists view, and the radical feminists view

Question 42

What is the liberal feminists view of girls’ achievement?

Answer 42

Celebrate progress made and believe further progress will be made by continuing development of equal opportunities policies, encouraging positive role models and overcoming sexist attitudes and stereotypes. Similar to functionalist view of education as a meritocracy

Question 43

What is the radical feminists view of girls’ achievement?

Answer 43

More critical view, that recognise girls are achieving more, but emphasise that the system remains patriarchal with a clear message that it’s a mans world

Question 44

What evidence do radical feminists give to show education is still patriarchal?

Answer 44

Sexual harassment of girls at school, limitation of girls subject and career choices, more female head teachers but males are more likely to become head teachers, women are underrepresented in many areas of curriculum eg Weiner 1933 said secondary school history curriculum was a ‘woman free zone’

Question 45

What does Archer et al 2010 say?

Answer 45

Conflict between working class girls feminine identities and the values of the school cause class differences in girls-symbolic capital which is gained from performing their working class feminine identities but bought conflict with school, preventing educational and economic capital

Question 46

What strategies does Archer identify the girls use to create a valued sense of self?

Answer 46

Adopting a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity, having a boyfriend and being ‘loud’

Question 47

What do the hyper-heterosexual female identities lead to for working class girls?

Answer 47

Although they avoid negativity from peers, they are punished and labelled by school, which leads to ‘othering’ the girls , as the ideal female pupil is de-sexualised and middle class (symbolic violence)

Question 48

How do boyfriends affect working class girls achievement?

Answer 48

Brings symbolic capital, but gets in the way of schoolwork and lowers girls’ aspirations, including losing interest in university, studying ‘masculine’ subjects or gaining a professional career, instead the girls aspire to ‘settle down’

Question 49

How did being ‘loud’ affect working class girls at school?

Answer 49

Lead them to be outspoken, independent and assertive, eg questioning a teachers authority, so fail to conform to schools stereotype of the ideal female pupil, that is passive and submissive to authority, so brings conflict with teachers who see them as aggressive, rather than assertive

Question 50

What dilemma are working class girls faced with?

Answer 50

Either gaining symbolic capital from peers by conforming to a hyper heterosexual feminine identity, or gaining educational capital by rejecting their working class identity and conforming to the schools middle class notions of a respectable, ideal female pupil

Question 51

How did some girls cope with this dilemma?

Answer 51

By defining themselves as ‘good underneath’, reflecting the girls struggle to achieve a sense of self worth within an education system that devalues their working class feminine identities, though teachers still have negative views of them

Question 52

How are some successful working class girls that go on to higher education, put at a disadvantage?

Answer 52

They may be disadvantaged by their gender and class identities

Question 53

What does Evans 2009 show?

Answer 53

Study of working class girls who aspired to go to university to earn more money later on, but usually to help their families rather than themselves…this motivation reflects their working class female identities

Question 54

What does Skeggs 1997 note?

Answer 54

Being caring is an important part of the feminine working class identity, and the girls in Evans study wanted to remain at home and contribute to their families

Question 55

What is a further reason for these working class girls to remain at home whilst at university?

Answer 55

Economic necessity, as there is a fear of getting into debt, but living at home made it more affordable, however it did limit their choice of university

Question 56

What did Archer 2010 show?

Answer 56

A preference for locality /local universities is a key feature of working class habitus

Question 57

What are factors that affect boys achievement levels?

Answer 57

Boys and literacy, globalisation and decline of traditional men’s jobs, feminisation of education, shortage of male primary school teachers and laddish subcultures

Question 58

What does the DCSF 2007 say about boys and achievement?

Answer 58

The gender gap is mainly the result of boys’ poorer literacy and language skills

Question 59

What are reasons for why boys have lower literacy and language skills?

Answer 59

Parents spend less time reading to sons, mothers usually read to younger children so it’s seen as a feminine activity, and boys leisure pursuits such as football don’t really develop those skills, whereas girls have a ‘bedroom culture’ centred on staying in and talking with friends

Question 60

How does literacy and language affect lead to underachievement in boys?

Answer 60

Affects their performance across many subjects, and in exams which involve reading, understanding and writing in almost all subjects

Question 61

What has happened since the 1980s?

Answer 61

There has been a significant decline in heavy industries such as iron and steel, shipbuilding, mining and engineering, which is partly due to globalisation of the economy, leading to much manufacturing industry relocating to developing countries for cheap labour

Question 62

What do Mitsos and Browne claim?

Answer 62

Decline in male employment opportunities leads to identity crises, undermining self esteem. Many boys believe they have little prospect of getting a proper job so they give up

Question 63

What counteracts Mitsos and Browne?

Answer 63

The fact that the decline was largely in manual working class jobs that require few or no qualifications, so it is unlikely that it caused such an impact on all boys motivation to get qualifications

Question 64

What reason does Sewell give for underachievement in boys?

Answer 64

Boys now fall behind because education has been feminised and some coursework should be changed back to exams because schools don’t nurture masculine traits such as competitiveness and leadership, instead celebrate ‘girls’ qualities such as methodical working and attentiveness in class

Question 65

What did Yougov 2007 find?

Answer 65

39% of 8-11 year old boys have no lessons at all with a male teacher, and only 14% of primary school teachers are male, but most boys say they behave better and 42% said they work harder, with a male teacher

Question 66

Why may a lack of male teachers lead to underachievement in boys?

Answer 66

Because primary schools have become feminised as a result of being staffed by female teachers, who are unable to control boys behaviour, whereas males are better at imposing strict discipline that boys need to concentrate

Question 67

What did Francis 2006 find?

Answer 67

Two thirds of 7-8 year olds believed the gender of teachers didn’t matter

Question 68

What did Read 2008 argue?

Answer 68

Critical on claims that education culture has been feminised in primary schools, and that only males can discipline boys

Question 69

How did Read test these claims?

Answer 69

She studied the type of language teachers used to express criticism or disapproval of pupils work and behaviour, and identified two types of language/discourse

Question 70

What are the two discourses?

Answer 70

Disciplinarian discourse and a liberal discourse

Question 71

What is a disciplinarian discourse?

Answer 71

Teachers authority is made explicit and visible eg through shouting, and an exasperated tone of voice or sarcasm (usually associated with masculinity)

Question 72

What is a liberal discourse?

Answer 72

Teachers authority is implicit and invisible. The cild centred discourse involves ‘pseudo-adultification’ where the teacher speaks to the child as if they were an adult and expects them to be kind, sensible and respectful (usually associated with femininity)

Question 73

What did Read find?

Answer 73

In a study of 51 primary school teachers (25 male, 26 female), most teachers, male and female, used a supposedly ‘masculine’ disciplinarian discourse to control pupils behaviour

Question 74

What two conclusions does Read draw from her findings?

Answer 74

The fact that most teachers favoured the masculine discourse disproves claims that primary school has been feminised, and the fact that female teachers were just as likely to use the masculine discourse disproves claims that only male teachers can provide the strict classroom culture in which boys are said to thrive

Question 75

What does Haase 2006 say?

Answer 75

Women make up the majority of teachers but education system is a masculinised educational structure that is numerically dominated by women

Question 76

What does Jones 2006 note?

Answer 76

Male teachers in the UK have a 1 in 4 chance of gaining headship, whereas women have a 1 in 13 chance

Question 77

What did Epstein 1998 find (laddish subcultures)?

Answer 77

Examined how masculinity is constructed within school and found working class boys are likely to be harassed, labelled and subjected to homophobic verbal abuse if they appeared to be ‘swots’

Question 78

What did Francis 2001 find?

Answer 78

Boys are more scared to be labeled as it is more of a threat to their masculinity than a threat to girls femininity as working class culture masculinity is equated with being tough and doing manual work, other things are effeminate and inferior, so boys reject schoolwork to avoid being called ‘gay’

Question 79

What does Francis conclude?

Answer 79

Laddish culture is becoming increasingly widespread because, as girls move into traditional masculine areas such as careers, boys respond by “becoming increasingly laddish in their effort to construct themselves as non-feminine”

Question 80

What do critics of feminism argue?

Answer 80

Policies to promote girls education are no longer needed, and speak of ‘girl power’, that girls today ‘have it all’, and women take over mens jobs. They believe girls succeed at the expense of boys, who are the new disadvantaged

Question 81

What does feminist Ringrose 2013 say?

Answer 81

These views have created a moral panic about the failure of boys, reflecting a fear that underachieving working class boys will grow up to be dangerous, unemployable and an underclass that threatens social stability

Question 82

What does Ringrose say the moral panic has caused?

Answer 82

A major shift in educational policy, that is now preoccupied with raising boys achievements

Question 83

What two negative effects has the policy shift had?

Answer 83

Narrowing equal opportunities policy to ‘failing boys’ ignores problems of disadvantaged working class and ethnic minority pupils, and narrowing gender policy to the issue of achievement gaps ignores other problems faced by girls in school such as sexual harassment, bullying and stereotyped subject choices

Question 84

What does Osler 2006 note?

Answer 84

Focus on underachieving boys has led to the neglect of girls, partly because girls disengage from school quietly, whereas boys disengage through public displays of laddish masculinity which attracts attention

Question 85

What example does Osler give?

Answer 85

Mentoring schemes aimed at reducing school exclusions among black boys. Ignore problems of exclusions among girls, which is becoming more of a problem, and excluded girls are less likely to get a place in pupil referral units. Official exclusion rates mask a wider, hidden problem of exclusion among girls, including self exclusion (truancy) and internal exclusion (removal from classes)

Question 86

Why is it wrong to assume boys are a ‘lost cause’ on education?

Answer 86

Because although they achieve less than girls, their achievement has still increased and they achieve more than in the past

Question 87

What does McVeigh 2001 note?

Answer 87

Similarities in girls and boys achievement are far greater than the differences especially when compared with class and ethnic differences, eg class gap in achievement at GCSE is 3 times wider than gender gap (gender differences within same class = less than 12% points but girls differences from highest to lowest class can be up to 44% points) and gender gap among black Caribbean pupils is greater than in other ethnic groups

Question 88

What does Fuller show?

Answer 88

Many black girls are successful at school as they define their femininity in terms of educational achievement and independence

Question 89

What does Sewell show, that links to what Fuller shows?

Answer 89

Some black boys fail at schools as they define their masculinity is opposition to effeminate education

Question 90

What does Connolly 2006 suggest?

Answer 90

Certain combinations of gender, class and ethnicity have more effect than others

Question 91

How is subject choice affected by the national curriculum?

Answer 91

Where there is a choice, girls and boys choose differently, eg although design and technology is compulsory, girls tend to opt for food tech whereas boys choose resistant materials

Question 92

Where does gendered subject choice become more noticeable?

Answer 92

After 16 where there is more choice, eg differences in entries for A level subjects, eg boys maths and physics, and girls with sociology and English. These differences are then mirrored in subject choice at university

Question 93

How does a level subject choice question the effectiveness of policies such as WISE and GIST?

Answer 93

Institute of physics 2012 found the proportion of A-level physics students who are girls has been “stubbornly inconsistent” at around 20% for over 20 years

Question 94

What is the gendered subject choice in vocational courses?

Answer 94

Gender segregation is very noticeable, eg only 1 in 100 childcare apprentices is a boy

Question 95

What are the different explanations of gender differences in subject choice?

Answer 95

Gender role socialisation, gendered subject images, gender identity and peer pressure, and gendered career opportunities

Question 96

What is gendered role socialisation?

Answer 96

The process of learning the behaviour expected of males and females in society, and early socialisation can shape children’s gender identity

Question 97

What does Norman 1988 note?

Answer 97

From an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities. Some sociologists also say that school plays an important part in this

Question 98

What does Byrne 1979 show?

Answer 98

Teachers encourage boys to be tough/show initiative and girls to be quiet, helpful and tidy

Question 99

What does Murphy and Elwood 1998 show?

Answer 99

How socialisation differences can lead to development of different reading tastes, and how these lead to different subject choices. (Boys read hobby and information books leading to science preferences, and girls read stories about people leading to preferences in subjects like English)

Question 100

What does Browne and Ross 1991 argue?

Answer 100

Children’s beliefs about gender domains are shaped by their early experiences and expectations of adults

Question 101

What does the term ‘gender domains’ mean?

Answer 101

The tasks and activities that boys and girls see as male or female ‘territory’ and therefore as relevant to themselves eg mending a car is in the male gender domain whereas caring for a sick child isn’t. Children are also more confident when engaging in tasks that they see as part of their own gender domain

Question 102

What did Murphy 1991 find?

Answer 102

Boys and girls pay attention to different details, even when looking at the same task (girls focus on feelings, boys focus on how things work or are made) which explains why girls choose humanities and arts, while boys choose science

Question 103

How does Kelly explain why science has a male gendered subject image?

Answer 103

Science teachers are more likely to be men, examples used by teachers and textbooks often draw on boys interests rather than girls interests, and in lessons the boys tend to monopolise the apparatus and dominate the laboratory as if it is ‘theirs’

Question 104

Why does Colley 1998 note that computer studies is seen as a male gendered subject image?

Answer 104

It involves working with machines (male gender domain) and the way it is taught is off-putting to females as tasks tend to be abstract and teaching styles offer fewer opportunities for group work

Question 105

What are gendered subject images like in single sex schools?

Answer 105

Pupils tend to hold less stereotypes subject images and make less traditional subject choices

Question 106

What did Leonard 2006 find?

Answer 106

Compared to pupils in mixed schools, girls in all girls schools were more likely to take maths and science a levels, and boys in all boys schools are more likely to take English and languages-Supported by the institute of physics study where girls in all girls schools are 2.4 times more likely to take physics at A-level

Question 107

What did Paechter 1998 find?

Answer 107

Because pupils see sport as mainly within male gender domain, girls who are sporty have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype (peer pressure)

Question 108

What did Dewar 1990 find?

Answer 108

Male students call female students names if they are interested in sports

Question 109

How can peer pressure explain gendered subject choices?

Answer 109

Pupils feel pressure from their gender and the other gender to choose subjects that are typical for their gender, which is why this happens less in single sex schools because there is less comparison and pressure to conform

Question 110

What is another important reason for differences in subject choice?

Answer 110

Employment is highly gendered and jobs are sex types as male or female, eg women’s jobs often involve work similar to that of a housewife, eg childcare and nursing, leading to a narrow range of occupations with over 1/2 of all women’s employment falling within only four categories (clerical, secretarial, personal services and occupations such as cleaning)

Question 111

What do gendered career opportunities help to explain about vocational courses?

Answer 111

Why they are much more gender specific than academic courses, as they are by definition more closely linked to students’ career plans

Question 112

What did Fuller find about work experience?

Answer 112

Placements in feminine, working class jobs such as nursery nursing and retail work were overwhelmingly the norm for girls in her study

Question 113

What does Connell 1995 talk about?

Answer 113

‘Hegemonic masculinity’ the dominance of heterosexual masculine identity and the subordination of female and gay identities

Question 114

What are the different ways that pupils experiences in school help to construct and reinforce their gender and sexual identities?

Answer 114

Double standards, verbal abuse, the male gaze, male peer groups, female peer groups (policing identity) and teachers and discipline

Question 115

What are double standards?

Answer 115

They occur when we apply one set of moral standards to one group but a different set to another group

Question 116

What does Lees 1993 identify?

Answer 116

Identifies a double standard of sexual morality in which boys boast about their own sexual exploits, but call a girl a ‘slag’ if she doesn’t have a steady boyfriend or if she dresses and speaks in a certain way

Question 117

What do feminists say about double standards?

Answer 117

Where boys sexual conquests are approved of and given status, ‘promiscuity’ among girls attracts negative labels, an example of a patriarchal ideology that justifies male power and devalues women. It is a form of social control that reinforces gender inequality by keeping females subordinate to males

Question 118

What does Connel say about verbal abuse?

Answer 118

A “rich vocabulary of abuse” is one of the ways in which dominant gender and sexual identities are reinforced eg boys use name calling to put girls down if they dress or behave in a certain way

Question 119

What dis Lees 1986 find?

Answer 119

Found that boys called girls ‘slags’ if they appeared to be sexually available, and ‘drags’ if they didn’t

Question 120

How does Paechter see name calling?

Answer 120

as helping to shape gender identity and maintain male power, and the use of negative labels are ways in which pupils police each others sexual identities

Question 121

What did Parker 1996 find?

Answer 121

Found boys were labelled gay simply for being friendly with girls or female teachers, though these labels bear no reflation to pupils’ actual sexual behaviour, they simply reinforce gender norms and identities

Question 122

What do Mac and Ghaill refer to when talking about pupils controlling each other’s identities?

Answer 122

‘The male gaze’ the way pupils and teachers look girls up and down, seeing them as sexual objects and making judgements about their appearance

Question 123

What do Mac and Ghaill say about the male gaze?

Answer 123

It is a form of surveillance through which the hegemonic masculinity is reinforced and femininity is devalued. One of the ways that boys prove their masculinity and without it they risk being labelled as gay

Question 124

What did Epstein and Willis show about male peer groups?

Answer 124

Studies show, boys in anti-school subcultures often accuse boys who want to do well at school of being gay or effeminate

Question 125

What did Mac an Ghaill’s 1994 study show?

Answer 125

examines how peer groups reproduce a range of different class-based masculine gender identities eg the working class ‘macho lads’ were dismissive of other working class boys who worked hard and aspired to middle class careers, by contrast middle class ‘real Englishmen’ projected an image of ‘effortless achievement’-succeeding without trying though in some cases they were trying

Question 126

What did Redman and Mac Ghaill find?

Answer 126

Found that the dominant definition of masculine identity changes from that of mach lads in the lower school to that of the real Englishmen in the sixth form

Question 127

What did Ringrose 2013 find about female peer groups?

Answer 127

Small scale study of 13-14 year old working-class girls’ peer groups in a South Wales school found that being popular was crucial to the girls’ identity, and felt tension between two identities as they transitioned from a girl’s friendship culture into a heterosexual dating culture

Question 128

What two identities did Ringrose identify?

Answer 128

An idealised feminine identity and a sexualised identity

Question 129

What is an idealised feminine identity?

Answer 129

Sows loyalty to the female peer group, being non competitive and getting along with everyone in the friendship culture

Question 130

What is a sexualised identity?

Answer 130

Involved in competing for boys in the dating culture

Question 131

What does Currie et al 2007 argue?

Answer 131

While relationships with boys can confer symbolic capital, this is a high risk game because girls are forced to perform a balancing act between these two identities (too competitive leads to slut shaming and exclusion from friendship culture, but too little competition can lead to frigid shaming by other girls)

Question 132

How is shaming explained in female peer groups?

Answer 132

As a social control device by which schoolgirls police, regulate and discipline each other’s identities

Question 133

What did Reay 2001 find?

Answer 133

A ‘boffin’ identity involved the girls having to perform an asexual identity, presenting themselves as lacking any interest in boyfriends or popular fashion and can lead to social exclusion

Question 134

What did Francis 2010 find?

Answer 134

middle-class female ‘boffins’ may respond in kind by defining other, working-class girls as ‘chavs

Question 135

What did Haywood and Mac an Ghaill 1996 find?

Answer 135

Found that male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests than girls-teachers tended to ignore boys’ verbal abuse of girls and even blamed girls for attracting it

Question 136

What do Askew and Ross 1988 show?

Answer 136

Show how male teachers’ behaviour can subtly reinforce messages about gender eg male teachers often have a protective attitude towards female colleagues and come into their classes to ‘rescue’ them by threatening disruptive pupils, but this reinforces the idea that women can’t cope on their own