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Gender and Differential Achievement in Education - Coggle Diagram
Gender and Differential Achievement in Education
Boys
used to outperform
girls
, theres been a shift
Girls get better results in nearly every subject at GCSE
Girls get better results in primary school National Curriculum
Girls are more likely to pass A-Levels
More women than men go to university
Factors
Inside School
Mitsos and Browne
(1998) say teaching has been feminised
Women are more likely to be teachers, especially in primary schools
Gives girls positive role models
Textbooks and teaching resources
have changed are are less likely to stereotype girls in passive roles
The National Curriculum
forced girls to do traditionally 'male' subjects
E.g. More girls started to do science
Local Education Authority and government initiatives tried to encourage girls to do these
E.g. WISE and GIST
Swann and Graddol
(1993) think high female achievement is a result of the quality of interaction they have with their teachers
Most of the time teachers spend with girls is used to help with their work
Most teacher time spent with boys is focused on behaviour management
Jackson
(1998) says schools label boys negatively
Associated with poor behaviour, which gives the school a bad name, and with low achievement, which lowers their league table position
Negative label becomes a SFP
Archer
(2006) Females still face problems at school
The current underachievement by boys masks the continuing problems that girls face
High-achieving Asian and Chinese get labelled negatively by teachers as robots who're incapable of independent thought
Black WC girls are negatively labelled as loud and aggressive
The ongoing achievement of girls is 'fragile and problemeatic'
Factors
Outside School
Girls are socialised into ways of behaving that are well-suited to classroom environments
E.g. To be quieter, listen to authority and read a lot
The Equal Pay
and
Sex Discrimination Act
have helped to create more equal pay opportunities in wider society
The Equal Pay Act
(1971) makes it illegal to pay men and women different wages for the same work
The Sex Discrimination Act
(1975) means employers can't discriminate on the basis of gender
Changed the values of society and attitudes in school
Sharpe
(1994) Found girls' priorities have changed
Now want qualifications and careers
More women go to work = positive role models in work for girls
Want to be financially independent
The Feminist Movement
caused a change in female expectations, and made more people aware of inequality.
Now more careful about negative stereotyping, sex discrimination and patriarchy
Changes in the labour market
- created oppurtunities
Since the 1970s there's been a continual increase in in the sixe of the service sector, which is traditionally female-dominated
E.g. healthcare and retail
Shrining of the primary sector, which is traditionally male-dominated
E.g. farming and mining
Changes in Family Structure
- changed aspirations
Women now marry and have children later in life, so they can pursue a career first
Move towards equal roles within households, partly as a result of the Feminist movement
More are able to seek work outside the home
Reasons Why
Boys
Underachieve
May be having an identity criss
The decline of the male breadwinner
Might mean they don't see the point of education
May lead to
anti-school subcultures
The rise of female independence
Rise in male unemployment
Interpretivists
say teachers have lower expectations of boys
May lead to a
SFP
of poor behaviour
Negative labelling
may explain why they're more disruptive
More likely to be
excluded
The
feminisation of teaching
means they don't have as many role models
Reading
can be seen as 'girly'
May not develop vital communication skills if they avoid books
Subcultures
Negative labelling, streaming and setting can cause pupils to rebel
Form subcultures: pro-school or anti-school
Willis
(1970s) looked at why WC kids get WC jobs
Studied 'the lads' who rejected school and formed an anti-school subculture
Coped with their underachievement by having a subculture where education didn't matter
Having a laugh was more important
Mac and Ghaill
(1994) say subcultures are complicated
Lots of different types
Boys may join a macho lad subculture because of a crisis of masculinity
Boys could join pro-school subcultures and be proud of academic achievement
Fuller
(1980) studied a group of African-Caribbean girls in London
Formed a subculture that worked hard to prove negative labelling wrong
Subject Choice
Girls
tend to go for essay-based A-levels
E.g. English and RS
Boys
tend to go for technical A-levels
E.g. Maths and Science
May be influenced by gender socialisation
Ideas of femininity and masculinity can create different expectations and stereotypes of what pupils should study
Kelly
(1987) found science is seen as masculine
Boys dominate the classroom
Parental expectations
may encourage students to follow what they see as traditional 'normal' choice for their gender
Pressure to conform to a social norm
Teachers
may also have an effect
Most physics teachers are male
More male than female role models in the subject