Gender and Education

Gender and Education

1. Female

   • Internal factors
     • Challenging stereotypes
       • Removal of gender stereotypes removes barrier to achievement
     • Teacher attention
       • Franics says boys get picked on and that teachers have low expectations of them
     • GCSEs/ coursework
       • GCSEs 1988
       • Gorard says coursework favours girls
     • Equal opportunites policies
       • GIST (Girls into science and technology)
       • National Curriculum 1988
         • So boys and girls generally study the same subjects
   • External factors
     • Changes in Family
       • Increase in divorce rates
       • Smaller families
         • More time to work
       • Rise of lone parent families
         • Women know they have to be independent
     • Changes in women's employment
       • Rise of service sector which has skills associated with females
         • Females work harder to get these jobs
     • Girls changing ambitions
       • Sharpe
         • Unstructured interviews of girls attitudes to education and family
           • 1970s girls thought if they were intelligent, they would be seen as unattractive, prioritised love over a career
             • 1990s girls wanted a career

2. Male

   • Internal factors
     • Teachers have lower expectations of boys
       • Creates self fulfilling prophecies
     • Formation of laddish subcultures
       • Francis
         • As girls move into masculine subjects, boys are laddish to prove they are different to girls
     • Hidden Curriculum
       • Associated with femininity
         • Punctuality, revision etc
   • External factors
     • Boys and literacy
       • Their leisure activities do not improve their reading e.g. sport
       • Parents spend less time reading with their sons
         • Mothers read more than fathers, so they associate it with femininity
     • Changes in job market
       • Deindustrialisation
         • Little point in working hard if there are few jobs for them
     • Masculinity
       • Overconfident
         • Surprised when they fail exams and put it down to bad luck