AQA A-Level Sociology: Gender Differences in Education - Gender and Subject Choice

NATIONAL CURRICULUM OPTIONS
1. Where there is a choice in the National Curriculum, girls and boys choose differently.
  1. For example, although design and technology is a compulsory subject, girls tend to choose the food technology option,, whereas boys choose graphics and resistant materials.
AS AND A LEVELS
1. Gendered subject choices become more noticeable after 16, when students have more choice.
  1. There are big gender differences in entries for A Level subjects, with boys opting for maths and physics, and girls choosing subjects such as sociology, English and languages.
    1. The Institute of Physics (2012) found that the proportion of A-Level Physics students who are girls has been "stubbornly consistent", at around 20%, for over 20 years.
VOCATIONAL COURSES
1. Vocational courses prepare students for particular careers. Gender segregation is a very noticeable feature of vocational training.
  1. Only one in 100 childcare apprentices is a boy.
EXPLANATIONS FOR GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SUBJECT CHOICE
1. Gender role socialisation
  1. Gender role socialisation is the process of learning the behaviour expected of males and females in society.
  2. Early socialisation shapes children's gender identity.
    1. Fiona Norman (1988) notes that from an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities.
  3. Eileen Byrne (1979) shows that teachers encourage boys to be tough and show initiative and not be weak or behave like 'sissies'
    1. Girls on the other hand are expected to be quiet, helpful, clean and tidy.
  4. As a result of differences in socialisation, boys and girls develop different tastes in reading.
    1. Patricia Murphy and Jannette Elwood (1998) show how these differences lead to different subject choices.
      1. Boys read hobby books and information texts, whilst girls are more likely to read stories about people.
        This helps to explain why boys prefer science subjects and girls prefer subjects such as English.
2. Gender domains
  1. Naima Browne and Carol Ross (1991) argue that children's belief about gender domains are shaped by their early experiences and the expectations of adults.
    1. Gender domains are the tasks and activities that boys and girls see as male or female territory.
  2. Children are more confident when engaging in tasks that they see as part of their own gender domain. For example, when they are set the same mathematical task, girls are more confident in tackling it when it is presented as being about food and nutrition, whereas boys are more confident about cars.
  3. Patricia Murphy (1991) found that boys and girls pay attention to different details even when tackling the same task.
    1. Girls focus more on how people feel, whereas boys focus on how things are made and work..
GENDERED SUBJECT IMAGES
1. The gendered image of a subject affects who will want to choose it.
  1. Kelly argues that science is seen as a boys' subject for several reasons
    1. Science teachers are more likely to be men.
    2. The examples teachers and textbooks use often draw on boys' rather than girls' interests.
    3. In science lessons, boys monopolise the apparatus and dominate the laboratory, acting as if it is theirs.
2. Anne Colley (1998) notes that computer studies is seen as a masculine subject for two reasons
  1. It involves working with machines - part of the male gender domain.
  2. The way it is taught is off-putting to females.
    1. Tasks tend to be abstract and teaching styles formal, with few opportunities for group work, which girls favour.
SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLING
1. Pupils who attend single-sex schools tend to hold less stereotyped subject images and make less traditional subject choices.
2. Diana Leonard (2006) found that, compared to pupils in mixed schools, girls in girls' schools were more likely to take maths and science A Levels.
  1. Boys in boys' schools were more likely to pick English and languages.
  2. Girls from single-sex schools were also more likely to study male-dominated subjects at university.
3. The Institute of Physics found that girls in single-sex schools were 2 . 4 times more likely to take A-Level Physics than those in mixed schools.
  1. They also found that lack of female scientists on the television can influence perceptions of Physics.
GENDER IDENTITY & PEER PRESSURE
1. Subject choice can be influenced by peer pressure. Other boys and girls may apply pressure to an individual if they disapprove of his or her choice.
  1. Boys tend to opt out of music and dance because such activities fall outside of their gender domain and so are likely to attract bullying from peers.
2. Carrie Paechter (1998) found that because pupils see sport as mainly within the male gender domain, girls who are sporty have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype.
  1. Therefore girls are more likely than boys to opt out of sport.
3. Alison Dewar (1990) studied an American college and found that male students would call girls 'lesbian' or 'butch' if they appeared to be interested in sport.
GENDERED CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
1. One reason why there are gender differences in subject choice is because employment is highly gendered.
  1. Jobs tend to be sex-typed as men's or women's. Women's jobs often involve work similar to that performed by housewives, such as childcare or nursing.
    1. Over half of all women's employment falls within only four categories: clerical, secretarial, personal services and occupations such as cleaning.
    2. This will cause pupils to opt out of courses that will lead them to careers that are considered to not be in their gender-domain.
      1. For example, a male pupil may choose not to do a childcare course because childcare is seen as a female job.
GENDER, VOCATIONAL CHOICE & CLASS
1. Working-class pupils in particular may make decisions about vocational courses that are based on a traditional sense of gender identity.
  1. Carol Fuller (2011) states that most of the working-class girls she studied had ambitions to go into jobs such as childcare or hair and beauty.
    1. This reflected their working-class habitus - their sense of what is realistic for people like them.
  2. These ambitions may arise out of work experience placements, which are often gendered and classed.
    1. Fuller found that placements in feminine, working-class jobs such as nursery teaching and retail work were overwhelmingly the norm for girls in her study.
      1. She concludes that the school was implicitly steering girls towards certain jobs - and hence certain vocational courses - through the work experience placements they were offered.

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AQA A-Level Sociology: Gender Differences in Education - Gender and Subject Choice

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