Subject choice

Subject choice

1. Why boys and girls choose different subjects is because:

   • Early socialisation:
     • Boys and girls are dressed differently and are given different educational toys.
       • Children are more confident when tackling a task in their gender domain.
     • Elwood says that boys read hobby books and information text while girls read stories about people.
     • Behaviour, clothing and toys.
   • Gendered subject:
     • Masculinity and feminity are still widespread. Subjects have different images.
     • Kelly argues that science is more of a boys subject.
     • Science, subject images
   • Peer pressure:
     • Subjects can be controled through peer pressure.
     • Paetcher found that pupils see sports to do with boys and girls who are sporty have to cope with an image that contradicts.
       • Girls in single sex school will choose boy subjects - Lack of boys - Lack of peer pressure.
   • Gendered career opportunties:
     • Jobs tend to be typed as men or female.
       • Women to do childcare.
     • Sex occupations affect the kind of jobs pupils get in to.

2. Gendered identity and schooling:

   • Feminist argue that experiences in school act as a social control to produce patriarchy.
     • According to Lees; boys will call girls slags if they are sexually available but there is no word for males.
   • Teachers play a part in reinforcing gender domains
     • Ghaill found that male teachers told boys off for acting like girls and ignoring verbal abuse of girls.
   • The male gaze is a form of social control where male pupils and teachers look girls up and down like sexual objects.
   • Double standards - A set of rules that apply for one group but not for another.
     • Boys would boast about sexual relations but girls dont but if they did they would be called slags.