GENDER AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT

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GENDER AND EDUCATIONAL ATTAINMENT
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AIMS

• To analyse data on gender and educational
  attainment.
• To explore reasons and explanations for
  differences in male and female attainment.

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TASK

• We already know that girls achievement is better
  than boys achievement.
• What would the statistics look like?GCSEs.A
  Levels.Higher education.
• Think about trends over time and the differences
  between the genders.

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WERE YOU RIGHT?

• Look at the figures on page 108.
• Analyse the trends and the conclusions what do
  the figures tell us?
• Were your estimated statistics similar to these?

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CONCLUSIONS
Ted Wragg, Professor of Education The
underachievement of boys has become one of the
biggest challenges facing society today.
Chris Woodhead, former head of Ofsted One of
the most disturbing problems facing the education
system.
Have another look at the statistics are things
really that bad?
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A MORE POSITIVE VIEW

• Boys are improving just not as quickly as
  girls. Should all boys be labelled as
  underachievers?
• Only some boys are failing which social class
  do you think most are drawn from?
• Whats new about this? 11 plus results.
• Hiding girls failure what about the girls who
  are failing?

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WHY HAVE GIRLS IMPROVED?

• Discuss this with the other students on your
  table.
• Come up with a list.
• Write this on sugar paper and stick it to the
  wall.
• Look at what other groups have put are they the
  same as your ideas?
• Is there just one answer to this?

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CHANGING ATTITUDES

• Sue Sharpe studied the attitudes of working class
  girls in London schools in the 1970s and 1990s.
• 1990s girls were more confident, more assertive,
  more ambitious, more committed to gender
  equality.
• 1970s main aim was love, marriage, husbands and
  children.
• 1990s main aim was job, career and being able to
  support themselves. Education could help them
  achieve this.

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ADULT CHANGES

• More working women therefore girls see more
  female role models in the workplace.
• More marriages breaking down girls want to be
  financially independent so they can stand on
  their own two feet if they become divorced.
• Education could help them achieve this.

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CHANGES IN SCHOOLS

• End of 11-plus girls are no longer artificially
  failed to ensure equal numbers at grammar
  schools.
• Growing awareness of gender bias in schools and
  attempts to remove it.
• 1988 National Curriculum provided a compulsory
  core curriculum for all students up to the age of
  16 regardless of their gender.

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WHY ARE SOME BOYS FAILING?

• Changes in the job market manual jobs have
  declined, service sector jobs have grown.
• Changes in male roles and a lack of male role
  models has led to crisis in working class
  masculinity.
• Some deal with this identity problem by playing
  up and rejecting the sissy and girly world of
  school thereby contributing to their own
  failure.

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EXAM QUESTIONS

• (d) Identify and briefly explain two factors that
  may account for the educational under-achievement
  of boys. (8)May, 2005
• (d) Identify and briefly explain two reasons why
  girls are now generally out-performing boys at
  all levels of schooling. (8)January, 2005

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• (b) Briefly describe two examples of ways in
  which a gender regime may operate in school.
  (4)(c) Suggest three factors that may explain
  why girls often choose to study different
  subjects from boys. (6)(d) Identify and briefly
  explain two changes in policies which may have
  led to improvements in girls performance.
  (8)May, 2003
• (c) Suggest three factors that may help to
  explain gender differences in achievement and
  subject choice. (6)January, 2003