Boys, Girls and Achievement

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Boys, Girls and Achievement
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Outline of the session

• Your experience
• Putting boys achievement into perspective
• Disrupting commonsense some things we know
  dont work but we still do
• Orienting practice what research tells us can
  work in some contexts
• Going forward

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Your experience

• What provoked you to pick this session?
• How do you see the issues of gender and
  achievement?
• What strategies have you used to address these
  issues?

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Putting boys achievement into perspective
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A political and economic perspective

• The last 40 years has seen
• - changing patterns of working-class employment
  due to the decline of manufacturing industry.
• - changing roles of men and women due to the
  impact of feminism.
• Sharpe, S. (1976, 1994) Just Like A Girl, How
  girls learn to be women (London, Penguin)
• Willis, P. (1977) Learning to labour how working
  class kids get working class jobs (London, Gower
  Publishing)

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An historical perspective

• There can scarce be a greater Defect in a
  Gentleman, than not to express himself well
  either in Writing or Speaking. But yet, I think,
  I may ask my Reader, whether he doth not know a
  great many, who live upon their Estate, and so,
  with the Name, should have the Qualities of
  Gentlemen, who cannot so much as tell a Story as
  they should much less speak clearly and
  persuasively in any Business. This, I think not
  to be so much their Fault, as the Fault of their
  Education. (John Locke, 1693)
• Girls outperformed boys in the11 examination.
• In the 1970-80s more girls than boys got 5 A-C
  grades at O-level.
• Arnot, M., David, M. Weiner, G. (1999) Closing
  the Gender Gap Postwar Education and Social
  Change (Cambridge, Polity Press)
• Cohen, M. (1998) "A habit of healthy idleness"
  boys' underachievement in historical perspective.
  In D. Epstein, J. Elwood, V. Hey and J. Maw
  (eds) Failing boys? Issues in gender and
  underachievement (Buckingham, Open University
  Press)

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A geographical perspective

• For example, England and France share similar
  patterns in terms of the differential attainment
  of boys and girls, but while in England the boys'
  underachievement debate is prominent in policy
  and media, in the latter it is non-existent.
• Moreau, M.-P. (2011) The Societal Construction of
  Boys Underachievement in Educational Policies A
  cross-national comparison, Journal of Education
  Policy, 26 (2), 161-180

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Putting achievement into perspective

• When we talk about boys achievement we are
  talking about attainment rather than other forms
  of achievement this is a post-league tables
  focus.
• We need a wider notion of achievement
  exclusions, subject choice, aspirations,
  employment.
• Boys results improve year on year and there is no
  consistent gender gap in maths and science.
• Arnot, M., David, M. Weiner, G. (1999) Closing
  the Gender Gap Postwar Education and Social
  Change (Cambridge, Polity Press)
• Osler, A. Vincent, K. (2003) Girls and
  Exclusion rethinking the agenda. (London,
  RoutledgeFalmer)
• The Fawcett Society and the Womens Budget Group
  produce regular reports on the gender pay gap and
  other gendered economic inequalities

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Putting underachievement into perspective

• Underachievement is unclearly defined is it
  relative to some inner potential, to some group
  reference point or to some prediction based on
  prior attainment?
• In the context of the A-C economy, it can lead
  to the rationing of educational resources.
• Gillborn, D. Youdell, D. (2000) Rationing
  education policy, practice, reform, and equity
  (Buckingham, Open University Press)

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Putting boys into perspective

• Not all boys are underachieving and not all
  girls are achieving well.
• There are differences between boys and different
  ways of doing boy.
• Differences in attainment by ethnicity are larger
  than differences between girls and boys and
  differences by social class are even larger.
• Archer, L., Hollingworth, S. Mendick, H. (2010)
  Urban youth and schooling (Maidenhead, Open
  University Press)
• Francis, B. (2000) Boys and girls and
  achievement addressing the classroom issues
  (London, RoutledgeFalmer)

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But there is an issue

• There is a gender gap in literacy attainment in
  favour of girls running throughout primary and
  secondary schooling.
• There is an overall gender gap in those attaining
  5 A-C GCSEs in favour of girls.
• There is evidence that the most valorised ways of
  doing boy are anti-school with school work
  linked to femininity and effortless achievement
  as the ideal.
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)

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Disrupting commonsenseSome Things We Know
Dont Work But We Still Do
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Theres no such thing as boy-friendly pedagogy,
resources and curriculum

• Boys dont prefer non-fiction, the most
  successful schools promote a range of resources
  to all...
• What is clearly evident from our research over
  the past decade is that, when asked what makes a
  good lesson, there is a broad consensus across
  the sexes.
• Approaches to teaching oriented to boys are based
  on assumptions about the typical boy
• Moss, G. (2007) Literacy and Gender researching
  texts, contexts and readers (Abingdon, Routledge)
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)

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In particularCompetitive activities disengage
many girls and boys

• Competitive practices create winners and losers
  and lead to defensive strategies by boys (and
  girls) to protect their self-image whereby they
  withdraw from competition rather than risk
  failure.
• Jackson, C. (2006) Lads and ladettes in school
  gender and a fear of failure (Maidenhead, Open
  University Press)

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Boys and girls dont have different learning
styles

• Different measurement instruments produce
  different learning style profiles.
• Research shows no consistent differences in
  learning styles between boys and girls.
• There are further problems with learning styles
  in that these are difficult to define and are not
  fixed for any student but change in response to
  experience.
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)

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Boys dont work better with male teachers

• Our study indicates that simplistic and
  unsupported claims about the benefits of gender
  matching should have no place in driving either
  education policy or practice. The voices of the
  children in our study are clear it is the
  teachers pedagogic and interpersonal skills that
  are vital in engaging them as learners,
  regardless of their gender.
• Carrington, B., Francis, B., Hutchings, M.,
  Skelton, C., Read, B. Hall, I. (2007) Does the
  gender of the teacher really matter? Seven- to
  eight-year-olds' accounts of their interactions
  with the teachers, Educational Studies, 33(4),
  397-413

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Girls do well in coursework and terminal exams

• Girls results were on an upward trajectory before
  the move to increased coursework in 1988 and
  continued after the reduction in GCSE and A level
  coursework.
• Modern foreign languages results have some of the
  largest gender differences. These subjects have
  always had some of the least coursework
  components.
• Elwood, J. (2005) Gender and Achievement what
  have exams got to do with it, Oxford Review of
  Education Policy, 31 (3), 373-393

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Orienting practiceWhat Research Tells Us Can
Work In Some Contexts
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Mentoring and target-setting

• Needs to be based in high but realistic
  expectations where students and staff understand
  the data used to set targets.
• Needs reciprocity so mentors can advocate for
  students and mediate between them and their
  teachers, and mentees are offered and can take
  responsibility.
• Needs to happen in a context where boys (in
  particular) can be offered an escape from the
  needs to conform to a laddish, macho image
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)

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Single-sex classes

• Can make students feel more comfortable in class
  and less pressurised to showboat.
• Can make students feel freer to
  question/explore/discuss particularly for boys in
  English and girls in maths/science.
• Needs coherent and vibrant pedagogy for girls and
  boys and to not homogenise boys (and girls).
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)
• Carolyn Jackson reviews the issues
  http//www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/edres/videos/jackson_s
  ingle-Sex_Classes.htm

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A focus on learning and teaching

• The key thing is to give students and teachers a
  vocabulary for understanding learning so that
• - students can become more aware and autonomous
  and feel respected/ valued.
• - teachers can become more creative in their
  teaching, planning and assessment.
• These initiatives need to be embedded across the
  school and sustained.
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)
• Hall, E. (2004) Researching learning styles,
  Teaching Thinking, Spring 28-35

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Socio-cultural approaches

• Whole-school ethos schools as learning
  organisations
• proactivity, pedagogy, support.
• Within this, using key leaders and key
  befrienders can work.
• Generally, its important to challenge the
  patterns of gender in school, particularly those
  associating school work with femininity and
  idealising effortless achievement.
• Younger, M. Warrington, M. with McLellan, R.
  (2005) Raising boys achievement in secondary
  schools issues, dilemmas and opportunities
  (Maidenhead, Open University Press)
• Davies, B. (1993) Shards of glass children
  reading and writing beyond gendered identities
  (Sydney, Allen and Unwin)

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Going forward

• Did anything surprise you?
• Do you want to do anything
• in your classroom?
• -in your subject area?
• -at a whole school level?
• Heather Mendick heathermendick_at_yahoo.co.uk
• www.genderandeducation.com