What are the effects of gender on educational

attainment?

Primary school boys fail to close gap with girls

Boys are being failed by our schools

Many teenage boys fail test grade

Poor white boys 'most likely to fail school'

Almost half of all boys fail to meet targets for writing

Why aren't boys doing as well at school?

Recent headlines taken from newspapers and websites

EVALUATING THE EFFECT OF GENDER ON SCHOOL

ACHIEVEMENT

Are boys educational failures?

Sociological Targets

To understand that gender can have an influence on school attainment.

To recognise that traditional patterns of gender attainment are changing in favour of girls.

To identify some of the effects that the growing confidence of girls is having on boys.

Personal targets

To think critically about social issues

To undertake personal research

To write a paragraph with both AO1 and AO2 skills in evidence.

The problem for schools

Until the mid 1980s, boys out-performed girls at all levels of the education system, with the exception of 11+

Most educational writers read this as being 'proof' that girls were generally less intelligent than boys and that boys were 'late developers'.

Since the mid-1980s both genders began to improve their school performance significantly. The improvement of girls was more rapid than that for boys.

Is this a problem?

Warrington and Younger (1999) note that the success of girls should be a cause for celebration and congratulation.

Instead it is viewed as a 'problem' with concern expressed about how males are 'failing’.

Schools are now told to tackle the issue of the underachievement of boys.

Discussion questions

Why do you think male improvement in achievement has been at a lower rate to females?

Why do you think female success is seen as a problem of boys 'failing'?

Stimulus materials

Look at the graphs that follow. They are taken from the ONS website.

Summarise what you learn about gender attainment from each of them.

Attainment of five A* - C GCSEs

Higher education

Possible reasons for changes: ranking exercise

Girls and boys learn in different waysSchools are feminine environmentsGirls’ attitudes towards work are changingYoung women are more personally confidentMales are losing confidence and there is a

crisis of masculinityBoys are rejecting school and developing

‘laddish’ attitudes.

Key researchers

Wilkinson (1994) refers to the 'genderquake' whereby young females are increasingly striving for a fulfilling career

Susan Faludi and Robert Bly suggest male underachievement is linked to a 'crisis of masculinity‘

Murphy and Elwood (1998) argue that teachers are now more sensitive to gender issues facing females. Teaching has become a feminised profession

Researchers 2

Mitsos and Browne (1998) found that in coeducation schools girls worked harder and spent more time on homework, were better organised, and were more likely to meet deadlines than boys.

Harris et al. (1993) found that boys were more easily distracted in the classroom

Post modernists argue that performance by gender is affected by the social class and ethnic backgrounds of male and female students. Thus, not all female students do well and all male students do badly.

For Mac an Ghaill, the underachievement of boys is particularly a working class problem.

Summary of key points

Until the mid 1980s, boys outperformed girls in schools.

This was seen as natural, except by feminists. The impact of feminist research changed

many attitudes in schools. By the mid 1980s, girls and boys were

achieving equally well Girls are now consistently outperforming

boys at all levels and in most subjects. This is seen as a cause for concern by many

politicians.

Outline and explain why boys are now seen by many as the

‘gender of failure’ in Education.

Assessment

Independent study

Add to your notes by using the textbooks in the LRC and in your Sociology department.

Use the e-book on the NGFL-Cymru website for more detailed notes and explanations.