Gender Socialisation

Question 1

What is gender socialisation

Answer 1

• Learning gender appropriate norms and values
• Sex role theory - Talcott Parsons
  1 Male - instrumental role
  2 Female - expressive

Question 2

gender socialisation impact on educational achievement

Answer 2

• literacy skills - reading is feminised
• Girls socialised into being more passive and obedient - the ideal pupil
• Canalisation - toys given to young children develop different skill sets
• Subject choices - girls socialised into softer humanities subjects rather than complex scientific subjects

Question 3

Evidence of gender socialisation impacting on achievement

Answer 3

• Across all social classes and ethnic groups, girls achieve higher than male counterparts
• percentage of girls entering into humanities subjects over sciences
• Boys still dominate subjects in male domains of physics, maths and computer science

Question 4

Changes to gender socialisation and impact on educational achievement

Answer 4

• links to rise feminism and changing career aspirations
• More females working leads to girls seeing female parents as role models
• initiatives to promote female empowerment have led to changes to early socialisation

Question 5

Evaluations

Answer 5

• changing nature of socialisation in 21st century
• socialisation of girls getting into a career
• still a gap - although closing - in highest positions
• gender socialisation differs by cultural background
• out of school factor reinforced by in school factors