Education: Gender Differences Flashcards

Question

Identity, class & girls’ achievement: Hyper-heterosexual feminine identities

Answer 1

-Many girls invested time into constructing ‘desirable’ & ‘glamorous’ identities. -They bright status from their female peer group & avoided them being ridiculed or called a ‘tramp’ for wearing the wrong brand. -However, they punished for having the wrong appearance (too much jewellery, makeup). -Teachers saw this as a distraction preventing them engaging with education. -Led to school saying the girls were ‘not one of us’ & Bordieu described this process as symbolic violence. Archer says the ideal female pupil is de-sexualised & MC.

Answer 2

-While having a bf brought symbolic capital, it got in the way of schoolwork & lowered girls aspirations. -Included losing interest in Uni, studying masculine subjects or in gaining a professional career. -Instead, they wanted to ‘settle down’ have children & work locally.

Answer 3

-some W/C girls adopted loud identities leading them to be outspoken, independent & assertive. -fails to conform to schools stereotype of the ideal pupil identity as passive and submissive. -brought conflict with teachers who interpreted their behaviour as aggressive.

Answer 4

Faced with dilemma: -either gaining **symbolic capital** from peers by conforming to hyper heterosexual feminine identity. -or gaining **educational capital** by rejecting identity & confirming to the schools M/C notions of a respectable, ideal female pupil.

Answer 5

-some coped by defining themselves as this reflecting their struggle to achieve a sense of self worth 2&5!8& an education system that devalues their W/C identities. -Archer argues the W/C feminine identity & educational success conflict with each other.

Answer 6

Some W/C do succeed & enter higher education. -however, they may be disadvantaged by their gender & class identities. -Evans shows in her study of 21 W/C sixth form girls. -found girls wanted to go to Uni to increase family’s earning levels. -“give something back to my family.”

Answer 7

-Notes ‘caring’ is a crucial part of this identity & the girls wanted to remain at home and contribute to their families. -**economic necessity** was another reason they lived (limits their Uni choice). -cost & fear of debt

Answer 8

Living at home was a positive choice & part of their W/C identities. -preference for local is part of W/C habitus. -Archer says this hyper heterosexual identity puts W/C at odds with the school. -Evans says the ‘caring’ aspect of W/C girls produces desire to live with families. Results in their self exclusion from elite universities & limits success.

Answer 9

-Since 60s, Denise’s challenged stereotypes of a women’s role of mother & housewife in patriarchal NF. -Femisists argue that though we have not achieved full equality, women’s rights have been improved & opportunities. -Women’s self esteem & expectations have been raised.

Answer 10

These changes are partly reflected in media images & messages. -McRobbie studies girls’ magazines. -in the 70s, they emphasised the importance of getting married & not being ‘left on the shelf’, whereas nowadays there’s pictures of assertive & independent women. Changed encouraged by feminism may affect girls’ self image & ambitions with regard to the fmaily & careers. May explain improvements to their educational achievement.

Answer 11

-increase in divorce rate. -increase in cohabitation & decrease in number of 1st marriages. -increase in lone parent families. -smaller families.

Answer 12

Affecting girls’ attitudes towards education. -e.g. Increased number of female headed lone parent families may mean more women taking breadwinner role. This creates a RM for girls - financially independent women. -to achieve this, women need qualifications to get well paid jobs. -e.g. Higher divorce rate means people are likelier to depend on husband to be their provider. Encourages women to look to themselves for qualifications.

Answer 13

-The 1970 Equal pay act: illegal for women to earn less than men. -1975 Sex Discrimination act outlaws discrimination at work. -Since 1975, pay gap halved from 30% to 15%. -Proportion of working women increased from 53% in 1971 to 67% in 2013. -Some women are breaking through the ‘glass ceiling’ (invisible barrier that keeps them out of high level professional & managerial jobs.

Answer 14

-Encouraged girls to see their future in terms of paid work rather than as housewives. -Greater career opportunities & better pay for women & RMs that successful career women offer provide an incentive for girls to gain qualifications.

Answer 15

Post industrialisation, attitudes of of young women & depressed expectations of males. This is due to the **feminisation of the economy** & the workforce. Service sector has increased & manual jobs have decreased & ‘female’ jobs (health/education/retail) have increased & male jobs have decreased. More opportunities for economic independence & careers for women.

Answer 16

Female aspirations have transformed due to the **genderquake** in terms of changes in expectations about futures, compared to their mothers. No longer restricted in aspirations to family life.

Answer 17

Her study in 1976, of ‘Just like a Girl’ found that girls prioritised marriage, love & children with careers being the least aspired to goal. She repeated study in 1994 & found that priorities altered to careers being above all.

Answer 18

Sees changes such as increase in divorce rate, failing relationships etc as part of growth of **risk & uncertainty**. Greater insecurity has led to a more individualised society where both men and women have to be self-reliant and financially independent. This is because they cannot rely on relationships due to uncertainty so more girls want to achieve qualifications so they don’t rely on husbands & be sufficiently well qualified to cope with uncertainties in the labour market.

Answer 19

Her interviews in the 70s and 90s show a major shift in the way girls see their future. -1974, girls had low aspirations, educational success was in feminine, believed that ambition was unattractive & their priorities were “love, marriage, husbands, children, jobs, careers.” 1990s, ambitions were relating to careers & supporting themselves financially.

Answer 20

Study of 14-17 year olds found that marriage & children weren’t a major part of their life plans.

Answer 21

Link this to trend towards individualisation in modern society where independence is strongly valued. Career is part of a woman’s life project and it promises recognition & economic self-sufficiency.

Answer 22

Education success was a central part of their identity. -Saw selves as creators of their own future & had an **individualised notion of self**. -Believed in meritocracy & aimed for a professional career, qualifications to support selves.

Answer 23

Some W/C girls continue to have gender stereotypes aspirations for marriage & children & expect to go into traditional low paid women’s work. -Argues reflects reality of girls clad position as their limited aspirations reflected the limited opportunities they perceive as available to them. -To them, a traditional gender identity (being part of a couple) is attainable & gives them status.

Answer 24

Found that W/C girls are likely to face a precarious position in labour market & see motherhood as the only viable option. Hence, they don’t see a point in achieving in education. E.g. most of the low aspiring girls in Fuller’s study weren’t interested in staying in school & expressed desire for low-level jobs.

Answer 25

Boys tend to pick subjects more related to maths & physics, economics etc. Girls pick more creative subjects like English, art, psychology etc.

Answer 26

-Up until Y10, all pupils study the same subjects due to the National curriculum. -Although DT is a compulsory subject, girls tend to choose food tech & boys tend to choose graphics & resistant materials.

Answer 27

-In A-levels, boys opt for maths & physics and girls, sociology. -the Institute of Physics (2012) found that the proportion of A-level physics students who are girls has been "stubbornly consistent", at around 20%, for over 20 years. -how effective really is WISE & GIST?

Answer 28

Gender segregation is a very noticeable feature of vocational training. -only one in 100 childcare apprentices is a boy.

Answer 29

-Gender role socialisation (gender domain) -Gendered subject images (single-sex schooling) -Gender identity & peer pressure -Gendered career opportunities

Answer 30

Process of learning the behaviour expected of males and females in society. -Norman (1988) notes, from an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities.

Answer 31

Byrne (1979) shows that teachers encourage boys to be tough and show initiative and not be weak or behave like sissies. Girls on the other hand are expected to be quiet, helpful, clean and tidy.

Answer 32

Murphy and Elwood (1998) show how these lead to different subject choices. Boys read hobby books and information texts, while girls are more likely to read stories about people. Develops different reading tastes.

Answer 33

-Children’s beliefs about 'gender domains' are shaped by their early experiences and the expectations of adults. -By **gender domains**, they mean the tasks and activities that boys and girls see as male or female 'territory' and therefore as relevant to themselves. -Children are more confident when engaging in tasks that they see as part of their own gender domain. -E.g. when they are set the same mathematical task, girls are more confident in tackling it when it is presented as being about food and nutrition, whereas boys are more confident if it is about cars.

Answer 34

Found that boys and girls approach tasks differently & pay attention to different details. -In general, girls focus more on how people feel (humanities), whereas boys focus on how things are made and work (science).

Answer 35

Kelly argues that science is seen as a bovs' subject for several reasons: • Science teachers are more likely to be men. • The examples teachers use, and those in textbooks, often draw on boys' rather than girls interests. • In science lessons, boys monopolise the apparatus and dominate the laboratory, acting as if it is 'theirs'. The principle in a patriarchal society that males are more important than females is shown limiting girls’ opportunities to learn.

Answer 36

Colley notes that computer studies is seen as a masculine subiect for 3 reasons: • Perceptions of gender roles - expectations are socialised so they choose subjects suitable to those expectations. • It involves working with machines - part of the male gender domain. •The way it is taught is off-putting to females. Tasks tend to be abstract and teaching styles formal, with few opportunities for group work, which girls favour.

Answer 37

-Studied 13,000 pupils & found girls from girls’ schools were more likely to take traditionally male subjects like maths and science. -Boys from boys’ schools were likelier to take English. -Girls we’re likelier to take ‘boy subjects’ at University.

Answer 38

-Othey boys & girls may apply pressure if they disapprove of their choice. -Eg. boys opt out of music/english since it’s not in their gender domain & they don’t want to receive a negative response from peers.

Answer 39

-Pupils see sport as mainly within the male gender domain so girls who are 'sporty' have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype. -May explain why girls are more likely than boys to opt out of sport. -Found that male students would call girls 'lesbian' or 'butch' if they appeared to be interested in sport.

Answer 40

-"There is something about doing physics as a girl in a mixed setting that is particularly off-putting." -In mixed schools, peers police one another's subject choices so that girls and boys adopt an appropriate gender identity, with girls pressured to avoid subjects such as physics. -Absence of peer pressure in single-sex schools explains why girls choose ‘boy subjects’. -Less pressure on girls to conform to restrictive stereotypes of what subjects they can study.

Answer 41

-Employment is highly gendered & jobs tend to be **sex-typed**. -Womens jobs tend to consist of housewife roles, child care & nursing etc. -Over half their roles fit into: clerical, secretarial, personal services & jobs like cleaning. -This sex-typing affects boys’ & girls’ ideas of what jobs are possible/acceptable. -Also explains why vocational courses are more gender-specific than academic as vocational are more closely linked with jobs.

Answer 42

W/C pupils in particular make decisions about vocational courses that are based on traditional sense of gender identity. -W/C girls studied by Fuller had ambitions to go into jobs such as child care or hair and beauty. -This reflected their working-class habitus - their sense of what is a realistic expectation for 'people like us'. -Fuller found that placements in feminine, working-class jobs such as nursery nursing and retail work were overwhelmingly the norm for the girls in her study. -Fuller concludes that the school was implicitly steering girls towards certain types of job - and hence certain types of vocational course - through the work experience placements it offered them.

Answer 43

-Gender gap is the result of boys’ poorer literacy/language skills, may be due to less reading with parents. -Their leisure pursuits (football) do little to develop their language skills. -Girls tend to have **bedroom culture** involving staying in and talking to friends.

Answer 44

-Decline in industries of iron, engineering, mining etc. -These employ mainly men and has led to men having an **identity crisis**. many boys believe they have little prospect of getting a proper jobs, undermining motivation & self-esteem so they give up trying to get qualifications.

Answer 45

-Manual working jobs didn’t require qualifications anyway. -Too deterministic & overestimated effect on achievement. -More focus on education & versatility in jobs.

Answer 46

-Education is too ‘feminised’ & doesn’t nurture ‘masculine’ traits such as competitiveness & leadership & nurture ‘feminine’ traits like attentiveness & methodical working. -Argued coursework should be replaced with final exams and greater emphasis on outdoor adventure in curriculum. -“we have thrown the boy out with the bath water.”

Answer 47

Lack of role models. E.g. many boys brought up in the 1.5 million female-headed lone parent families in the UK. -Only 14% of primary teachers are make & 39% if 8-11 year olds have no lessons with males, yet most boys surveyed said they behaved better & 42% said it made them work harder. -Culture is feminised & make teachers needed to discipline males.

Answer 48

-The Raising Boys Achievement project involves single-sex schooling. -The National Literacy strategy focussed on improving boys’ reading. -Playing for Success uses football & sports to boost learning skills and motivation among boys.

Answer 49

-Absence of male teachers may not be a major factor in their underachievement. -Found that 2/3rds of 7/8 year olds believed the gender of teachers does not matter.

Answer 50

Critical of claim that schools are feminised & studied language teachers use to express disapproval of behaviour/work: 1. **Disciplinarian discourse:** teachers authority is explicit & visible, ie. through shouting, exasperated tone of voice or sarcasm. 2. **Liberal discourse:** teachers authority is implicitly & invisible & the child-centred course discourse involves ‘pseudo-adultification’ where the teacher speaks to the pupil as if they were an adult and expects them to be kind, sensible & respectful of the teacher.

Answer 51

Found most teachers used ‘masculine’/disciplinarian discourse: 1. Most teachers favoured this disciplinarian discourse disproving idea primary school culture is feminised. 2. Disproves claim only male teachers are strict as females used the same discourse.

Answer 52

-Argues it’s better to think of primary schools as a male-dominated or ‘masculinised educational structure’ that’s ‘numerically dominated by women’. -Jones notes men have 1 in 4 chance of gaining headship, & women 1 in 13.

Answer 53

-Found W/C boys are likely to be harassed, labelled as ‘sissies’ & subject to homophobia if they appear to be ‘swots’. -Supports Francis’ dining that boys are more concerned about labelling due to the threat to their masculinity. -Because in W/C subcultures, masculinity is associated with being tough and doing manual work and schoolwork is inferior. -“Real boys don’t work”

Answer 54

-Feminist critics argue policies promoting girls’ education aren’t needed now and women take men’s jobs. -Ringrose says these views have made a moral panic about failing boys reflecting the fear of underachieving boys becoming an unemployable underclass. 1. Ignores problems of disadvantaged W/C & minority ethnics. 2. Ignores problems girls face (SA,self esteem etc).

Answer 55

-Neglect of girls who disengage in school quietly while boys take on ‘laddish’ displays of masculinity attracting attention. -Points out the mentoring scheme reducing exclusion of black boys neglects the increasing exclusions among girls wo age less likely to obtain places in pupil referral units.

Answer 56

-It would be wrong to conclude that boys are a ‘lost cause’ & in fact performance has improved more than in the past. -The class gap in achievement at GCSE is 3X wider than the gender gap. -Thise within the same social class usually have a gender gap of 12% -Girls from the highest class achieve 44 points than girls in the lowest.

Answer 57

-Gener gap among black Caribbean’s is greater than among others. -Fuller shows black girls are successful since they define their feminist in terms of achievement and independence. -Sewell found boys fail as they define their masculinity as opposing education which is effeminate. -Connolly suggests combos have more effects. E.g. being female raised performance when added to being black Caribbean than white.

Answer 58

Experiences in school contribute to constructing gender identities. -Connell calls ‘hegemonic masculinity’ referring to the dominance of heterosexual masculine identity & the subordination of female & gay identities.

Answer 59

-Exists when we apply one set of moral standards to one group & another to another. -Identifies standard of sexual morality where boys boast about sexual exploits & call girls a ‘slag’. -Sexual conquest is approved by male peers & ignored by male teachers but ‘promiscuity’ among girls attracts negative labels. -Patriarchal ideology justification male power & devaluing women.

Answer 60

-Connell calls a “rich vocabulary of abuse” a way dominant gender & sexual identities are reinforced. -E.g. Name calling - Lees said ‘slags’ if girls are sexually available & ‘drags’ if not. -**Paecheter** sees this as maintains male power. -Use of labels ‘gay’ ‘lezzie’ are ways pupils police each other’s sexual identities. -Parker found boys labelled gay for being friendly with girls.

Answer 61

Visual aspects into how identities are controlled. -how makes looks girls up & down judging them for appearance & seeing them as sexual objects. -Form of surveillance where dominant heterosexual masculinity restored & femininity devalued.

Answer 62

Verbal abuse used to reinforce definitions of masculinity. -(anti-school subcultures in Willis & Epstein’s accuse boys who want to do well in school or being gay & effeminate. -Mac am Ghails study of Parnell school examines how peer groups reproduce a range of diff class-based masculine identities. -Macho lads dismissive of other W/C boys who worked hard & aspired with careers & labelled ‘dickhead acheivers’. -M/C ‘real Englishmen’ projected an image of effortless achievement. -Redman & Mac found dominant definition of masculine identity changes from macho lads in lower school to real Englishmen in the sixth form. -Shift from W/C def based on toughness to M/C based on ability.

Answer 63

-W/C girls gain symbolic capital by performing a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity. -Involves constructing a glamorous or ‘sexy’ Nike appearance using particular brands & styles. -Female peers police this identity & girls risk making themselves unpopular & a ‘tramp’.

Answer 64

-Study of 13-14 year old W/C girls’ peer groups in a Wales school found popularity was important to girls’ identity. -As girls transitioned from a girls’ friendship culture into a heterosexual dating culture, they faced tension between: -**Idealised feminine identity:** showing loyalty to female group & no competition. -**Sexualised identity:** competing for boys.

Answer 65

While relationships with boys can confer symbolic capital, this is risky as girls have to balance: -Girls who are too competitive/think they’re better may be ‘slut shamed’ & excused from friendship culture. -Girls who don’t compete may face ‘frigid shaming’. Shaming is a social control device where schoolgirls discipline each others identities.

Answer 66

-A **’boffin identity’** is girls who want to be successful but may feel need to conform to the schools notion of the ideal feminine pupil identity. -This involved girls having to perform an asexual identity. -They would be labelled ‘boffin’ & in return label W/C girls as ‘chavs’.

Answer 67

-Teachers reinforce gender identities. **Haywood & Mac** found male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ & teased them for gaining lower test scores. -**Askew & Ross** reinforce stereotypes. -Often have protective attitude towards female colleagues to ‘rescue’ them from threatening pupils disrupting them, reinforcing idea women can’t cope alone.

Education: Gender Differences Flashcards

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