Topic 4 - Gender differences in educationn Flashcards
(39 cards)
1
Q
What are the external factors for girls rapid improvement in educational results?
A
- Impact of feminism
- Changes in the family
- Changes in women’s employment
- Girls changing ambitions
2
Q
How has the impact of feminism affected girls in achievement ?
A
- Feminism is a social movement that strives for the rights of women in all areas of life
- since the 1960s feminism has challenged the traditional stereotype of a women’s role being solely just the mother and housewife in the traditional patriarchal nuclear family
- Although feminist have not achieved full equality between genders, it has had alot of success in improving women’s rights and opportunities through changes in the law
- And feminism has raised women’s expectations and self esteem
- These positive changes are partly reflected in media images and messages, for example McRobbie’s study of girls magazines, in the 1970s they emphasised on the importance of getting married however nowadays they contain images of assertive, independent women
3
Q
How has changes in the family led to girls achieving in education ?
A
- since the 1970s there have been major changes in the family such as
- an increase in divorce rate, and increase in cohabitation and increase in a number of lone parent families
- These changes are affecting girls attitudes towards education in a number of ways, for example an increase in female headed lone parent families may mean more women need to take on the breadwinner role, thus this creates a new adult role model for girls, a financial independant women.
- And in order to achieve this independence women need good qualifications to get good paying jobs
- Additionally increase in the divorce rate may suggest to girls that it is unwise to rely on a husband to be their provider, and again this may encourage girls to want to gain their own qualifications
4
Q
How has changes in women’s employment led to girls achieving in education?
A
- There have been important changes in womens employment in recent decades
- Such as the 1970 equal pay act which made it illegal to pay women less than men for equal work and the sex discrmination act of 1975
- And since 1975 the pay gap between men and women has halved from 30% to 15%
- And some women are now breaking through the glass ceiling
- These changes have encouraged girls to see their future in terms of paid work rather than housewives.
5
Q
How was girls changing ambitions led to girls achieving in education ?
A
- Sue Sharpe interviewed girls in the 1970s and 1990s and helped to show the shift in which girls see their future
- in 1974, girls had low aspirations and they believed educational success was unfeminine and that appearing to be ambitious would be unattractive , and their priorities were love, marriage, husband , children and jobs in that ordeer
- However by the 1990s, girls ambitions had changed and they had a different order of priorities, Sharpe found that girls were now more likely to see their future as in independent woman with a career rather than being dependent on their husband and his income
- Similarly O’Connor study of 14-17 year olds found that marriage and children were not a part of girls life plan
6
Q
What does Biggart argue ?
A
- Biggart criticises and argues that some working class girls see motherhood as the only viable opportunity for them and this is due to limited job prospects
7
Q
What are internal factors for girls achieving educational success?
A
- Equal opportunities policies
- Positive role models in schools
- GCSE and coursework
- Teacher attention and classroom interaction
- challenging stereotypes in the curriculum
- Selection and league tables
8
Q
How has Equal opportunities policies positively impacted girls?
A
- Policymakers are now much more aware of gender issues
- And the belief that boys and girls are entitled to the same opportunities is now part of mainstream thinking and it now influences educational policies
- An example of this is GIST and WISE which both encourage girls to pursue careers in these non traditional areas
- Female scientists have even visited schools acting as role models
- Similarly the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1988 removed one source of gender inequality by making boys and girls study mostly the same subjects
- This means that the education system is entirely based on meritocracy, meaning girls who generally work harder than boys will achieve more
9
Q
How has positive role model in schools led to girls achieving ?
A
- there has been an increase in female heads and teachers
- these women in senior roles may act as a role model for girls, showing them that women can achieve positions of importance which gives them non traditional goals to aim for
10
Q
How has GCSE and Coursework led to girls achieving ?
A
- Sociologists argue that changes in the way pupils are assessed has favoured girls and disadvantaged boys.
- It was found that the gender gap in achievement was fairly constant from 1975 to 1989 , when it sharply increased and this was the year GCSE was introduced which, came with courswork
- Mitsos and Browne support this and they argue that girls are more successful in coursework because they are better organised than boys as they spend more time on their work, take more care with the way it is presented and are better at meeting deadlines
- These characteristics are a result of early gender role socialisation in the family for example girls are encouraged to be neat, tidy and patient
11
Q
How has challenging stereotypes led to more girls achieving?
A
- Sociologists argue that the removal of gender stereotypes from textbooks and other learning material had removed a barrier to girls achievement
- Studies show that in the 1970s and 80s that learning material portrayed women as usually housewives and mothers, and that things like physics books portrayed them as scared of science
- Weiner argues that since the 1980s, teachers have challenged such stereotypes , and also that in general all sexist images have been removed from learning materials
- This may have raised girls achievement by presenting them with more positive images of what girls can do
12
Q
How has selection and league tables led to girls achieving ?
A
- Marketisation polices has created more competition in which schools see girls as desirable recruits because they achieve better results
- Jackson notes that the introduction of exam league tables has improved opportunities for girls, as high achieving girls are attractive to schools whereas low achieving boys are not, and this tends to create a SFP
- it is also argued that boys are less attractive to schools because they are more likely to suffer from behavioral problems
13
Q
How has Symbolic capital led some girls not to achieve ?
A
- Archer argues that differences in working class feminine identities and the values of the school is a reason for girls not achieving
- In her study, where she uses the concept of symbolic capital which refers to gaining status from others, she found that girls who performed working class identities gained symbolic capital from their peers
- However this made them get into conflict with the school and prevented them from gaining educational capital and economic capital ( getting career)
14
Q
What were the working class feminine identities ?
A
- Adopting a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity
- Having a boyfriend
- being loud
15
Q
How did adopting a hypersexual feminine identity cause working class girls to underachieve?
A
- Many girls would invest a lot of their time, effort and money in constructing desirable and glamorous hyper hetero-sexual feminine identities
- For example one girl spent her entire $40 that she had earned from babysitting on her appearance
- They constructed their identities by wearing sexy clothes, makeup and hairstyles
- Girls who performed this identity gained symbolic capital from their female peer group and avoided being ridiculed or called wearing tramps for wearing the wrong brand
- However it also bought them into conflict with the school, for example they would be punished for having the wrong appearance such as too much jewelry or makeup
- Teachers saw the girls preoccupation with their appearance as a distraction from education and this led to schools othering girls ( defining them as not one of us, not capable of educational success)
- Bourdieu calls this symbolic violence
16
Q
How did having boyfriends cause working class girls to underachieve ?
A
- Whilst having a boyfriend bought symbolic capital, it got in the way of school work and lowered girls aspirations
- For example it led to girls losing interest in going to university or studying masculine subjects such as science
- Instead girls aspired to settle down and have children and work locally in working class feminine jobs such as childcare
- One girl had to drop out of school after becoming pregnant
17
Q
What dilemma are working class girls faced with?
A
- Of either gaining symbolic capital from their peers by conforming to the hyper-heterosexual feminine identity
- or gaining educational capital by rejecting their working class identity and conforming to the middle class ideal female pupil
18
Q
What evidence of is there of working class girls achieving?
A
- Sarah Evans shows in her study of 21 working class sixth forms
- found that the girls wanted to go to university to increase their learning power.
- However it was not for themselves but it was for their families instead
- The girls motivation reflected their working class feminine identities
- The girls in Evans study wished to stay to live at home due to economic necessity, as cost and fear of getting into debt are major issues for many working class students in deciding which university to go to
- However living at home was not just a economic necessity, as it was also a positive choice and a aspect of their working class identities, as a preference to stay local rather than be distant was a key feature of the working class feminine identity
19
Q
What are reasons for boys falling behind ?
A
- external factors such as boys poorer literacy and the decline in traditional men jobs
- Internal reasons such as feminisation of education, shortage of male primary school teachers and laddish sub cultures
20
Q
How does boys poorer literacy lead to boys falling behind ?
A
- Boys often have poorer literacy and language skills and this is because parents spend less time reading to their sons and partly because it is often the mother who does the reading to the younger children , thus it will be seen as a feminine activity
- Boys often spend their leisure time doing sports such as football and they do little to develop their language and literacy skills
- Whereas girls tend to have a bedroom culture, which is centered on staying in and talking to friends
- However there have been government policies aimed at tacking this such as the Dads and Sons campaign which encouraged fathers to be more involved in their sons education
21
Q
How has globalisation and the decline of traditional mens jobs led to boys falling behind ?
A
- Since the 1980s there has been a significant decline in heavy industries such as iron, steel, mining and engineering
- This is partly due to globalisation of the economy which had led the manufacturing businesses relocating to developing countries such as China
- Traditionally these sectors employed men, Mitsos and Browne claim that the decline in male opportunities has led to an identity crisis for men
- where boys now believe that they have little chance of getting a proper job and thus this undermines their motivation and self esteem and they give up trying to gain qualifications
- However critics would argue that the manual working class jobs required barely any qualifications anyway so it is unlikely it would have impact on motivation of boys
22
Q
How has the feminisation of education impacted boys?
A
- Sewell claims boys fall behind due to the feminisation of education
- Schools do not nurture masculine traits such as competitiveness and leadership, instead they celebrate qualities more closely associated with girls such as attentiveness in class
- uses the example of coursework benefitting girls
23
Q
How has the shortage of male primary school teachers impacted boys?
A
- The lack of a male role model at home and in the school is said to be a factor why boys underachieve
- Large amounts of boys are being bought up in lone parent families
- And most boys in a survey said that they behaved better in the presence of a male teacher as they made them work
- Some sociologist argue that female teachers are unable to control boys behavior and male teachers are better suited to this because they are able to impose strict discipline on them
24
Q
What do critics argue about shortage of male teachers?
A
- Research suggests that the absence of male teachers may not be a factor in boys underachievement
- Read is critical of the view of that and identifies 2 types of language or discourse
- The disciplinarian discourse, where the teachers authority is made explicit and visible for example through shouting
- The liberal discourse where the teachers authority is invisible and the teacher speak to the child as if they were an adult and expects them to be kind and respectful of the teacher
- the disciplinarian discourse is associated with masculinity and the liberal is associated with femininity
- However in her study she found that most teachers, female as well as male used the masculine disciplinarian discourse to control students behaviors
- This helps to disprove the idea that the education system has become feminised
25
How has the laddish subcultures impacted boys achievement ?
- Epstein found that working class boys are likely to be harassed, labelled as sisses and subjected to homophobic verbal abuse if they appear to be swot
- This supports Francis findings that boys were more concerned than girls about being labelled by peers as swots because this label is more of a threat to their masculinity than it is to female's femininity
- This is because in working class culture, masculinity is linked with being tough and doing manual work. And non manual work such as school work is seen as inferior
- Thus working class boys tend to reject school work to avoid being called gay
26
What is the moral panic about boys?
- Critics of feminism argue that policies to promote girls education are no longer needed
- They argue that girls of today have it all and women are taking men's jobs and they believe that girls have succeeded at the expense of boys, who are the new disadvantaged
- According to Ringrose, these views have contributed to a moral panic about failing boys and it reflects a fear that under achieving working class boys will grow up to become a dangerous, unemployable underclass
- This moral panic has led to a major shift in educational policy and this shift has had 2 effects, one being it ignores other problems faced in schools by girls such as sexual harassment and bullying and it ignores the problem of disadvantaged working class and ethnic minority pupils
27
What does Osler note?
- That the focus on underachieving boys has led to a neglect of girls, this is because girls disengage from school quietly where as for boys it attracts a lot of attention from teachers and policy makers
28
How does gender role socialisation help to explain gender differences in subject choice ?
- GR socialisation is the process of learning the behavior expected of males and females in society
- Norman notes, from an early age, boys and girls are dressed differently, given different toys and encouraged to take part in different activities
- Bryne found that teachers encourage boys to be tough and not to be sissies and girls on the other hand to be quiet, helpful and tidy
- As a result of these differences boys and girls have different tastes in reading, boys like hobby books and information textbooks whereas girls are more likely to read stories about people
- This helps to explain why boys prefer science subjects and girls prefer English
- However not all girls and boys are socialised in the same way
29
How has gender domains helped to explain differences in subject choices ?
- Gender domains are the tasks and activities that boys and girls see as male or female territory
- Children are more confident when engaging in tasks that they see as part of their own gender domain
- For example in a Maths problem girls are more comfortable tackling it when the question is about food and nutrition whereas boys are more confident if it is about cars
- Similarly, Murphy found that boys and girls pay attention to different details even when tackling the same task. Girls focused on how people feel whereas boys focused on how things were made and work, this helps to explain why girls choose art and humanities and boys choose science
30
How does gendered subject images help to explain gender differences in subject choice ?
- The gender image of a subject will affect who will want to choose it
- For example Kelly argues that science is seen as a boy's subject for several reasons, Science teachers are more likely to be men, the examples that teachers use are often based on boys interests rather than girls
- Similarly Colley notes that Computer science is seen as a masculine subject because it involves working with machines which is part of the male gender domain and the way it is taught is off putting to females as there are few opportunities for group work
31
How does gender identity and peer pressure influence subject subject choice?
- Other girls or boys may apply pressure to an individual if they disapprove of his or her choice
- For example boys tend to opt out of music and dance because such activities fall outside their gender domain so is more likely to attract negative responses from their peers
- Paechter found that because pupils see sport as mainly male gender domain, girls who are sporty have to cope with an image that contradicts the conventional female stereotype
- Another study showed that male students would call girls lesbians if they appeared to be interested in sports
- an absence of peer pressure from the opposite sex may help to explain why girls in single sex schools are more likely to choose traditionally boy subjects
32
How does Gender career opportunities help to explain subject choice differences?
- Womens jobs tend to often involve work similar to the housewife role such as childcare and nursing
- Women are now concentrated in a narrow range of occupations
- For example boys will get the message that a nursery nurse is usually a female and will be less likely to take that career path
33
What are the 6 ways in schools that help to reinforce gender and sexual identities?
- Double standards
- Verbal Abuse
- The Male Gaze
- Male peer groups
- Female peer groups
- Teacher discipline
34
How does double standards reinforce gender and sexual identities ?
- DS is when we apply one set of moral standards to one group and a different set to another
- Lees identifies a double standard of sexual morality in which boys boast their sexual exploits, whereas girls were called a slag if she did not have a boyfriend or dressed a certain way
- Sexual activities is approved of and given status by male peers and ignored by male teachers but for girls they are labelled negatively
- Feminist see this as an example of patriarchal ideology that justifies male power and devalues women
- However masculinity is also policed by peers and some girls resist these norms and construct alternative identities like a ladette culture
35
How does Verbal abuse reinforce gender and sexual identities?
- Connell calls it a rich vocabulary of abuse, which is a way it is reinforced
- For eg) boys use name calling to put girls down if they behave or dress in a certain way
- Paechter sees name calling as a way to shape gender identity and maintain male power , the use of the words gay, queer and slags are the ways in which pupils police eachothers identities
36
How does The male gaze reinforce gender and sexual identities?
- Mac and Ghaill say the male gaze is the way male pupils and teachers look at girls up and down and see them as sexual objects
- Mac and Ghaill see the male gaze as a form of surveillance where the heterosexual masculinity is reinforced and femininity is devalued
- However this assumes that all boys are complicit, but some actually reject sexist behavior
37
How does Male peer groups reinforce gender and sexual identities?
- Male peer groups also use verbal abuse to reinforce definitions of masculinity
- For example study by Epstein and Willis shows boys in anti school subcultures often accuse boys who want to do well at school as gay
- Mac an Ghaill study showed her different male peer groups formed hierarchies based on who embodied the dominant masculinity the closest
38
How do female peer groups reinforce gender and sexual identities ?
- Female peer groups police the hyper heterosexual identity and girls risk Being unpopular if they fail to conform
- Ringrose study found that being popular was crucial to the girls identity
- As girls started dating they faced tension between showing loyalty to the female peer group or being involved in competing for boys when dating
- However girls who are too competitive may risk being slut shamed and excluded from the peer group and girls who dont compete may risk being labelled as frigid shaming by other girls
- Shaming is another form of social control used to regulate each other identitites
39
How do teachers and discipline reinforce gender and sexual identities ?
- Haywood and Mac and Ghaill found that male teachers told off boys for behaving like girls and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests than girls. -
- Teachers tended to ignore boys verbal abuse of girls and blames girls for attracting it
- Askew and Ross show how male teachers behavior can subtly reinforce messages about gender for example male teachers having protective attitude towards female colleagues, coming into their class to rescue them helps to reinforce that they cannot cope alone
