Topic 4 Gender

Question 1

What are the external factors that impact girls achievement?

Answer 1

• impact of feminism
• changes in the family
• changes in women’s employment
• changing girls ambitions

Question 2

How has the external factor, impact of feminism, impacted girls achievement?

Answer 2

• Women’s rights and opportunities have improved, which was raised women’s expectations and self-esteem.
• McRobbie did content analysis and found there was a shift in focus in magazines to women being strong and independent. Girls now have female role models outside of school

Question 3

How has the external factor changes in the family, impacted girls achievement?

Answer 3

• There has been changes like increase in divorce rates, increase in cohabitation, increase in single parents
• Women are now less dependent on men and have to support themselves and take on the breadwinner role. This creates a new adult role model for girls - the financially independent women
• To achieve this, women need well paid jobs and qualifications.

Question 4

How has the external factor, changes in women’s employment, impacted girls achievement?

Answer 4

• 1970 equal pay act
• 1975 sex discrimination act
• tradition men’s jobs have declined
• women are breaking through the glass ceiling
• Margaret Posser argued many changes in women’s economic participation and achievement. This has encouraged girls to see their future in terms of paid work rather than housewives, girls now work harder and want to do better

Question 5

How has the change in girls ambitions impact their achievement?

Answer 5

• Sue Sharpe interviewed girls in the 1970s and 1990s
• She found that their ambitions have shifted from love and marriage to a career and independence. In the 1970s, they had low aspirations and felt educational success was unfeminine.

Question 6

Evaluation - page 4 in booklet

Question 7

What are the internal factors that impact achievement in gender?

Answer 7

• Equal opportunity policies (GIST and WISE)
• Positive role models in school
• GCSE and Coursework
• Teacher attention
• Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum

Question 8

How have equal opportunity policies impacted girls achievement ?

Answer 8

• Jo Boaler argues that equal opportunity policies are a key factor in the improvement of girls performance
• Schools have become more meritocratic meaning that because girls work harder than boys, they achieve more
• GIST and WISE have been introduced to encourage girls into science, technology and engineering.

Question 9

How have positive role models in school impacted girls achievement?

Answer 9

• Proportion of female teachers and head teachers has increased, and school has become a more female dominated environment.
• Women are breaking through the glass ceiling in terms of head teacher roles, meaning girls have more role models in school

Question 10

How has coursework impacted girls achievement?

Answer 10

• The gender gap in achievement increased after the introduction of coursework in 1988.
• Mitsos and Browne argue that girls are more successful in coursework because they are better organised and more conscientious than boys
• They found girls tend to spend more time on their work, take more care in presentation and are better at keeping to deadlines.

Question 11

How has teacher attention impacted girls achievement?

Answer 11

• girls are positively labelled and are closer to the ideal pupil. Whereas boys are labelled negatively
• Dale Spender argues teachers spend more time interacting with boys than with girls
• Becky Francis argues boys get more attention but are disciplined more harshly and feel picked on by teachers who have lower expectations of them
• Joan Swann found boys dominate whole class discussion and girls prefer group work and listening
• This may explain why teachers respond more positively to girls, whom they see as cooperative, than to boys, who they see as disruptive

Question 12

How has stereotypes being challenged in the curriculum raised girls achievement?

Answer 12

• Gaby Weiner argues sexist images have been removed from teaching materials has helped raise girls achievement by presenting more positive images of what women are capable of.

Question 13

How has selection and league tables improved girls achievement?

Answer 13

• Marketisation policies and greater use of selection have created a competitive climate among schools
• Girls are seen as more desirable recruits as they achieve better exams results.
• Boys are seen as ‘liability students’ who are barriers to efforts by schools to climb the league tables.
• David Jackson found league tables place a high value on academic achievement
• This tends to produce a self fulfilling prophecy which girls are more likely to be recruited by good schools and more likely to do well.

Question 14

What are the radical feminist views on education?

Answer 14

-reinforces patriarchal ideas
- objections women and girls
- sex typing of subjects
- glass ceiling of male headteachers
- sports is not feminine
- male gaze/ double standards
- sexual harassment

Question 15

What statistics show that class differences impact girls achievement?

Answer 15

-In 2013, only 40.6% of girls from poorer families (measured by free school meals) achieved 5 A* - C grades at GCSE

Question 16

Define hyper hetero sexual feminine identities

Answer 16

• working class girls invest time in looking good which is in opposition to the school
• gets them symbolic capital from friends but symbolic violence from school

Question 17

3. What did Sharpe discuss?

Answer 17

She compared interviews with girls in the 1970s and 19990s. She found that in the 1970s girls had a priority of love and marriage and thought education was unfeminine. Whereas, in the 1990s, girls’ ambitions had changed, and they were more career focused and independent.

Question 18

4. How have equal opportunities impacted gender differences in achievement?

Answer 18

It has meant girls and boys now have the same opportunity to succeed. Policies like GIST and WISE have been introduced to encourage girls into subjects like science, engineering, and tech.

Question 18

5. What did Spender discuss?

Answer 18

Spender argues teachers spend more time interacting with boys than with girls.

Question 19

6. Why have boys fallen behind girls in education?

Answer 19

They are disciplined more harshly and feel picked on by teachers who have lower expectations of them. These teachers aren’t encouraging boys, whilst they do girls.

Question 20

8. What are the main trends in gender and subject choice?

Answer 20

In GCSE, girls tend to choose subjects like food technology and health and social care, whereas boys choose graphics and resistant materials. In A level, boys tend to opt for maths and physics, whereas girls choose Psychology and sociology.

Question 21

9. Why do boys and girls choose different subjects?

Answer 21

Oakley discusses that early socialisation and canalisation leads to boys and girls being encouraged to take part in different activities and are channelled into pathways by parents. They are dressed differently, and they are taught to pay attention to different details. Subjects have gendered images, for example, science teachers are mainly men. Peer pressure leads to girls feeling pressured to pick or not pick certain subjects because they contradict the conventional female stereotype.

Question 22

10. How do pupil’s experiences in school reinforce their gender and sexual identities?

Answer 22

Mairtin Mac an Ghaill’s study examines how working-class macho lads were dismissive of other working-class boys who worked hard, referring to them as ‘dickhead achievers’. Also found that male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased the, if they got lower marks than girls.