Gender & Educational Achievement (AQA GCSE Sociology)

Statistics on gender & educational achievement

• Official statistics show there are differences in educational achievement based on gender:

  • Traditionally, boys achieved better results at A Level than girls

  • By the early 2000s, girls were doing better than boys at both GCSE and A Level

  • A Level results in 2014 suggest that the gender gap is narrowing

  • Women in the UK are 35% more likely than men to go to university

  • In 1990, 34,000 women graduated from universities compared to 43,000 men

  • By 2000, the pattern was reversed, as 133,000 women graduated compared to 110,000 men

Explanations for the improvements in girls' achievements

External factors

The impact of feminism

• Feminism has changed attitudes towards gender roles, as women were expected to be homemakers in the past

• Feminism has helped to challenge this idea and given girls greater confidence in their abilities

• Girls are now more focused on paid employment and financial independence and education is seen as a route to these

• More mothers working have raised girls’ ambitions and expectations

• According to Sharpe's (1994) research, girls in the 1970s placed a higher value on marriage, love, and husbands, but in the 1990s, these attitudes shifted as girls placed a higher value on careers and being able to support themselves

Legal changes and equal opportunities policies

• Laws such as the Sex Discrimination Act (1975) and the Equality Act (2010) have made gender discrimination in education and the workplace illegal

• As a result, many schools have introduced equal opportunities policies to address inequality and change classroom practices

• The National Curriculum provides girls and boys with equal access to the same subjects and some are compulsory for all students, such as science

• National projects, such as GIST (Girls into Science and Technology), were set up to encourage girls and have led to greater career opportunities; they have inspired girls to work hard at school to achieve top positions that previously were not open to them

Internal factors

Positive role models in schools

• There has been an increase in the proportion of female teachers and headteachers

• These women in senior positions may act as role models for girls, showing them women can achieve positions of importance and giving them non-traditional roles to aim for

Challenging stereotypes in the curriculum

• Some sociologists argue that the removal of gender stereotypes from textbooks and other learning materials in recent years has helped raise girls' achievement by presenting them with positive images of what women can do

• Weiner (1995) argues that since the 1980s, teachers have challenged stereotypes, which has also removed barriers to girls' achievements

Evaluation

• Liberal feminists argue that further progress can be made by developing more policies to improve equality, challenging sexist attitudes and stereotypes and encouraging positive role models

• Radical feminists, however, argue the system remains patriarchal, girls still experience sexism in schools and male teachers are still more likely to become heads of secondary schools

• Schools limit the aspirations and future career choices of female students, according to feminists

Gender differences in subject choice

• Differences exist in subject choices between males and females, particularly in post-16 education

• At the post-16 level, males are more likely to study subjects like computing, physics, further maths, and economics, while females are more likely to study sociology, English literature, and health and social care (JCQ, 2024)

• Feminists believe the education system is patriarchal and largely controlled by men, which has an impact on gender-based differences in subject choice and career choice

Reasons for gender differences in subject choice

School-based reasons

• Gender stereotyping in textbooks, such as the absence of female role models in science and maths textbooks, leads to girls believing they shouldn't study science

• Gendered language in school textbooks such as 'he', 'him', and 'man' when referring to a person or people can be seen as downgrading women and making them invisible

• Gendered curriculum is taught in schools whereby women tend to be missing or in the background; for example, feminists believe women have been hidden from the history curriculum, which is focused on men

• Traditional gender roles are portrayed in school textbooks and reading schemes as they present women as mothers and housewives and more interested in domestic matters than boys are

• Teacher stereotyping may influence girls' subject choice at GCSE and A Level

• Gender-based career guidance involves the tendency for girls to be directed towards the caring professions

• Peer group pressure to conform to gender norms, as boys or girls may not opt for a particular subject due to fear of ridicule or disapproval from their peers

Home-based reasons

• Gender socialisation within the home leads children to associate themselves with certain subject areas later on

• Boys and girls are socialised in different ways as parents channel their children's interests into toys, games and books that are perceived as gender-appropriate (canalisation)

  • For example, girls have more experience with care-related toys at home, such as babies and prams; this could encourage them to see child development or health and social care as a 'female' subject

Impact of single-sex schools and classrooms

• Some researchers have found that single-sex schools benefit female students' achievement as they are thought to improve girls' performance in traditional 'male' subjects

  • This is likely to influence the subject choices they make at GCSE and post-16 level

• Single-sex classrooms have been identified as a possible way of addressing gender differences in subject choice

  • This is where male and female students are taught separately for certain subjects in an attempt to remove the disruptive influence of the opposite sex