Secondly, the way in which teachers interact with pupils differs. Sociologist Jane and Peter French argue that classroom interaction between teachers and boys was not that different to that of girls in terms of academic reasons. However, boys tended to get more attention from teachers in terms of reprimands. Francis argues that while boys get more attention they are also disciplined more harshly by teachers. Therefore, it is seen that boys are more likely to be disciplined more harshly than girls, also in terms of ethnicity, boys from African Caribbean backgrounds are also more likely to be disciplined than white British boys. This may result in boys feeling picked on in school which may result in gender and ethnic differences in attainment.
On the other hand, many sociologists have expressed the importance of external factors in influencing gender differences in attainment. Feminism is a social movement that strives for equality in society for men and women. It has questioned the typical role of males and females in society and challenges the role of women being the housewife. The feminist movement has had a great influence in improving girls’ self-esteem and aspirations. Sue Sharpe’s’ study supports this view, her study of girls in the 1970’s and 1990’s shows the impact that the feminist movement has had a girls aspirations. In the 1970’s girls priorities in life were love, marriage and husbands, when she conducted this study again in the 1990’s she found that there was a big shift in priorities, these girls were now more concerned with gaining a career and being able to look after themselves. These aspirations require educational qualifications and may have impacted on the changes in girl’s educational achievement.
Similarly, another external factor that could explain gender differences in attainment is the feminisation of education. The majority of lone parent families are headed by females and males in school make up only 16% of primary school teachers. Therefore, boys are lacking male role models in education. If a boy has been brought up in a female headed family and attends a school lacking in strong positive role models then they are likely to associate education with being feminine. Boys may not want to appear to be doing well in school as Francis argues boys are more concerned than girls about being labelled by peers as swots which could threaten their masculinity. This therefore could have led to the rejection of schoolwork by boys, resulting to lower achievement levels and gender differences in attainment.
In conclusion, Item A may suggest that gender differences in education are a result of changing factors within the education system, although it may also be seen that both internal and external factors influence educational attainment of both girls and boys. Girls may be improving at a faster rate than boys but the performance of both sexes has improved considerably in recent years. In addition, boys may now be seen to be lagging behind girls but boys today are achieving more than they did in the past. Furthermore, McVeigh argues that the similarities in girls’ and boys’ achievement are far greater than the differences, especially when compared with class and ethnic patterns in achievement. Girls and boys of the same social class tend to achieve fairly similar results, whereas a boy from the middle class will tend to achieve higher than a girl from a working class background. Although gender does have an influence on educational attainment we must not exclude the impact that class and ethnicity has on educational attainment.
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stylestation123 (student)
