My first concept is gender roles. These are the behaviours, attitudes and beliefs a particular gender has which are socially expected. Gender roles are often based on social norms, this is relevant to my coursework as I believe gender roles are affecting educational attainment. Previously there was the nuclear family developed by Talcott Parson’s which made the female role an expressive one whereas the masculine role was an instrumental one. Women were seen as housewives however due to recent social trends women have the same chance as men, women now have equal rights but are seen as more reliable and mature therefore they receive better treatment for example teachers focus on girls rather than boys in getting better grades.
My second context is an article found on the BBC website by Mike Baker (28th February 2004) called ‘Gender Gap’, the article uses results from an Ofsted report which state that 61% of girls achieve 5 or more GCSE’s compared to only 51% of boys. The reasons stated are that the curriculum are focussed on women rather than men for example poetry is taught in a way which is more suitable for the more mature mind and is aimed at females as the syllabus is full of emotional poems which boys apparently find boring and difficult to digest, this is linked to the female role being an expressive one as described by Parson’s. Furthermore it says that the exam is to focussed on coursework, research conducted in the article suggests that more girls prefer coursework compared to boys. Various interviews with teachers also suggest that boys find it difficult to complete coursework either of a decent standard or they find it difficult to finish it on time.
My second concept is matriarchy, this is when the ideas and beliefs of women are overpowering those of men. This is relevant to my coursework as I believe that education is in a matriarchy state, the curriculum is focussed on females rather than those of men and this has an influence on the educational attainment of boys as they struggle whilst girls find it easier to achieve better grades.
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Main Research Methods & Reasons
My main research method will be unstructured interviews, I have chosen this method because the interviewee will feel less pressure and more comfortable and therefore more likely to give an accurate response. This method involves open questions which will give the interviewee more time to give his/her opinion, I have chosen this method over other ones as I feel with other methods such as questionnaires I will get a limited response and not get an accurate picture.
My reason for choosing unstructured interviews is that qualitative data gives a more accurate conclusion compared to quantitative data. More detailed data will be produced using this method and this will lead to a precise and more trustworthy conclusion. This method is more reliable and valid than quantitative data and suits my coursework because I will produce more in depth research using smaller numbers of people, although there are practical issues such as the time it will take I feel that this method is appropriate because it lets the interviewee feel free and therefore limited responses will not be reached.
I will interview 10 boys and 10 girls between the ages of 16-18 who attend a state school, I will choose a random selection method by using the schools register for that year group. This method involves me choosing every tenth person on the year groups register and when I have found 10 girls and 10 boys I will begin with the interviews. This method is fair and unbiased and will provide me with a broad range of participants. This age group will be preparing for AS/A2 and therefore they will have more experience on teachers’ attitudes and also on their own abilities and how they are given the chance to improve their weaknesses.
The length of time for each interview will be around 25-40 minutes and there will be detailed in-depth questions which are designed to get as much information out of the student as possible. However firstly I will start by asking general questions such as ‘What subjects do you study?’ and ‘What are your favourite subjects and why?’ These questions will make the student feel relaxed and put less pressure on them. After this I will begin to ask in-depth questions such as ‘How well are the subjects taught?’ ‘Who is your favourite teacher and why?’ and ‘Do you feel that the teachers discriminate because of gender?’ These questions are designed to get an insight on the type of education they receive, I will then ask questions which will give me more a more detailed response such as ‘Do you feel you have to try harder to achieve a better grade because of your gender?’ These questions will hopefully help me with my concepts and also they should make constructing a conclusion easier.
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Potential Problems
In my research I will have to consider various potential problems such as practical, ethical and theoretical issues. I will have to take extreme care with the words and phrases I use as they may be biased or misleading. Furthermore I will have to make sure I do no overcomplicate the questions as the students may not understand them.
As an interviewer there is a power hierarchy issue and to minimise this I will be sensitive and careful in reducing the status gap between the interviewee and the interviewer. This will make the interviewee more comfortable and therefore more he/she will feel more open in answering my questions. There will also be an interviewer bias, although it is difficult to remove this I will try my best to minimise it by making the interviewee feel comfortable and relaxed.
My research is going to be small-scale and therefore a criticism might be that it might not be possible to generalise from the findings, also as it is small-scale a big picture might not be able to be drawn. Moreover another potential problem is that the interviews are time consuming both for me and the interviewee, the length of each interview will be about 30 minutes and before the interview I will ask for the interviewee’s consent and if they fail to give consent I will have to find another participant which will be more time consuming. Also there will be some economic issues as I will have to pay for the equipment and travel needed myself and as a college student this will be an issue.
Another problem could be the understanding of the questions and I may have to break down the sociological concepts which are used, the term operationalisation could be used to describe this issue. Another problem is triangulation and this is when only method of research is used, the problem is that the results may not be as accurate as they could be which could lead to misleading results.
Moreover there could be a problem with accessing the interviewees, the school may not allow me access to the register or the classrooms in which the interviews were meant to take place, also it is unlikely that the school would let the pupils miss lessons for my research.
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