Outline and assess the view that "males are now the disadvantaged sex in education".

The first 200 words of this essay...

Outline and assess the view that "males are now the disadvantaged sex in education"

In the early 1990s came the first indications that the imbalance between male and female achievement was changing. The evidence for this emerged firstly from the results of the GCSE examination and then from Advanced Level results. These showed that the gap between male and female attainment was widening in the favour of females in arts and humanities subjects, and in the sciences the traditional advantage of males over females was narrowing. Possible interpretations for this are as follows: firstly that boys are simply falling behind, secondly, it could now be that social policy is in fact aiding females and thirdly, that attitudes are beginning to change within the education system and females are beginning to exploit their new found equality.

The interpretation that boys are falling behind suggests that it is not just that females are achieving better than before, but that there is a problem with boys and education that has not yet been fully explored by sociologists. The reasons given for this falling behind are varied, but according to Barber (1994) they are connected to males developing much less positive attitudes