- Socialisation;
- Peer groups;
- The impact of teachers and the hidden curriculum.
Socialisation is the influence the family and parents have on their children and the way they are brought up. Sociologists, Goldberg and Lewis found that at as young as six months old parents expected daughters to be quieter and cleaner than six month old boys. Perhaps this expectation of different sexes contributes to the behaviour of children in the classroom. Another study by Loban, showed that many children's books and schoolbooks reinforced the gender stereotypes.
The peer group contributes by continuing the stereotypes socially and in the classroom. For example boys try to be 'masculine' by showing off and behaving poorly, whereas girls try to be reserved and academic.
The impact of teachers and the hidden curriculum again enforces the stereotypes that are socialised into children from parents in the classroom. Teachers expect different behaviour from boys and girls and maybe are prepared to give more attention to the girls because they will get a more positive response.
A combination of all of these explanations causes the gender gap in education.
Exam results
I analysed the exam results of pupils at G.C.S.E level in my school, South wolds comprehensive, Nottingham, in 1999. From looking at the results, I can clearly see that girls are achieving higher grades than the boys.
In the total percentages of all subjects, girls have a higher percentage than boys do in grades a* - c grades and boys have a higher percentage in grades d - u. This shows that overall girls are doing better than boys. Although from the table it appears that boys are achieving higher grades in mathematics. Perhaps this means those although girls are doing better overall, boys are achieving higher grades in certain subjects such as maths. The national statistics show a very similar overall pattern in the results, showing that this is a national problem and not just regional.
Newspaper articles
All of the articles are in agreement that girls are achieving higher grades than boys in exams at the moment. They are all quite statistical and give a lot of facts, which means they are more likely to be based on truth. Although I would say that they exaggerate the situation, probably to make it seem more interesting to the public. It is definitely evidence that girls are doing better than boys, but none of the articles really looks at why girls are doing better. The 'Insights' article, however, contains a section explaining why boys are under achieving and goes into a lot more detail. The research of these ideas was done by ' Harris et al', a sociological researcher.
Summary of secondary data
I am pleased with the evidence I have found and they show that my hypothesis is true. I think the exam results are reliable to the extent of showing how children achieve in exams but cannot be used as an example of the way children work in the classroom. This being quantitative data allows me to compare and value the results to see a pattern. As the results are only of last year they show the recent situation of the gender gap. However this does not show the pattern over time and if any changes have occurred.
The newspaper articles are reliable for the facts they give but I must be cautious of the opinions or 'bending' of the truth, papers may exaggerate the situation to make a more interesting story.
Observation analysis:
Year 12, Psychology lesson
The lesson consisted of the teacher talking to the class and the class participating in the discussion whilst pupils made notes. A psychology 'test' was also done in which two pupils went out of the room for a few minutes and were 'tested' when brought back in.
Because of the way the lesson was structured, it was difficult to see who was misbehaving as there was no real opportunity to. Although I did get some results:
- 3 boys were told off for misbehaving, where 0 girls misbehaved
- There were about the same number of incidences of irrelevant talking in both sexes.
- Both sexes put their hands up about the same number of times, although the girls were mainly answering questions whereas the boys were mainly asking for help.
The pupils in this class were very well behaved, although the boys were slightly more rowdy than the girls and seemed to concentrate less particularly towards the end of the lesson.
Year 10, Sociology lesson
The lesson consisted of an informal test in which the pupils were allowed to talk at a low level, provided they got on with their work. The test was in two parts, the compulsory first section and an additional extension section to be done if finished part one. I gained quite a lot of data from this observation because of the way that the lesson was structured:
- There were 56 incidents of chatting amongst the boys whereas the girls only counted 39.
- 47 times when a boy was talking did he stop doing his work until he had finished his conversation, whereas this only happened 17 times with the girls.
- 85% of the girls went on to do the extension paper, only 50% of the boys did it.
When the boys were chatting most of the time it was for fairly long bursts and work was completely stopped while the conversation went on. The girls on the other hand seemed to mainly talk in short quick converse and managed to talk whilst working. The teacher informed me that one girl had asked her for additional work and information on 'domestic violence'. There was a period around the middle of the lesson where the whole class reached its peak in levels of talking and the teacher had to calm the class down to a decent level again. The boys adapted back to this much slower than the girls did and seemed to find it difficult to adjust back so quickly.
Summary
I observed some useful patterns through my observations. However I encountered a few problems such as the pupils may have acted differently while I was observing them and this might have disrupted patterns that normally occur. I could have maybe interviewed the teacher about her observations of the class and have got another opinion on the behaviour of the class. I could have perhaps looked at the attendance rates of boys and girls throughout the school and in different subjects to give me an idea of how committed pupils are to their education.