• Since the early 1990’s, girls have begun to outperform boys at most levels of the educationsystem. According to Pirie in Item A, the modular courses and continuous assessment found ineducation today has been seen to favour the systematic approach of girls, compared to the oldO level exam which typically favoured boys. These changes within the education system are seenas the main result of gender differences in education, nevertheless, external factors such asthe impact of feminism and changes in the job market may also have influenced the increase ingirl’s attainment.Firstly, it may be argued that the way pupils are assessed has favoured girls and disadvantagedboys. Gorard found that the gender gap in achievement was stable from 1975 up until 1988 whenit increased rapidly. This was when GCSE and with it coursework was introduced. Mitsos andBrowne support the view that GCSE’s favoured girls as they were more successful in courseworkdue to the fact that girls are seen to be more careful with their work, more likely to spendlonger on their work and meet deadlines. However, Ellwood argues that although coursework hashad some influence, exams themselves have a greater influence in the final grade. Thereforethis does not create a significant gap between gender differences.Secondly, the way in which teachers interact with pupils differs. Sociologist Jane and PeterFrench argue that classroom interaction between teachers and boys was not that different tothat of girls in terms of academic reasons. However, boys tended to get more attention fromteachers in terms of reprimands. Francis argues that while boys get more attention they arealso disciplined more harshly by teachers. Therefore, it is seen that boys are more likely to bedisciplined more harshly than girls, also in terms of ethnicity, boys from African Caribbeanbackgrounds are also more likely to be disciplined than white British boys. This may result inboys 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 ininfluencing gender differences in attainment. Feminism is a social movement that strives forequality in society for men and women. It has questioned the typical role of males and females insociety and challenges the role of women being the housewife. The feminist movement has had agreat influence in improving girls’ self-esteem and aspirations. Sue Sharpe’s’ study supports thisview, her study of girls in the 1970’s and 1990’s shows the impact that the feminist movementhas 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 inpriorities, these girls were now more concerned with gaining a career and being able to lookafter themselves. These aspirations require educational qualifications and may have impacted onthe changes in girl’s educational achievement.Similarly, another external factor that could explain gender differences in attainment is thefeminisation of education. The majority of lone parent families are headed by females and males
• 2. in school make up only 16% of primary school teachers. Therefore, boys are lacking male rolemodels in education. If a boy has been brought up in a female headed family and attends aschool lacking in strong positive role models then they are likely to associate education withbeing feminine. Boys may not want to appear to be doing well in school as Francis argues boys aremore concerned than girls about being labelled by peers as swots which could threaten theirmasculinity. This therefore could have led to the rejection of schoolwork by boys, resulting tolower 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.