Assess sociological explanations of gender differences in education (20 marks) Exams results for GCSE and A level have shown that girls are doing better than boys even in the traditional male subjects like maths and science, although boys are slightly improving, they are not improving as fast as girls are and this is dues to many external and internal factors. An external factor of why girls are achieving better than boys in education is because there is now changes in the attitudes, ambitions and roles of females in society. Sue Sharpe’s (1994) did a study on working class girls in the 1970’s and found that girls main priorities were love, marriage and family. She then did the study again in 1990’s and found that attitudes of females have changed as girls now believe a career and being independent is important. Sharpe’s believe this could be because of the changing attitudes of society in general towards women and the impact of feminism.
In the 20th century, women in most nations won the right to vote, this in return increased their educational and job opportunities. Which is a good thing compared to tests that were done in the 1960s that showed that women’s scholastic achievement were higher in early grades than in high school because the teachers and families of girls did not expect them to peruse anything but being a wife and mother (wic.org). I would say that that we have come a long way from the early 20th century. Women in positions of power or women who want to work their way to a position of power still tend to have a glass ceiling over them. This is because history tells us that men hold these types of positions women are gaining and proving that they can do just as well as a man in a position of power.
Part A: identify and explain two ways in which gender may affect a pupils experience of education (17 marks) Gender plays a big role in experience of education within the school system. One way that it does this is through is that girls valued romance more than education and so this had an impact on these girls as they were performing poorly in school, this was an interview done in the 1970s by the sociologist Sharpe (1976), he later did another interview with another group of girls in the 1990s and he had found out that they were more career orientated and this was said to be because of the different opportunities that these young girls were given due to new school systems, back in the 1970s males were given a larger amount of opportunities
Women are choosing to have babies later which is also causing the birth rate to drop this is because there is less stigma on having babies t an older age so women are waiting and not worrying what people might think. Babies cost a lot of money so women are saving up first and then having their baby this is a problem for birth rates because once they have waited they are likely to have less
So this has contributed to how we see society today, people notice girls doing better in school and genuinely how people see education. Sue Sharpe researched and investigated the ambitions of girls in the 1970s and the 1990s and compared them. Her results showed a major change in the way the girls saw their future. In 1974 Sharpe interviewed girls and resulted in low aspirations such as wanting children, marriage, and love as their main priorities. By the 1990s Sharpe went back to the same school and interviewed girls again and they had changed their priorities to careers and being able to support themselves by being more dependent rather than relying on a husband.
There are also a few reasons as to why boys don’t tend to do so well in education. One reason is the feminisation of education. Sewell argues that as primary schools are female dominated this puts boys off education as they see learning as being feminine. Another reason could be due to their poorer literacy skills. Parents tend to spend less time reading with their sons, and the mother is usually the reader which makes boys think that reading is feminine.
Math is NOT a Waste of Time Susan Jacoby, a former columnist for the New York Times, raises awareness of scientific and mathematic depravity in the female community in her article “When Bright Girls Decide That Math is ‘a Waste of Time.’” Jacoby believes adolescent girls avoid advanced science and math courses because of stereotypes and “cultural expectations” that society places on women (282). Throughout the article, Jacoby tries to educate parents and women of the lost opportunities girls inflict on themselves so that parents and teachers can decrease the learning gap between boys and girls in the math and science fields. Jacoby believes that parents need to push their daughters to break the barriers and add more science and math classes to their school schedules so that they do not become as “intellectually handicap” as earlier generations. I agree that girls need to continue their education in the math and science fields and that society acts as an influential factor in what classes females take. However, I think the lack of females in advanced science and math classes has no definitive reason.
She doesn't believe that the 50's should be taken 'literally' because from the 50's there were changes in values that caused racism and sexism discrimination against women. Many of the existing social problems could have been avoided or ignored. Racial conflict was intense in many places, but many suburbs were exclusively white. The poverty rate was higher than today, but at least it was falling. Teenagers had more babies than they do now, but access to good jobs-even with only a high school education-enabled young men to marry their pregnant girlfriends.
BA (Hons) in Education – Post Compulsory Education and Training Farnborough College of Technology 20056487 Mark L Brown 07 May 09 To what extent might recent changes in the educational performance of males and females challenge established explanations of gender inequalities in educational performance? The focus of much early sociological research into the effect of gender on educational achievement was generated by femininity; but, recently (the last fifteen years or so) the emphasis of the research in this area has shifted – from explaining why girls underachieve at school (for, as will be explained, they generally don’t) to why girls now cope better against perceived disadvantages and why boys are now thought to be the main educational conundrum. Garrod (2004:26) writes, ‘Statistics on performance at AS and A-level and in GCSE and SATs have revealed that boys are showing less improvement in grades and qualifications than girls. By the end of 1998 the Ofsted chief inspector for schools in England described “failing boys” as “the public burden number one”, and “one of the most disturbing problems facing the education system”. Raising the achievements of boys has become a government priority, and there are many suggestions offered regarding the reasons why boys are now lagging behind girls in educational performance’.
One of the arguments of co-education is the idea that it provides too many distractions for students. Several scholars have argued that these distractions have led to less attention on school work and class participation, due to girls and boys trying to impress each other. Furthermore, it has also been argued that students who are intimidated by the opposite sex may also be affected by low performance and low grades. Many educators believe that single-sex education does not enforce any type of gender-based stereotypes or adolescent subculture. Due to this, single-sex schools have been established to combat these issues.