|
Are boys doing worse or girls doing even
better?
"Boys' lower achievement in English has not been the object
of public attention in the same way as girls' lower achievement
in mathematics and science. It is possibly significant that,
in recent years, the differences between girls' and boys'levels
of achievement in these subjects have reduced."
OFSTED's 1993 report on Boys and English:
Is boys' underachievement a recent phenomenon?
"Young men are much more likely than young women
to be excluded from school".
Statistical First Release, DfEE, 1999
In 2005, the TES reported on a book- Gender in education 3 to 19. A fresh approach, published by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers - by Stephen Gorard, education professor at New York University, who used international data on educational attainment to show that boys fail to match girls' achievements regardless of how they are taught or schemes to close the attainment gap. Girls were better at reading than boys in all the countries that are members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, according to research carried out in 2000. The programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) research, he says, also showed that the number of single-sex schools in a country has nothing to do with the size of the gap. In the European Union, Finland has the biggest gap and Denmark the lowest, but neither have any single-sex schools.
In one chapter, Professor Gorard writes: "If the differences between males and females are universal, then they are unlikely to be the result of culturally specific, or even pedagogic changes. The differences occur in very different education systems. Any plausible explanation for the apparent underachievement of boys must, therefore, transcend all these differences."
Data from 1975 onwards showed a gap, with girls scoring around 2% higher than boys, remaining relatively static until 1988/9. In that year GCSEs were introduced, grade inflation began, coursework increased and a move was made from norm to criterion referencing. This was followed by a sudden increase to around 10%, the size of the gap ever since. Professor Gorard argues that it cannot be explained by laddishness, truancy, seating arrangements or new teaching methods. Instead, he suggests it is: "A product of the changed system and nature of assessments rather than any more general failing of boys, their ability, application, or the competence of those who teach them."
Hilary Claire, editor of the book, said the concentration on boys' under-achievement meant hidden problems such as the choices made by girls in post-16 education were neglected. They still tended not to opt for 'boys subjects' such as maths and science.
Does school work lack street cred?
Ann Phoenix of Birkbeck College said, "We found 11 - 14 year
olds believed you could not be masculine and be seen to be
working hard at school. It is the same whether the boys are
white, black, Asian, working class or middle class. They think
that to be properly masculine you have to be good at sport,
particularly football. you need to be seen not to work. Those
who are clever - swots, stiffs, boffs or whatever you want
to call them - are unpopular and seen as not male."
(Telegraph, 10 November 1998)
"Many boys talked of being bored and said that education has little relevance to them ... Boys and young men want: a varied curriculum to combat boredom for those who are less academic"
Listen Up, Home Office, consultation with young people carried out by National Youth Agency and Youth Net 1999. www.homeoffice.gov.uk
Are there enough male primary
school teachers?
See the NLT monthly viewpoint from July 2007: the lack of male teachers in primary schools
One of the problems identified by the Government
is that the vast majority of primary school teachers are women. The propotion of male teachers in primary schools was about 15% in 2004. With recruitment of men on to primary
teacher training courses stuck obstinately at around 13%, the likelihood is that the downward trend will continue.
Plenty of primary schools now have no male teachers at all. It's been cited as a growing concern, given the parallel rise in one-parent families. These have tripled
in number in the past three decades, to a current total of
1.75 million; 90% of them are led by single mothers. The absence of strong male role models
is being seen as a key obstacle to improving boys' attainment
levels.
In 2007 the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA) launched a recruitment drive to get more men involved in teaching in primary schools, despite claims by the TES that the TDAs own research, conducted by YouGov, found that less than a third of primary boys wanted more male teachers and only 28% believed men understood them better. Similarly, a report by the DCSF said that there is little evidence that increasing the number of men in classrooms helps boys achieve better grades. Gender and education: the evidence on pupils in England said this approach was ‘simplistic’ and suggested that men could be ‘too harsh’ on boys. The study also found there was no case for adopting ‘boy-friendly’ teaching methods to try and close the gender gap. Researchers found in 2006 that two-thirds of pupils rejected the idea that the gender of teachers mattered. Older pupils were found to think that men were harsher to boys than women. For more information visit www.dfes.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/RRP/u015238/index.shtml
A major Australian study in 2005 by Andrew Martin and Herbert Marsh from the University of Western Sydney, Motivating boys and motivating girls: Does teaching gender really make a difference?, concluded: "Contrary to popular argument that boys fare better under male teachers, it was found that there existed no such significant interaction between student gender and teacher gender. The only significant interaction that emerged was that girls reported a better relationship with female teachers than with male teachers, while boys reported fairly similar relationships." Dr Martin said the most important factor in boosting boys' results was the quality of the teaching.
In June 2005, Work and Pensions Secretary David Blunkett launched a campaign to recruit more men into childcare to ensure the youngest children have positive male role models. He said: "Only 2% of those working in childcare are men. It is important for men to play a real part in raising children for the benefit of children, fathers and society as a whole." There are concerns that some men are being scared away by the fear of false child abuse claims.
Are boys disadvantaged by the structure of the education system and teaching methods?
The Times reported in April 2007 on research from Durham University which stated that boys' underachievement in school tests is ‘a distortion caused by a feminised examination system and a higher number of boys suffering from behavioural problems’. They claim that the real difference in gender between age 11 and 19 is less than half a grade. Peter Tymms, of Durham University, said: “If you want boys to do well, you give them a speedy multiple choice. If you want girls to do better, get them to write an essay.”
In Scotland boys have been rapidly closing the attainment gap on girls at the Higher and Advanced Higher qualification since their introduction in 1999. A crucial factor is said to be the architecture of the Higher Still programme, specifically its courses and units as well as the focus on internal assessment.
In 2006, Dr. Tony Sewell, an educational consultant and author, told the Daily Mail boys fall behind in exams and the jobs market because education has become 'feminised' - teachers do not nurture male traits such as competitiveness and leadership. Instead, schools celebrate qualities more closely associated with girls, such as methodical working and attentiveness in class. Dr Sewell, called for a replacement of some coursework with final exams and a greater emphasis on outdoor adventure in the curriculum. He also demanded a stepping-up of efforts to recruit more male teachers, particularly to primary schools. Dr Sewell said: "We have challenged the 1950s patriarchy and rightly said this is not a man's world. But we have thrown the boy out with the bath water."
"The
repeated cry that boys are disadvantaged by an exam system
which relies on coursework fails to acknowledge that in English,
where the achievement gap between boys and girls is widest,
the shift from 100% coursework to 60% terminal examination
has been paralleled by an increase in the achievement gap."
December 2000, Debra Myhill, Lecturer in Education at University
of Exeter
Do single-sex schools or classes improve the gender gap?
See also research on how effective single-sex teaching is.
A study conducted by Peter Daly of Queen's University, Belfast and Neil Defty of Durham University in 2005 said that boys at single-sex schools are not as successful as those studying in mixed-sex establishments (Differential school effectiveness: single sex schooling revisited p.daly@qub.ac.uk). Furthermore another small study in the US suggested that both sexes can benefit from being taught separately, while at the same school (Separate by choice: single gender academic classes in a public middle school frspie@wm.edu). Children in single-sex classes in co-ed schools do better than those in mixed classes, the study found. Also children aged between 11 and 14-year-olds were found to focus better in single-sex classes and those younger than this were more likely to benefit in general, according to the author of the study, Frances Spielhagen, a research fellow at the American Educational Research Association.
In 2004. MP David Milliband said that mixed schools should teach boys and girls separately for some of the day. Mr Milliband described as 'startling' the findings of a four-year study by Cambridge University, which found a marked improvement in results at a mixed school that switched to teaching boys and girls in separate classes. Boys at the school, which was not named, did better in languages and girls improved in maths and sciences when taught separately. Overall achievement among boys rose from 68% gaining five good GCSE passes in 1997 to 81% in 2004. Girls' performance rose from 68% in 1997 to 82% in 2004.
Do girls suffer disproportionatley after they have left school?
Responding to comments that the education system had become 'feminised', Dr Bethan Marshall, senior lecturer in education at King's College London, told the Daily Mail in 2006 that she and many women would "bitterly resent" the characterisation of girls as tidy and pliant. She added: "The curriculum massively disadvantages girls. They are told if they are obedient and work hard they will do well, but in the workplace that's not true. Despite doing less well in exams, boys are better paid."
The Times reported on 2006 figures from the Office for National Statistics which showed that between 22 and 29, women earn 0.1% more on average than men, with the pay gap not opening up until they hit their thirties. The pay gap remained for older women. By the time they reach 39, women are paid 6.6% less than men, a gap that widens during their 40s to 18.3%. The figures raise the possibility that the gap is partly the result of when women choose to have children. The average age of young women when they have their first child is 29.5 up from under 24 in the 1960s.
The UK ranked eighth in a global league table of 58 countries measured according to the gender gap between women and men, according to a study published by the World Education Forum in May 2005. The study assessed patterns of inequality in areas including economic status, political empowerment, health and education. It found the UK's high ranking in the league is founded primarily on its success in educating girls to secondary and higher education level. The UK also benefits from an above-average representation of women in political posts, a rating skewed by Margaret Thatcher's 11-year premiership.
However, Britain still lagged behind on economic opportunity, a measure based largely on access to the labour market through maternity rights and availability of government-provided childcare, although this was based on data taken from 1998 figures. The UK came 21st in the category of economic participation, measuring the proportion of women in the labour force and the gender pay gap, which is still 18 percentage points adrift in Britain 30 years after the Equal Pay Act. Britain ranked 28th on the scale of female health and well-being, a category including teenage pregnancy as well as maternal and infant mortality rates and the effectiveness of government efforts to reduce inequality.
The
workplace and the underlying dilemma of social class
"Gender is not the strongest predictor of attainment. The social class attainment gap at key stage 4 (as measured by percentage point difference in attainment between those eligible and not eligible for free school meals) is three times as wide as the gender gap. Some minority ethnic groups attain significantly below the national average and their underachievement is much greater than the gap between boys and girls."
Gender and Education: the evidence on pupils in England, DfES, 2007.
Tim Hames in The Times "The world has
not turned on its head, let alone traversed
full circle. Anyone out there who thinks that,because boys
have achieved only 46% of all the A grades at A level
in August 2000, men will command only 46% of
the most senior andlucrative posts available when this same
group of teenagers hit their mid-30s,
is either utterly crackers or has privately devised a means
of rendering pregnancy, as it has been understood for the
past four million years, entirely redundant
... The underlying
dilemma in the British education system is
now, as it has been for ahundred years, if not more, still
social class not gender."
The Times, 18 August 2000
The labour-force participation rates of men
are generally higher for those with higher qualifications.
Organisation for Economic and Cooperative
Development (OECD), May 2000
"Girls' exam superiority over boys disguises the fact that those girls who do worse at school suffer disproportionately. Research in Scotland on gender differences shows that they have more difficulty in finding employment than boys."
The two Scottish School Leavers Survey Studies: Gender and Low Achievement and High-Attaining Female School Leavers are available from the Dissemination Officer, Seed Research Unit, Victoria Quay, Edinburgh and is available on http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Research/Research/14478/726
| 80px.gif)
