Gender and Educational Attainment

The starting point examiners expect you to know is the pattern of gender and attainment, and how it has changed over time.

• In the past, girls often under-achieved relative to boys, especially at higher levels. Education was geared towards boys, and girls were socialised to expect domestic and family roles rather than careers.
• Today, in many countries, girls out-perform boys at most levels of education — they tend to gain better results in most subjects and are more likely to stay in education longer. This is one of the most striking reversals in the sociology of education.

Why this matters for the exam: a description of the pattern is only the start. The real marks come from explaining the change — and the explanations split into two big groups:

• External (outside-school) factors — wider social changes such as feminism, women's employment and changing expectations.
• Internal (in-school) factors — changes inside schools such as equal-opportunity policies, coursework and teacher attention.

A vital qualification: girls' overall improvement does not mean gender inequality has disappeared. Two things remain true:

1. Subject choice is still strongly gendered (more on this later) — girls and boys still tend to choose different subjects.
2. Social class still cuts across gender. A working-class girl may still do worse than a middle-class boy. Gender is one factor among several (class, ethnicity), and answers that treat gender in isolation miss this.

The first set of explanations for girls' rising achievement looks outside the school at wider social change.

Changing female expectations and ambitions (Sue Sharpe).

• Sharpe famously compared girls in the 1970s with girls in the 1990s. In the 1970s girls' priorities were 'love, marriage, husbands, children' — they expected to be defined by the home.
• By the 1990s their priorities had shifted to careers, qualifications and independence. Girls now see education as the route to a good job and a life of their own, so they take it seriously.

The impact of feminism.

• The women's movement challenged the idea that women belonged in the home and raised girls' sense of what they could achieve. It made career ambition 'normal' for women and improved how women are portrayed.

Changes in the family and women's employment.

• Rising female employment gives girls real-world role models and a clear reason to gain qualifications.
• Changes such as later marriage, smaller families and more lone-parent and dual-earner households mean many girls expect to support themselves, making education essential rather than optional.

Equal-opportunities policies (in the wider society).

• Initiatives such as GIST (Girls Into Science and Technology) and WISE (Women Into Science and Engineering), along with anti-discrimination policies, encouraged girls into education and previously 'male' areas, signalling that achievement was expected of them.

The common thread: these external changes raised girls' aspirations and expectations. Girls became more motivated to achieve because society now offered them futures beyond the home.

The second set of explanations looks inside the school itself.

Equal opportunities in schools.

• Schools became more aware of, and committed to, treating boys and girls equally — monitoring achievement, challenging stereotypes and encouraging girls in all subjects. Some sociologists argue girls are now the main beneficiaries of a more meritocratic, equal-opportunities education system.

Coursework and assessment (Mitsos & Browne).

• Mitsos and Browne argued that the rise of coursework in assessment favoured girls, who tend to be more organised, conscientious and better at meeting deadlines and presentation.
• Whether or not this is the whole story, it is a key named explanation of girls' improved results.

Positive role models.

• More female teachers, especially in senior positions, give girls successful role models and signal that academic achievement is normal and expected for women.

Teacher attention and expectations.

• Some research suggests girls receive more positive teacher attention and are seen as harder-working and better behaved, which can boost their confidence and achievement (boys, by contrast, attract more negative attention — see the classroom section below).

The common thread: internal factors gave girls the opportunity and environment to translate their raised aspirations into actual results.

A note on the external-vs-internal debate. This is the engine of most essays here. External factors (Sharpe, feminism, jobs) changed what girls WANT; internal factors (equal opportunities, coursework, role models) changed what schools ALLOW and reward. The strongest answers argue the two work together.

If girls have improved, the other side of the debate is why boys appear to under-achieve relative to girls. Several linked explanations are used — but they should be handled critically.

The 'crisis of masculinity' (Mac an Ghaill).

• The decline of traditional manual and industrial jobs has removed the secure 'breadwinner' role many working-class men once expected. Mac an Ghaill argued this creates a crisis of masculinity: boys are unsure of their future identity and place in the world.
• Without the prospect of a male manual job, some boys lose motivation, seeing little point in school qualifications.

Laddish anti-school subcultures (Francis; Willis).

• Willis's classic study of working-class 'lads' showed an anti-school counter-culture that valued 'having a laff', toughness and rejecting school — which ironically prepared them for low-skilled manual work, reproducing their class position.
• Francis found that some boys adopt a 'laddish' masculinity in which working hard is seen as 'uncool' or feminine. Peer pressure pushes boys to disrupt lessons rather than study, harming their achievement.

Literacy and aspirations.

• Boys, on average, show weaker literacy and reading habits, which disadvantages them across the curriculum.
• Some boys hold lower aspirations and spend less time on schoolwork than girls.

Gender SOCIALISATION underlies all of this.

• Boys and girls are socialised differently from an early age, shaping their attitudes to reading, behaviour and 'what counts as masculine'. If 'real boys' are taught not to appear studious, schoolwork conflicts with their gender identity.

A crucial evaluation. The 'boys' under-achievement' story is often overstated and is heavily class-related: it is mainly some working-class boys who fall behind, while middle-class boys still do well. Treating 'boys' as one failing group ignores class — a key critical point.

The final piece is what happens inside the classroom day to day, and why subject choice stays gendered.

Teacher expectations and gendered behaviour in the classroom.

• Research suggests teachers interact differently with boys and girls. Boys tend to attract more attention — but much of it is negative: discipline, telling-off and being seen as disruptive.
• Girls are more often viewed as hard-working, cooperative and well-behaved, which can earn more positive feedback and higher expectations of effort.
• These differing expectations can become a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: boys labelled as troublemakers may live up to the label, while girls' 'good pupil' image supports their achievement.

Gendered SUBJECT CHOICE. Even though girls now out-perform boys overall, subjects remain strongly gendered:

Tend to be 'male' choices	Tend to be 'female' choices
Physics, engineering, technology, computing	English, languages, humanities, arts
Maths, 'hard' sciences (in many contexts)	Sociology, psychology, health/childcare

Why subject choice stays gendered:

• Gender socialisation from early childhood gives boys and girls different interests, toys and expectations.
• Gender identity — students avoid subjects seen as belonging to the opposite gender to protect their sense of being 'properly' masculine or feminine.
• A gendered curriculum and gendered career expectations steer students towards 'appropriate' subjects and jobs.

The key point for evaluation: girls' rising overall achievement has not removed gendered subject choice. So 'gender equality' in education is partial — girls achieve more, yet boys and girls still cluster in different subjects, which feeds into a gendered labour market.

How to use this in essays: combine teacher expectations (classroom) and subject choice (curriculum) to show that even as girls 'win' on overall results, gender still shapes the day-to-day experience of school and the subjects students take.