Gender inequality has always been a fundamental issue in education and in a recent report by Ofsted, entitled “Maintaining curiosity: A survey into maintaining science education in schools” concerns were raised regarding gender inequality in the classroom. Attainment in science has risen year by year across all key stages, and girls have continued to attain better than boys at all key stages (Ofsted, 2013). Yet despite this the drop out for physics at advanced level alarmingly high for girls in physics, in fact in 2013 just 3.2% of girls chose to study physics at AS level and just 57% of girls continued to progress onto A-Level physics (Ofsted, 2015).
In this literature review I am going to explore the impact gender has on education. I am to find out whether boys and girls are treated equally in a classroom environment and evaluate the evidence to support claims that boys receive more negative attention, whilst girls receive more positive attention.
Why is there a gender gap?
In order to address why gender inequality exists we need to consider the reasons why girls attain better than boys across all key stages. One suggestion is that girls and boys use different styles of learning (Department for education and skills, 2007), which creates issues for teachers based in co-educational establishments. There is only so much time in a lesson and it is extremely challenging to incorporate various types of differentiation and assessment for learning into one lesson, at the same time as making it accessible to a variety of different learning styles.
It is also though that boys and girls respond differently to the materials given to them during a lesson (Sukhnandan, Lee and Kelleher, 2000), which is something I have noticed during my teaching practice. Boys are more likely to be influenced by their male peers, which can devalue schoolwork. This idea is also discussed in the literature… Girls are more likely to take responsibility for their own learning and engage well with independent tasks. For this reason the department for education and skills suggests the use of coursework as part of examinations is more likely to advantage girls.
Another proposed reason for the gender gap is that girls do more homework. The longitudinal study of young people found a close relationship between time spent doing homework and attainment levels at key stage three. This could be linked with what my observations of boys being influenced by their male peer group and school work being devalued. With my girls classes there was hardly a late homework across the whole class, whilst with my boys classes there was never an occasion the whole class was punctual with their homework.
Do teachers treat girls and boys equally?
Myhill and Jones (2006) described schools as “one of the social contexts in which gender appropriate behaviour is defined and constructed”, a statement I agree with. This concept is supported by Mac an Ghaill (1994) who described schools as ‘active makers’ of a range of feminities and masculinities. In addition Thornton and Bricheno (2000) reported that in many primary schools men are more likely to seek promotion than women are, despite the two groups holding the same qualifications. As a result the school ends up becoming a place where teachers and pupils construct ways to be appropriately masculine or feminine (Myhill and Jones, 2006).
Myhill and Jones (2006) reported that boys are sometimes treated better than boys during science lessons as they know more about the subject, conversely during stereotypically feminine subjects such as art girls will be treated better. Pupils are more likely to be attentive and engage with the lesson when they find it interesting, and perhaps most importantly when they consider themselves to be good at that subject. Perhaps leading to the assumption that subject teacher “treats them better” (Myhill and Jones, 2006).
Interesting Younger, Warrington and Williams (1999) interviewed a range of female and male pupils during their research and described pupils as feeling as though teachers were harsher with boys’ and girls’ bad behaviour was more likely to be overlooked. That if a boy did something wrong he would get a detention for it, whereas with a girl they will be warned not to do it again. Which may be appropriate and in line with the schools behaviour policy. However the girl’s behaviour is perceived as being out of character, as girls are normally reasonably well behaved during lessons (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999).
On the other hand many teachers firmly believed it was extremely important to treat boys and girls equally in the classroom (Myhill and Jones, 2006). However classroom management issues make this challenging and rather idealistic. Many teachers acknowledged that generally speaking boys’ behaviour in the classroom is worse than girls. So despite their own philosophies these teachers ended up reacting differently to boys and girls in the classroom (Myhill and Jones, 2006).
The idea that majority of the concerns teachers have regarding issues with boys and girls often stem from classroom management issues, rather than focusing on the actual teaching and learning component is present in various pieces of literature (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999).
There is an argument that girls can be just as bad as boys but manage to get away with this poor behaviour. It had been suggested that male teachers find it harder to deal with challenges to their classroom management from a girl than from a boy. As part of their research Younger, Warrington and Williams (1999) interviewed a male teacher who explicitly said he felt far more comfortable dealing with classroom management issues from a boys, despite him being aware of the notion that girls get away with more. Interestingly in the same article it was also claimed that female teachers were harder on boys, with girls punishments tending to be viewed as being more lenient (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999). During research carried out by Younger, Warrington and Williams (1999) one male teacher spoke out about allegations of favouritism with female pupils. He admitted that when girls got upset he didn’t know what to do, which subsequently lead to him being more lenient with girls. As boys are less likely to show emotion in a classroom full of their peers, least of all being upset so he found it easier to follow through with punishing bad behaviour (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999).
Conversely there are some teachers who strongly disagree that they are more lenient with girls, solely based on gender. Some teachers claimed girls are more likely to get out of trouble by smiling and being quiet, essentially by showing remorse for their actions. Conversely boys rarely do so and instead continue to misbehave, often leading to detention in accordance with the school’s behaviour policy. Despite pupil’s perceptions it has nothing to do with the teacher being unfair and discriminating based on gender, it is just that the girl will appear to be genuinely sorry (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999).
On the whole girls tend to ask more sensible questions throughout lessons, whilst boys questions often border on the disciplinary side. Boys’ questions are usually intended to waste time or will repeat something that has already been said because they weren’t listening at the time. Boys and girls do get an equal voice in the classroom but it is not productive, girls therefore get a lot more out of lessons than boys do. Which makes sense of why girls tend to out perform boys in GCSE examinations, their misconceptions will be clarified and as a result teachers will have more time for them, as they are perceived as having the right attitude (Younger, Warrington and Williams, 1999).
In various pieces of literature boys are described as “needing competition, discipline, structure and support”. Perhaps this need of structure and support is the reason for boys’ underperformance in curriculum areas such as English, where boys’ examination success is significantly lower than that of girls. This could be the result of a teacher’s stereotypical expectations of boys’ abilities in that subject, creating an environment where male underachievement is acceptable and justifiable (Myhill and Jones, 2006).
Myhill and Jones (2006) state that teaches describe boys dominating their classrooms, by placing high demands on their teaching time and attention. Worryingly this extra attention does not appear to provide any benefit to these boys, as girls continue to out perform boys at every key stage.
In the soviet union discipline tended to be worse in single sex boys classrooms, especially in a context in which neither the infrastructure nor the teaching staff were adequate in order to meet additional demands from an all boys classroom (repudiation of single sex education).
In conclusion in their research discovered that separating boys may result in privileging boys in ways that may undermine efforts to promote gender equality.
Similarly Jones and Myhill’s classroom observation data supported the theory that participation in the classroom is more strongly linked to achievement levels than gender is. There research concluded that achievement levels are more of a significant predictor of behaviour and interaction I the classroom rather than behaviour. However the apparent tendency to associate all boys with underachievement and all girls with high achievement is unfair. All individuals have complex needs and should be treated as individuals. There are still troublesome girls and compliant boys present in most classrooms.
Could single sex education be the way forward?
Conclusion (350 words)
In their most recent report Ofsted noticed that lead practitioners in schools were not monitoring and evaluating the reasons why their pupils were not continuing to study science at post 16 (Ofsted, 2013). Without this information schools cannot identify where they are going wrong, so I believe further research is needed to establish why girls are almost seven times as likely to choose to study English than physics at AS-Level (Ofsted, 2015).
Conflicting research suggests classroom participation is more strongly linked to achievement levels than gender is.
Further research should be carried out to understand the complex needs of individual pupils, particularly the troublesome girls and compliant boys.
What area needs to be addressed
After reviewing the relevant literature on the subject, I am going to enquire about the effect of gender on education. There are some
Jones and Myhill (2004) claimed that “the apparent tendency to associate all boys with underachievement and all girls with high achievement does little service to the complex needs of individuals, least the troublesome girls and the compliant boys” and I agree with this statement. I believe there are a number of different factors that determine differential achievement levels, such as ethnicity, social class and parental educational levels. It is impossible and wholly unfair to discriminate and generalise based on gender