Men and women really are living on different
planets when it comes to their personalities.
Researchers, from Italy and the Manchester
Business School, say the reason we think men and
women are similar is that we have been using the
wrong methods to assess them.
Women scored higher than men on:
Sensitivity
Warmth
Apprehension
Self-reliance
Tension
Men outscored women on:
Dominance
Emotional Stability
Rule-consciousness
Vigilance
Openness to change
The Distance Between Mars and Venus: Measuring Global Sex Differences in Personality
Public library of Science One Journal | www.plosone.org
Gender issues
The term ‘gender issues’ refers to
the social and educational aspects of
the pupil’s being male or female.
Girls do better than
boys at school.
Boys should be allowed to wear skirts to school,
says children's tsar
Mr Baillie said ‘We should be
rejecting discriminatory
practice and allowing our
children and young people to
express themselves.
'I would agree that gender
specific uniforms or dress
codes can cause serious
distress in gender-variant
pupils.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100314/Scottishchildrens-tsar-adds-support-schoolboys-battle-wear-skirtschool.html#ixzz1mLOC3x2G
Boy wears skirt to school in protest against
'discrimination'
A 12-year-old boy has worn a skirt to school
in protest against ''discriminatory'' rules
which ban boys from wearing shorts.
1986
2010/11 - Achieved grades A*-C of those attempting the subject
Subject
Boys
Girls
English
66
79
Maths
67
67
Any Science
73
75
E&M&S
61
67
Geography
66
75
History
67
74
Any MFL
67
77
Any D & T
56
73
DfE: GCSE and Equivalent Results in England, 2010/11 (Provisional)
"A lazy youth becomes a burden to those parents,
whom he ought to comfort, if not support. But you
can no more rouse them, with all of their fine
arguments, than you can a log. There they lie,
completely enchained by indolence… Business tires
him; reading fatigues him; the public service
interferes with his pleasures. Ask him what he has
done with his morning – he cannot tell you; for he
has lived without reflection, and almost without
knowing whether he has lived at all!"
William Alcott's The Young Man's Guide (1831),
Coursework vs. exams
- Study of GCSE Maths (Stobart, 1992): Boys
achieve a small mark advantage in exams,
which offset girls’ small advantage in
coursework.
- Creswell (1990): 1989 GCSE exams in
English, Maths and Science. Girls’ marks for
coursework higher; Maths and Science: Boys’
marks for exams higher.
- Ranking of subjects in terms of coursework
(Stobart et al. 1992), Improved performance
of girls directly related to the weighting and
type of coursework
Girls v Boys
In contrast to girls’
underachievement in the 70s and
80s, the underperformance of boys
has attracted substantial concern,
resulting in a number of government
funded projects and interventions.
Strategies to raise boys’ achievement, if
successful, are also likely to raise girls’
achievement, and thus perpetuate the
gender gap. It has been argued that any
strategy to raise boys’ achievement should
not be done in a way that could be
detrimental to girls’ social or academic
progress. There is not a case for boy-friendly
pedagogies – pedagogies that appeal to and
engage boys are equally girl-friendly.
Boys
Analysis of the past 25 years of research papers
on gender show that boys
•
display more confidence in the classroom
and see themselves as more academically
able than they are.
•
are more likely to blame poor results on
extrinsic factors, such as teachers or
examination practices.
University Trends
• More women than men go to University in the USA
and UK.
• Girls continue to opt out of mathematics and
science in the later stages of their educational
careers.
• Boys still dominate science and technology at Alevel and enter higher education to study these
subjects in larger numbers.
• Men outperform women in science at all grades.
• Women have not improved their average science
achievement scores since 1996.
•
•
•
SWE-AWE-CASEE ARP Resources – Gender Differences in Science Performance. SWE-AWE CASEE Overviews. Retrieved
<date> from http://www.AWEonline.org.
The DfES Standards Site: Gender and Achievement3
The Gender Gap
• The Gender Gap Index ranks countries according
to salary, access to education, workforce
participation, life expectancy and sex ratio.
• Using such data, Nordic countries top the poll –
women are paid as much as men, occupying
senior jobs.
• In the UK women lag behind men in seniority, as
well as wage earning
• The UK ranks 33rd out of 135 countries
Higher education of mothers
• Effect through income – higher income,
more education
• Effect on home investment –
quantity/quality
• Tastes/attitude to education of children
Most research suggests that mother’s
education is more influential than
father’s; and has a bigger influence on
girl’s education
Single Sex Teaching in Science
• Girls participated more, were more extrovert,
interacted more with the teacher, received less
harassment from others than in mixed sex
classes.
• Boys were ambivalent in their feelings about
these. They posed a challenge for teachers in
task-oriented activities. Boys in single sex classes
reported the most harassment.
Teachers’ implementation of gender-inclusive instructional strategies in single-sex and mixed-sex
classrooms Parker, Lesley H. & Leonie J. Rennie, Curtin University of TechnologyInternational
Journal of Science Education, 2002, Vol. 24, No. 9, pp. 881 – 897
Rose Report on Attitudes towards
science
• In wealthy countries, very few want to
become scientists, particularly not the girls
• In wealthy countries, no girls want to work
with technology and even the boys are
ambivalent
• In poor countries, ‘everbody’ wants to become
a scientist and work with technology, but very
few get the opportunity
Findings on gender, social class and
ethnicity
Gender is not the strongest predictor of attainment
the social class attainment gap at Key Stage 4 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 is an independent and significant predictor
of attainment, and the gap in attainment at GCSE
between boys and girls is relatively stable across
the social class groupings
Findings on gender, social class and ethnicity
Consideration of social class and ethnicity alongside
gender helps schools to identify which students are
‘underachieving’
(Source: Gender and education: the evidence on pupils in England, DfES, 2007)
The influence of the school and
teachers’ attitudes
Teachers are just as susceptible to
stereotyping as any other portion of the
population. In their classroom and daily
dealings with young people, their
expectations and treatment of their pupils
may be influenced by:
Girls:
•Disciplined with deadlines
•Liking for open-ended work
•Taking care with presentation
•Less confident in abilities
•Opt-out more passively
•Prefer verbal, empathetic, and imaginative work
Boys:
•Take a last-minute approach
•Liking for structured, short tasks
•Lack of care with presentation
•Overconfidence in abilities
•Opt-out more aggressively
•Prefer spatial, sequential, logical work
•Peer group approval is paramount
Questions for you to consider?
Thinking about your first placement school
• To what extent has your school promoted the
value of gender inclusive strategies?
Questions for you to consider?
Thinking about your classroom
• Who do I call on when hands are raised in
class, boys or girls? Do I address them in the
same manner?
• Do I equally tell-off both genders when
problems and issues arise in the classroom?
• Do I ask higher level questions of each
gender?
Questions for you to consider?
Thinking about your classroom
• Do I have the same expectations of all of my
students?
• Do I provide equal amounts of help, feedback,
encouragement and praise?
• Do I use gender free language in the
classroom?
Questions for you to consider?
Thinking about your classroom
• Do I interrupt one gender more often than the
other?
• Do I use examples of both genders when teaching
a lesson? Is the text I use contributing to gender
biased actions?
• Research on single sex classrooms showed that
boy’s ability to communicate improved – how
could you support boys’ oral and written
communication in a mixed class situation?