Mike Younger

The Gender Gap and Classroom Interactions: Reality and Rhetoric?.

This paper examines the gender gap at GCSE in eight contrasting English secondary schools, and discusses the reality and rhetoric of classroom interactions, focusing on the views of teaching staff, the perspectives of Year 11 students, and observations of teacher-student interactions in the classroom. In an earlier paper (British Journal of Sociology of Education, 17 (3)), the authors examined the extent to which there was less positive teacher-support for the learning of boys than for the learning of girls, and this issue is reviewed in differing school contexts. Research in this broader context suggests that most teachers believe that they give equal treatment to girls and to boys, particularly in support of their learning, but focus group interviews with students and classroom observation suggest that this is rarely achieved; in most schools, boys appear to dominate certain classroom interactions, while girls participate more in teacher-student interactions which support learning. If the underachieveme...

Would Harry and Hermione Have Done Better in Single-Sex Classes? A Review of Single-Sex Teaching in Coeducational Secondary Schools in the United Kingdom

The gender agenda in many North American, Western European, and Australasian countries has undergone a “boy turn” in the past decade amid growing concerns about boys’ apparent “underachievement” relative to girls. One aspect of this turn has been the resurrection of interest in single-sex classes in coeducational public state schools. This article reviews these developments from an international perspective, particularly focusing on the experiences of a number of United Kingdom secondary schools involved in the 4-year Raising Boys’ Achievement Project. The article suggests that, while single-sex classes have the potential to raise the achievement levels of both boys and girls and to have a positive impact on the atmosphere and ethos for learning, these gains will be achieved only if the initiative is developed within gender-relational contexts rather than situated within recuperative masculinity policies.

Perspectives on the gender gap in English secondary schools

Abstract It has become clear in the 1990s that girls are achieving better results than boys in 16+ examinations in England and Wales. This paper examines some of the dimensions of the debate surrounding this, drawing on new intensive research undertaken in eight mixed selective and comprehensive schools. The methodology used, and the statistical components of the gender gap in these schools, are discussed before moving on to an interpretation of the gap, where we suggest ways in which the ethos of the school affects achievement. We look at the rhetoric and reality of policies aiming to address the gap in individual schools, drawing upon interviews with a range of staff in four schools. We also use quotations from focus‐group interviews with students in all eight schools to illustrate findings about differences in motivation between boys and girls, and the ways in which the schools’ values and expectations are communicated to the students, both directly and indirectly. We argue in particular that early set...

‘Life is a tightrope’: reflections on peer group inclusion and exclusion amongst adolescent girls and boys

Feeling part of one’s peer group is of crucial importance for most middle adolescents. Drawing on empirical research in different schools, this paper explores the components of exclusion in relation to gender, the consequences for those excluded by their peers, and the kinds of strategies engaged in by girls and boys in order to attain peer group acceptance.

The gender agenda in primary teacher education in England: fifteen lost years?

The debate in the UK about gender equity and equal opportunities for girls and boys has been ‘captured’, in the last two decades, by an overriding concern with the issue of boys’ apparent under‐achievement. More recently, however, there has been a reaction to essentialist approaches related to ‘boy‐friendly’ pedagogies and strategies, and attempts to return the debate to consider gender relational and gender‐inclusive approaches. This article focuses upon these issues within the context of the initial training and education of primary school teachers in the UK, exploring the gender awareness and perceptions of one cohort of trainee teachers, to establish their emerging beliefs about pedagogy, curriculum and whole school strategies. On the basis of our findings, we argue that there is a need to re‐activate debates about gender identity and inclusivity within initial teacher education and training in the UK, and to reconnect research within the academic community and teaching on such courses, if the seductive discourse about the need to defeminise primary schooling is to be effectively challenged.

The gender agenda in secondary ITET in England: forgotten, misconceived or what?

The restructuring of secondary initial teacher education in England has seen a shift in both the focus and location of training, with an emphasis upon tightly defined competences and standards and upon more school‐based work. In this paper, I discuss the impact of such changes on newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs) knowledge of gender issues, through a review of the experiences and understandings of around 100 trainees at the end of their training, and identify grounds for hope and for disquiet. Particularly, I reflect upon the extent to which important issues in the gender debate, relating to gender relational approaches, continuing disadvantage of girls and issues of homophobia, appear to be either forgotten or misconceived in current secondary teacher education, and conclude by suggesting that all teacher educators in England with research interests in gender need to (re)engage with the debate about the desirable threshold knowledges which NQTs should possess about gender issues.

Working on the inside: discourses, dilemmas and decisions

Directing a publicly‐funded project can present a number of challenges to researchers in reconciling their own philosophy with the expectations of their funders. This paper explores those dilemmas in the context of a four‐year project funded by the British Government to explore strategies to raise boys’ achievement. It reflects on the underlying philosophy of the project and outlines our theoretical position, arguing that some focus on performativity is justified in considering girls’ and boys’ achievements. At the same time, however, we suggest that it is possible to retain a commitment to feminist values, to engage critically with issues of masculinity and to avoid essentialist readings of gender. In arguing for a more nuanced discussion of gender, sensitive to individual school contexts, we argue that the project has allowed a contribution to policy and practice that would otherwise not have been possible.

Closing the Gender Gap? Issues of Gender Equity in English Secondary Schools.

Issues of gender equity in English secondary schools over the last decade have been dominated by a concern with the “under-achievement” of boys, implicitly acknowledging the apparent success of strategies developed in schools in previous decades to improve equality of opportunity for girls. This paper presents evidence to challenge this interpretation of the debate, arguing that policy-makers need to engage more centrally with diversity and heterogeneity of gender constructions and take note of inclusivity of needs rather than framing strategy within essentialist structures. We argue here, through exemplification developed with teachers in English secondary schools over the period 2000–2004, that there is a need to revisit policy and practice frameworks in England, as in Australia, to reassert the needs of girls as well as boys and to develop gender-relational policies which acknowledge and value difference and which have at their core the transformation of traditional aspirations and expectations of education.

Boys’ educational ‘underachievement’ in the Caribbean: interpreting the ‘problem’

Education ministries in the Caribbean countries have directed considerable attention over the last decade to ‘solving’ the ‘problem’ of boys’ underachievement. Rather than considering such interventions, our central concern in this paper is to revisit debates about the interpretation of the issue, to explore whether boys’ underachievement is indeed a ‘problem’, in the sense of both an empirical reality and an issue requiring political attention. In this paper, we explore contestations over the reality and complexity of educational underachievement and whether this relates to broader political–economic marginalisation (or privileging) of boys. We turn then to explore the relationship between material realities and gendered subjectivities. Overall, we argue that boys’ underachievement should neither be ignored nor be the exclusive focus of attention and that a move from ‘boys’ underachievement’ to a broader analysis of ‘gender and education’ is needed, to place the debate in a gender relational context.

Gendered perceptions of schooling: classroom dynamics and inequalities within four Caribbean secondary schools

This paper sets out to interrogate the reality of secondary schooling in one part of the Caribbean, through a case study exploration of the “gender regimes” of four secondary schools in the small Eastern Caribbean nation state of Antigua and Barbuda. In Antigua, as in the Caribbean region more broadly, the focus of attention has been on boys due to their apparent underachievement. However, this qualitative research project found highly complex gender dynamics. Inside classrooms, teachers’ gendered assumptions lead boys to receive more positive and negative attention, leading both girls and boys to be disadvantaged in different ways. Outside the classroom, many “hidden” gender inequalities were found to exist, inasmuch as these were not identified in teachers’ narratives and in discourses concerning policy; such “hidden” inequalities included the pressure both girls and boys are under to perform gender along normative lines and girls’ experiences of sexual harassment from boys.