Molly Warrington

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...

‘I must get out’: the geographies of domestic violence

The geographies of domestic violence are envisaged in this paper as a series of enlarging, though restricted spaces. Although the social construction of home is as a place of safety and support, in reality it can be a place of violence, where women are spatially restricted either to the home itself, or to its immediate environs. Women who break free and seek safety in a womens refuge, or who move to a new home in a different place, continue to live spatially restricted lives, in the fear that their former partner may trace them.

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.

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.

Decisions and transitions: meeting the needs of the ‘knowledge economy’

Governments worldwide have focused attention on improving educational attainment in order to meet the labour demands of the knowledge economy. I explore decisions taken concerning further and higher education among seventy-one students from a highly successful comprehensive school in North East England, and argue that the postulated links between attainment, higher education, and secure well-paid employment are more complicated than policy documents suggest. Instead, I argue for a greater understanding among policy makers of the specificity of place and of the impact of relative differences in economic, social, and cultural capital.

How we used moral imagination to address ethical and methodological complexities while conducting research with girls in school against the odds in Kenya

This article presents a reflection on the ethical and methodological complexities experienced when conducting research in schools in Kajiado district, Kenya, which sought to understand why some girls were in school in spite of the socio-cultural and economic problems they faced. Three complexities are discussed (positionality and power between the teachers, girls and researchers, confidentiality of girls’ information, and researchers personal involvement and advocacy). A framework of moral imagination is used to deconstruct the process of moral and ethical decision-making that took place in response to these complexities. This involves the researcher taking a position that strives, not simply to ‘do no harm’, but to go one step further and to ‘do good’, within a context of social justice. The article is drawn from an ongoing longitudinal study on girls ‘against the odds’. In the pilot study reported here, four primary schools were involved and interviews were carried out with 24 girls, alongside observations of the surrounding environment and informal conversations with eight teachers.