Gender & Achievement: Internal Factors (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

Equal opportunities and curriculum reform

• While external changes have helped explain rising female achievement, internal factors within schools have played a key role in improving girls' educational achievement

  • These include changes to

  • curriculum

  • assessment

  • teacher expectations

  • role models

  • how schools respond to identity and ambition

• Feminist influence helped drive policy changes to reduce gender inequality in education in the following ways:

  • Initiatives like GIST (Girls into Science and Technology) and WISE (Women into Science and Engineering) promoted female participation in male-dominated subjects, e.g., the sciences and maths

  • The National Curriculum (1988) ensured boys and girls largely studied the same subjects

  • Textbooks and materials have been revised to remove sexist content, making the curriculum more inclusive for girls

  • Schools are now more committed to gender equality, influencing teacher expectations and practice

Role models and school organisation

• A rise in the number of female teachers and headteachers, especially in primary schools, provides girls with aspirational role models

• These role models reinforce the idea that women can achieve highly, inspiring girls to aim higher in school

• Marketisation has created competition between schools to attract high-achieving pupils:

  • Jackson (1998) found that girls are viewed as more desirable recruits because they get better exam results

  • Girls are seen as more likely to contribute positively to league table success, making them more desirable to schools

  • Boys are seen as liability students due to poor behaviour and lower performance

Changes in assessment and teaching interaction

• Gorard (2005) argues that the introduction of coursework in 1989 benefited girls, who tend to be more organised, meet deadlines, and present work neatly compared to boys

• Mitsos and Browne (1998) argue that girls are more conscientious and mature earlier than boys, giving them an edge in coursework-heavy subjects

  • However, with the recent reduction in coursework at both GCSE and A Level, this advantage may be diminishing

• Teacher attention also plays a role: girls receive more positive feedback and are seen as cooperative and focused (they are seen as 'ideal students')

• Boys often receive more negative attention due to behavioural issues (Francis, 2000)

• These differences reinforce self-fulfilling prophecies where girls are encouraged and boys are discouraged

• Therefore, girls are more likely to form pro-school subcultures, while boys may resist authority, affecting achievement

Identity, class and symbolic capital

• Archer (2010) argues that working-class girls gain status through their hyper-heterosexual identities (their style, boyfriends, being ‘loud’)

• These identities often clash with the values of school, limiting academic success

• Girls face a dilemma between gaining symbolic capital (peer status/approval) and academic capital (school success)

• Some girls may also adopt anti-school identities to maintain symbolic capital to preserve popularity, which affects their achievement

Ambition, aspirations and constraints

• Girls are now more likely to encounter female scientists, authors and achievers in their learning materials, boosting confidence and aspirations

• Evans (2009) found that some working-class girls are motivated by a desire to support their families

• However, they often choose local universities and limit their options due to fear of debt or leaving home

• This reduces their access to top universities and higher-paying careers, even if they achieve good grades

Pupils' sexual and gender identities

• Education also plays a role in reinforcing gender and sexual identities through subtle but powerful internal processes like peer group pressure, teacher behaviour, and school culture

Double standards

• Sue Lees (1993) found that boys are praised for sexual conquests, while girls are negatively labelled for the same behaviour

• This double standard reinforces patriarchal control by devaluing girls' identities and rewarding masculine dominance

Verbal abuse

• Connell (1995) describes a "rich vocabulary of abuse" used to reinforce gender norms and punish those who don't conform

  • Boys use terms like “slag” to control girls’ sexual identity

  • Lees (1986) found girls labelled negatively for dressing or behaving in certain ways

  • Parker (1996) found boys labelled as “gay” simply for being friendly with teachers, used to police masculinity

The male gaze

• Mac an Ghaill (1994): The male gaze refers to how male pupils and teachers surveil and sexualise girls

  • Boys reinforce masculinity by objectifying girls

  • Girls are judged based on looks, and their value is reduced to appearance, not ability

  • This gaze works like a form of surveillance, pushing pupils to conform to hegemonic heterosexual masculinity

Male peer groups

• Epstein and Willis: Working-class boys form anti-school subcultures that mock academically successful peers

• Mac an Ghaill (1994): In peer groups like “macho lads”, school is devalued

  • Those aiming for academic success were dismissed as ‘dickhead achievers’

  • This maintains gendered and class-based definitions of masculinity

Female peer groups: policing identity

• Archer (2010): Girls are pressured to perform a hyper-heterosexual feminine identity

  • Buying branded clothes and makeup earns symbolic capital but often leads to teacher conflict

  • Girls face a ‘balance’ dilemma: be too focused on school and risk social exclusion, or conform to peer identity and underachieve

Teachers and discipline

• Askew and Ross (1988) argue that male teachers often reinforce gender identities by:

  • Protecting female teachers, reinforcing the idea that women can’t handle discipline

  • Blaming girls more for discipline issues while excusing boys’ behaviour as “just being boys”

    • This reflects a hidden curriculum that supports traditional gender roles

Evaluation of internal factors and gender differences in achievement

Strengths

• Progress has been made

  • Liberal feminists acknowledge significant progress in girls' educational achievement

  • They argue that continued improvements will come through expanding equal opportunities, promoting female role models, and challenging sexist stereotypes

Criticisms

• Persisting gender inequality

  • Radical feminists argue that despite improvements, the education system remains patriarchal

    • Girls still face sexual harassment in school, their subject choices are limited, and men dominate senior leadership roles

    • History is still largely taught from a male perspective (Weiner, 1993)

• Coursework vs exams

  • While coursework once favoured girls, Elwood (2005) argues that this cannot fully explain the gender gap in achievement

  • This is because exams carry more weight in determining final grades

• Class and ethnicity are overlooked

  • Gender is not the only factor shaping educational outcomes

  • Fuller’s research showed that working-class girls often internalise low expectations, adopt limiting self-labels, and underachieve—even when teachers believe in their potential

  • Black working-class girls often outperform white working-class girls, suggesting ethnicity is just as important as gender as a differentiator

• Subject choices and the curriculum

  • Despite efforts to challenge stereotypes, girls are still underrepresented in subjects like physics and engineering

  • This can limit their career pathways and perpetuate gendered divisions in the labour market