Factors Affecting Educational Achievement: Gender (AQA GCSE Sociology): Exam Questions

Item C

Identify and explain one advantage of using non-participant observation to investigate classroom interactions as shown in Item C.

Item C

From Item C, examine one strength of using the number of entries for different A-level examinations to research gender differences in education.

Item C

Identify and explain one factor which might account for the gender differences in subject choice shown in Item C.

Identify and explain one disadvantage of using group interviews to investigate gender-based subject choices in schools.

Source: Adapted from Department for Education

Identify and explain one advantage of using covert observation to investigate the extent of sexism in schools.

Item C

Glenys Lobban used content analysis to study the way in which gender roles were presented. She studied 179 stories in books used to teach reading in primary schools in the 1960s and 1970s. She found only 35 of these stories had female heroines, compared to 71 that had male heroes. Lobban concluded that boys were presented as more adventurous than girls. Girls were presented as more caring than boys, and as more interested in domestic matters.

More recent research has also found evidence of gender stereotyping. In 1992, Lesley Best and her students conducted content analysis to try and discover whether gender bias in children’s books had decreased. These researchers examined a sample of stories from 132 children’s books. They found that little had changed. She found only 44 female heroines, compared to 94 male heroes within those books.

Sources: Lobban, G, Data report on British reading schemes, The Times Educational Supplement, 1974. Best, L, Analysis of sex-roles in preschool books, Sociology Review: Philip Allan, 1992.

Identify and explain one way in which gender inequalities may exist in education as shown in Item C.

Item D

British sociologist Paul Willis wanted to understand the experience of schooling from the perspective of the students. He chose to study a group of 12 working-class boys. He observed these boys over their last 18 months of school, and their first few months at work. The 12 students formed a friendship group with a distinctive attitude to school. The ‘lads’, as they were known, had their own counter school subculture, which was opposed to the values promoted by the school.

This counter school subculture had certain features. The lads felt superior to the teachers and to the conformist students, who they called ‘the ear’oles’. They saw no value in the academic work of the school and no interest in gaining qualifications. Instead they aimed to ‘have a laff’ by entertaining themselves with misbehaviour, avoiding lessons, doing as little work as possible and generally rejecting the values of the school. To the lads, school was boring, whilst the outside world offered possibilities for excitement.

Source: Willis, P, Learning to Labour, 1977.

From Item D, identify and describe one way in which the ‘lads’ were anti-school according to Willis, including what you know of his perspective on education.

Item C

Number of A-level examination entries in the United Kingdom by gender, 2019

Source: Joint Council for Qualifications (JCQ). The JCQ is an organisation representing the largest qualification providers in the United Kingdom. Each year the JCQ collates and publishes examination information.

Identify and explain one factor which might account for the gender differences in subject choice shown in Item C.

Discuss how far sociologists would agree that in-school factors are the main reasons for gender-based differences in subject options and career choices.

Discuss how far sociologists would agree that gender differences in educational achievement are mainly due to factors outside schools.