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Gender Identity and Education
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Last Updated on September 14, 2021 by
This post looks at how the experience of school can reinforce children’s gender identities.
Research on the development of gender identity has shown that children become keen to demonstrate their awareness and knowledge of gender at the age of five to six. Consequently, seven to eight year olds have a relatively well-established sense of gender identity. For children, being accepted as a ‘typical boy’ or a ‘typical girl’ tends to be important. School is an important arena in which one can act out one’s gender identity and affirm one’s masculinity or femininity and thus affirm one’s gender identity.
Sociological research shows that there is pressure in school to conform to traditional gender identities. If one is a boy, one is often expected to display aspects of traditional masculinity such as enjoying sport and being competitive; and if a male student displays traditionally feminine traits they are criticised. Similarly, girls who act masculine may be subject ridicule. This handout looks at ways in which traditional gender identities are reinforced in school
Male Peer Groups – reinforce the idea that working hard is unmasculine for boys
Mac an Ghail’s study of Parnell school (1994) found that Male peer groups put boys under pressure to not take school work seriously. There were differences across social classes
Working class boys – genuinely didn’t make an effort – part of being male for them meant being cool, and not caring about school work. For them ‘real boys don’t try hard at school’ and are more interested in dossing around (like the Lads Paul Willis studied in 1977). These boys referred to boys that wanted to do well as ‘dickhead achievers’ ‘queer’ or ‘gay’.
Middle class boys – Behind the scenes, many middle class boys would try hard to succeed but in public they projected an image of ‘effortless achievement’ – pretending they were weren’t really making any effort and being smug when they did well because of this.
In terms of identity then, not working hard is part of working class masculinity and being seen to not working hard is part of middle class masculinity
In Shaun’s story – Dianna Reay (2002) demonstrated how Shaun, an 11 year old white working class boy, struggled to redefine himself as a hard working pupil when he moved from primary to secondary school. In primary school, an important part of Shaun’s identity was being one of the toughest guys in school and being a good footballer. When he moved up to secondary school he saw this as an opportunity to redefine himself as a ‘good student’ but found this difficult because he still valued his relationship with his old friends and his identity as a tough guy and a good footballer.
Female peer groups reinforce ideas of traditional femininity
Louise Archer – Interviewed 89 young people, looking at the identities of young working class girls. She found that girls that didn’t conform to traditional gender identities (passive and submissive) were at a disadvantage because they came into conflict with the school. For most of the girls, constructing and performing a heterosexual, sexy feminine image was the most important thing to them. Each of the girls spent considerable money and time on their appearance, trying to look sexy and feminine which gave the girls a sense of power and status. The peer group policed this.
Archer also interview one Laddette – who felt as if the school had a grudge against her. Over one summer she transformed her identity to a classically feminine one and got on much better with staff at her new college as a result.
Carolyn Jackson argued that Laddishness amongst girls is on the increase – girls are increasingly loud, aggressive and drink excessively. She argued that the advantages of this behaviour are that this allows girls to seam carefree about education, reducing the risk of them losing face if they fail.
Verbal Abuse can reinforce traditional gender identities
Connell argues that verbal abuse is one way in which dominant gender and sexual identities are reinforced.
Paetcher (1996) argued that male pupils use terms such as ‘gay’ or ‘queer’ in a derogatory manner. Such labels are often given to students who are disinterested in or bad at sport or who prefer traditionally feminine subjects.
Sue Lees (1986) found that boys called girls ‘slags’ if they appeared to be sexually available and ‘drags’ if they didn’t, negatively labelling girls for being promiscuous or not. According to Lees this is one way in which male dominance starts to assert itself.
Teachers reinforce traditional gender identities
Research shows that teachers also play a part in reinforcing dominant definitions of gender identity. Chris Haywood (1996) found that male teachers told boys off for ‘behaving like girls’ and teased them when they gained lower marks in tests that girls. Teachers also tended to ignore boys verbal abuse of girls (calling them slags etc)
There is also some evidence that male teachers sometimes display a protective attitude towards female teachers, coming into their class to rescue them from disruptive pupils who display threatening behaviour
John Abraham’s research found that teachers idea of a ‘typical girl’ was of her being welll behaved and studios, whereas their ideas of ‘typical boys’ were of them being troublemakers – thus boys received more negative feedback than girls which could reinforce their notion of masculinity being associated with messing around in school.
Tutors and subject advisors
If male students want to do traditionally female subjects, tutors are more likely to question them critically asking them if they are really sure about their decision, meaning students are under more pressure to avoid those subjects that do not fall into their traditional ‘gender domains’
Gender identities can be different for different ethnic groups…
Sewell argues that African Caribbean males are more likely to form anti-school subcultures
Mac An Ghail agreed but argued that this was a response to institutional racism
Girls outperform boys in all ethnic groups at GCSE and are more likely to go to university than boys in all ethnic groups
But Bangladeshi and Pakistani girls are less likely to attend university than their male peers. Research suggests this is due to cultural pressure to stay close to home and get married
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This post has primarily been written for A-level sociology students and this topic comes up in the compulsory education module , part of the gender and education sub-topic.
Related posts include:
Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – External Factors
Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – In School Factors
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The seven Issues & Debates Questions are: 1. Discuss gender bias in psychology. (16 marks) 2. Discuss cultural bias in psychology. (16 marks) 3. Discuss free will and determinism in psychology. (16 marks) 4. Describe and evaluate the nature-nurture debate in psychology. (16 marks)
Stage 1 of the theory is 'Gender Labelling', in which children label themselves as either a boy or girl, but this is based on appearance only. Children change gender labels as appearance changes, their logic is not consistent.The second stage is called the 'Gender Stability' stage.
activities to help you to prepare for some of the more difficult essays. Finally, at the back of the booklet we've provided some Research Methods questions based on Issues and Debates topics. Don't forget that research methods questions can appear in any of the sections of your AQA exam papers. There is also a 30-minute mini mock paper to try!
a) Gender Stability b) Gender Identity c) Gender Constancy . 2. RM: Describe two ethical issues of working with children. (4 marks) 3. Application: A group of 5 and year6- -olds have been given some toys to play with. Some they have been told are 'girl toys', some 'boy toys' and some are gender neutral.
AQA A LEVEL Psychology topic companion: GENDER Page 5 Sex-Role Stereotypes Applied to the Gender Specification Throughout the rest of the gender topic you will make several references to sex -role stereotypes , either when describing theories of gender and gender dysphoria, or in your evaluation. Suggested links are included in the table below :
This course provides AQA A-Level Psychology students with an opportunity to study the Issues and Debates topic in full, and to practice application and synoptic skills, to the rest of the specification. The course comprises a series of sequenced, guided videos designed and recorded by experienced AQA A-Level Psychology teachers and examiners ...
Below is the briefest of overviews (*it would be a grid, but wordpress doesn't like them, so it's just linear!) designed to cover all three areas within gender and education for A level sociology. Achievement. Today, girls do better than boys by about 8% points at GCSE. There are about 30% more girls in University than boys.
Question : Discuss how gender bias has been presented in psychology (16 marks). AO1 Describe gender bias. Describe what alpha bias is and give examples of research that has suffered from it e.g. In Attachment , Bowlby proposes monotropic theory stating women are more central in caregiving compared to men. Also lots of
This self-paced course provides a complete walkthrough of the Issues and Debates topics, including activities for teaching, learning, and assessments. Improve your confidence or discover a variety of ways to deliver and assess these topics. This course also includes a full set of Teaching Powerpoints for you to use in the classroom, worksheets ...
Essay Title: Discuss gender bias in psychology. (16 marks) A gender bias occurs when men or women are treated or represented differently in psychological research. Psychology has historically been a male-dominated field, and consequently many psychological theories assume and represent a male point -of-view. This is known as androcentrism.
Consequently, seven to eight year olds have a relatively well-established sense of gender identity. For children, being accepted as a 'typical boy' or a 'typical girl' tends to be important. School is an important arena in which one can act out one's gender identity and affirm one's masculinity or femininity and thus affirm one's ...
Gender Social Class ... Sarah is an experienced Sociology teacher and examiner who is a regular presenter at tutor2u events. Free course. You get full and unlimited access to the course content and features. ... How to Maximise Student Performance in 20 & 30 Mark Essays Essential AQA A-Level Sociology.
I tend to use tutor2u for essays as they tend to have a good layout. I have exemplar essays for attachment that are in mark band 4, they have comments on the side so you can see how they structured their essay. ... 08.1a Essay Gender Bias with Comments.pdf 215.8KB. 08.1b Essay Cultural Bias with Comments.pdf 215.9KB.
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Tutor2u Gender bias essay issues and debates essays essay title: discuss gender bias in psychology. (16 marks) gender bias occurs when men or women are treated. Skip to document. University; High School. ... Tutor2u Gender bias essay. Subject. Psychology. 619 Documents. Students shared 619 documents in this course. Degree • Grade Sixth Form ...
Terms in this set (17) Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Girls, Boys, A Level entries by gender 2018 Female Top 5 and more.
Topic ESSAYS - Psych205 - Home
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