Reappraising the Apparent Underachievement of Boys at School

Gorard, Stephen; Rees, Gareth; Salisbury, Jane

doi:10.1080/09540259920500

Cited by 69 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…The gender debate centres largely on the underachievement of boys and has provoked considerable media and policy attention and is increasingly identified as an international issue (see, for example Francis 1999;Francis and Skelton 2005;OECD 2007). However, the gender focus has also been contested (see for example, Epstein et al 1998;Gorard et al 1999;Connolly 2006aConnolly , 2006b as analysts have questioned the validity of the focus on gender in educational attainment, arguing that factors such as 'race' and social class have a stronger impact on educational attainment than does gender (Archer and Francis 2007). There is, however, a growing recognition that gender differences in educational attainment in various forms emerge early in life (see, for example, Mensah and Kiernan 2010;Smyth et al 2010).…”

Section: Educational Attainmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too Much of a Good Thing? Gender, ‘Concerted Cultivation’ and Unequal Achievement in Primary Education

2011

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It is well established that cultural and economic resources imparted to children vary significantly by social class. Literature on concerted cultivation has highlighted the way out-of-school activities can reproduce social inequalities in the classroom. Within this literature however, little attention has been given to the role of gender in concerted cultivation. In this paper, we use data from the first wave of the Growing Up in Ireland longitudinal study to consider how both social class and gender influence the out-ofschool activities of children. Moreover, we examine how out-of-school activities, class and gender impact on children's school engagement and academic achievement. We find that while childrearing logics tend to operate within social class categories, there is an additional cultural aspect of gender in the uptake of different types of out-of-school activities. Our findings suggest the need to move beyond explanations of concerted cultivation to explain gender differences in mathematics and reading attainment.

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Section: Educational Attainmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Too Much of a Good Thing? Gender, ‘Concerted Cultivation’ and Unequal Achievement in Primary Education

2011

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“…A high proportion of achievement is in this band and we really cannot see any reason not to analyse it in addition to the A* to C grades. When Gorard (1998) and Gorard et al (1999a) did so no one had done 4 the same kind of analysis with national data at either level. To do the analysis at both levels might seem advantageous.…”

Section: Different Levels Of Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following Arnot et al (1996, appendix), the idea of an achievement gap was used by Gorard et al (1999a) to illustrate the proportionate difference in public examination attainment between males and females, after adjusting for differences in the numbers of each sex entering any examination. Thus, the overall achievement gap is composed 1 of the attainment gap (the proportionate male:female difference in numbers attaining a certain grade) minus the entry gap (the proportionate male:female difference in numbers entering the assessment).…”

Section: Achievement Gapsmentioning

confidence: 99%

(Mis)Understanding underachievement: a response to Connolly

Gorard

Smith

2008

British Journal of Sociology of Education

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IntroductionIn a recent issue of this journal an author named Connolly (2008) presented what he termed a 'critical review' of some of our previous work on the relative attainment of male and female students in UK schools. He proposed three general areas for criticism -our use of attainment gaps, our consideration of outcomes other than at specific thresholds, and our querying of the idea of student 'underachievement'. These problems, he claimed, have 'given rise to a number of misleading conclusions that have questionable implications for practice ' (p.250). However, those of his 'criticisms' with any merit are actually the same as our own conclusions, transmuted by Connolly from our papers that he cites, while his remaining 'criticisms' are based on faulty elementary logic. In case readers have not read our work and were somehow misled by Connolly, we give here a brief reply to each criticism in turn. This matters, because a greater understanding of patterns of attainment and of the nature of underachievement is a precursor to the design of successful initiatives to overcome inequalities in educational opportunity and reward. This is both a practical and an ethical issue. Achievement gapsFollowing Arnot et al. (1996, appendix), the idea of an achievement gap was used by Gorard et al (1999a) to illustrate the proportionate difference in public examination attainment between males and females, after adjusting for differences in the numbers of each sex entering any examination. Thus, the overall achievement gap is composed 1 of the attainment gap (the proportionate male:female difference in numbers attaining a certain grade) minus the entry gap (the proportionate male:female difference in numbers entering the assessment). Gorard et al. (2001, p.137) pointed out that entry gaps between males and females in each A-level subject tend to be higher than they are at GCSE. Substantially more female than male students enter A-level English each year, for example, whereas the gap is less marked for entry to GCSE English. By contrast, the eventual gap in attainment between male and females students is generally lower at A-level than at GCSE. In English GCSE, female students attain more of the high grades than males, but the attainment gap is much less at A-level.One of the possible reasons for this difference is that the smaller proportion of each age cohort of males who choose to continue with A-level English once the constraints of the National Curriculum are over tend to be better at English. Thus, the entry gap between sexes is greater but the attainment gap is then lower than at GCSE where English was, and still largely is, compulsory.

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“…This data-rich environment highlighted yet further the extent to which disparities existed within the educational system, within contexts of class, ethnicity and gender. Whilst there is dispute, as we show later, about the extent to which the gender gap is narrowing, stabilising or widening (Gorard et al, 1999(Gorard et al, , 2001, it is undeniable that there is, in many schools, differential achievement between girls and boys (Arnot et al, 1998;Tinklin et al, 2001;.…”

Section: Chapter 2: the Gender Gap: Dilemmas And Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Raising boys' achievement

2006

Practical Pre-School

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Reappraising the Apparent Underachievement of Boys at School

Cited by 69 publications

References 7 publications

Too Much of a Good Thing? Gender, ‘Concerted Cultivation’ and Unequal Achievement in Primary Education

Too Much of a Good Thing? Gender, ‘Concerted Cultivation’ and Unequal Achievement in Primary Education

(Mis)Understanding underachievement: a response to Connolly

Raising boys' achievement

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