Six internal factors explaining girl's
achievement
Positive role models.
GCSE and Course-work
Equal Opportunities for
both genders.
Challenging stereotypes
in the curriculum
Sellection +
League Tables.
Teacher and student
interactions + support
Four changes in the family that affect girls
attitudes to education.
Increasing divorce rates
Increasing lone
parent
households.
Smaller families
Increase in cohabitation
Four external factors of girl achievement
Femanisation of Education
Sewell found that girls were favoured in
school due to the amount of written
coursework etc.. Boys are put in disadvantaged
position as girls find coursework easier
Sociologist, Gorad theorises that the gender gap has actually
increased because of the introduction to coursework but now boys
are disadvantaged.
Changes in the family
Girls changing perception +
ambitions
Sociologist, Sharpe conducted an interview on girls in the 1970s and the
1990s. In the 1970s girls aspired for marriage, love etc... In the 1990
interview, Sharpe found that careers were more important and
independence was promoted strongly.
Changes in women's
employement
The Equal Pay Act encourages girls to see a future in the
workplace based on money and equal pay for all genders.
Symbolic capital; Identity, class
and girls achievement.
Louise Archer theorises that due to symbolic
capital, working class girls try to get
recognition from peers.
Hyper-heterosexual feminine identities
Many girls invested most amount of time to make
themselves look 'better'. It lowered the chance of
them being called 'tramps' for wearing the wrong
brand. However, it also bought them into conflict with
the school, they were often punished for having the
wrong appearance.
Bourdieu described symbolic violence as
teachers dismissed those girls as 'others'
therefore they are denying the girls symbolic
capital.
Boyfriends
Due to working glass girls having boyfriends, it got in
the way of schoolwork and lowered ambitions; losing
interesting in Universities, in studying 'masculine'
subjects and gaining a professional career.
Being 'loud'
Girls questioned teacher's authority
therefore failing to conform to
school's rules and ideal student
persona. Bringing conflict with teachers.