Sex Differences in the Infant School: definitions and ‘theories‘

Abstract

This study has two main concerns. The first is with the differences between teachers' typifications of boys and of girls as pupils in the infant school. The second is with the teachers' commonsense 'theories' of these sex differences. In respect of the first concern, there is good quantitative evidence illustrating the less favourable definitions teachers hold of boys compared to those of girls (Plowden Report, 1967). Moreover, these definitions obtain at both the infant school level (Brandis & Bernstein, 1974; Hartley, 1978) and the primary level (Douglas, 1964). They also obtain within social class groups with working class boys being the least favourably rated, middle class girls the most. On the other hand, observational and interviewbased studies in the infant school have tended to explain teachers' favourable and unfavourable typifications of pupils by social class-related second order constructs derived from teachers' commonsense accounts of pupils' home background variables (Sharp & Green, 1975; Rist, 1970). Since the sex variable is not offered as a possible factor explaining the behavioural and cognitive performance of pupils in these commonsense teacher accounts, it does not occur in the researcher's explanation. But given that many studies have reported that there is a significant sex difference in teachers' ratings of pupils, it seems puzzling that teachers ignore the variable of pupil sex when accounting for differences in pupils' work and behaviour. Whilst little is known of teachers' explanations of sex differences, there is no lack of explanations posited by others. Genetic and hormonal theories form the main strands of the biological explanation and are well-summarised in Maccoby & Jacklin (1975). Parsons' (1956) sociological theory of sex-role differentiation is underpinned by the biological explanation, a view which takes little account of variations in sex-roles. It has been found, however, that sex-role socialisation varies according to social class (Newson & Newson, 1976, 1977), to birth order (Brim, 1958) and to the absence of a same-sex parent (Carlsmith, 1974). But the support these theories, or others, receive from teachers in the infant school has not been investigated. It is with this omission that the study here is concerned.