Underachievement Of Boys Research Articles

Gender, achievement, and subject choice in English education

AbstractIn common with other OECD countries, there is a gender gap in educational achievement in England favouring girls. This carries through to tertiary education. On the other hand, boys are far more likely to engage in STEM in post-16 vocational education and at university. The underachievement of boys overall, but over-representation in STEM, presents significant challenges for policy. This paper documents changes in the gender gap over the last 20 years in England and discusses findings in the light of international evidence. It concludes that education policies, in academic and in vocational spheres, can be designed to reduce gender inequalities that exist in both.

Does gender matter? A cross-national investigation of primary class-room discipline

ABSTRACTFewer than 15% of primary school teachers in both Germany and the UK are male. With the on-going international debate about educational performance highlighting the widening gender achievement gap between girl and boy pupils, the demand for more male teachers has become prevalent in educational discourse. Concerns have frequently been raised about the underachievement of boys, with claims that the lack of male ‘role models’ in schools has an adverse effect on boys’ academic motivation and engagement. Although previous research has examined ‘teaching’ as institutional talk, men’s linguistic behaviour in the classroom remains largely ignored, especially in regard to enacting discipline. Using empirical spoken data collected from four primary school classrooms in both the UK and in Germany, this paper examines the linguistic discipline strategies of eight male and eight female teachers using Interactional Sociolinguistics to address the question, does teacher gender matter?

Boys as writers: perspectives on the learning and teaching of writing in three primary schools

AbstractBoys' attitude to writing is widely perceived as an issue in English primary and secondary schools. Prior research has identified a link between negative attitudes to writing and lower achievement and raised the issue of the stereotyping of boys as underachievers in literacy. The study reported here suggests that if we are to understand the problems associated with the underachievement of boys, we should take into account boys' perspectives on their experiences as literacy learners. In this study, boys aged 8–11 drawn from three London schools in the UK, were interviewed in small groups annually over 3 years of their primary schooling. The boys' teachers were also interviewed separately. These interviews generated insights into the teachers' views of the boys and the boys' views of themselves as literacy learners, especially as writers. The data indicated the boys were highly sensitive to the social situation in the classroom. The boys responded best to their literacy learning when their teachers treated them as individuals, valued their ideas and incorporated strategies for developing learner agency into their daily classroom practice. This article concludes that a teaching approach that includes consulting children about what helps or hinders their learning and a fresh teacher focus on gender issues would increase gender awareness.

Gender complexities in Jamaican secondary education: class culture and the ‘elephant’ in the room

ABSTRACTThis article utilizes a combination of the masculinity and intersectionality frameworks to argue that the underachievement of boys occurs in the intricacies of patriarchy, region (rural area), and class culture. The article utilizes data drawn from a qualitative study at two rural institutions in the parish of Manchester, Jamaica, to critically analyze the gendered nexus between boys’ underachievement and educational policies. The low grades merited by boys raise questions of patriarchy in the educational system in which they and their female teachers operate. While the failure of boys is not generalizable to the entire population, underachievement is also located in the mismatch between curriculum and the culture of these boys.

Do boys need different remedial reading instruction from girls?

Recent inquiries into the underachievement of boys in reading have called into question whether they require different forms of reading instruction from girls. A number of reading programs and initiatives have been developed to address this issue, including programs based on increasing boys' motivation, improving behaviour, embracing the use of computers, and so forth. The aim of the present study was to test the hypothesis that effective remedial reading instruction is equally effective for boys as well as girls. The sample comprised 398 low-progress students (239 boys, 159 girls) in Years 5 and 6, who attended an off-site tutorial centre for two school terms between the years 2005 and 2010. All boys and girls in the sample participated in the Schoolwise Program, a non-categorical, empirically-based reading program, for three hours daily. Participants were assessed pre- and post- intervention on five reading and related measures. Both boys and girls made substantial gains, analyses of covariance confirming that their rates of progress were very similar. Small effect sizes were also reported. It is concluded that boys and girls do not require different forms of reading instruction if both are provided with effective systematic remedial reading instruction.

Underachievement, failing youth and moral panics

Abstract This paper considers contemporary ‘moral panics’ around the underachievement of boys in school examinations in the UK and America. In the UK, in particular, the underachievement of boys is central to current ‘crisis accounts’ about falling standards and failing pupils. ‘Underachievement’ is a familiar word to those who work with young people, however, the term itself is not unproblematic. Indeed, for such a widely reported phenomenon, it is perhaps surprising that different perspectives as to the nature and importance of the concept exist. It is these different perspectives on a seemingly well-established discourse, along with an examination of the concept we call ‘underachievement’ that form the focus of this paper. The importance of ensuring a fair and equitable schooling experience for all students is implicit in many societies, and a consideration of current moral panics surrounding the underachievement of boys provides a useful case study to help us consider what it is that we can reasonably...

Foreign language learning in Irish second level schools: gender very much on the agenda!

This paper seeks to address the gender equity issue in terms of participation and achievement in foreign language learning in Irish schools. It begins by framing the discussion within the international concern regarding boys' underachievement in school. It goes on to present the reality that this underachievement of boys appears to be even more marked in the language and literacy curriculum areas. A particular issue with regard to both boys' participation and achievement in foreign language learning internationally is discussed before some evidence is presented of the existence of this same phenomenon in Irish schools. The contention that the issue is officially unrecognised and unacknowledged is then put forward. The paper finishes with a call for the impact of gender on participation and achievement in foreign language learning to be immediately recognised in Ireland to form part of any debate and reform of education and language teaching within the country.

Underperformance or ‘getting it right’? Constructions of gender and achievement in the Australian inquiry into boys’ education

The underachievement of boys has been a focus of intense concern in Australia for over 15 years. Historical analyses suggest that male students’ poor performance has traditionally been attributed to factors external to boys themselves (methods, teachers, texts), deflecting attention from the relationship between masculinity construction and successful engagement with school. This paper turns the focus back, addressing the ways in which gender itself was constructed within hearings held for the Australian Parliamentary Inquiry into Boys’ Education. Discursive analysis demonstrates that witnesses to the Inquiry drew upon a series of gender binaries in representing male and female students, and accounting for their relative attainment. These binaries worked to associate masculinity with ‘authentic’ learning, such that the success of male students was naturalised even in the absence of achievement. Conversely, the association of femininity and ‘inauthentic learning’ worked to undermine female students’ demonstrated success. The role of these binaries in the reproduction of a paradoxical relationship between gender and achievement is discussed.

Tracking and the effects of school‐related attitudes on the language achievement of boys and girls

In this study we examined whether the underachievement of boys in language at the end of secondary education is related to school‐related attitudes. Data were drawn from the LOSO project, a longitudinal research project in secondary education. The results showed that there were gender differences in language achievement in favour of girls in the lower tracks, but not in the highest track. The underachievement of boys was associated with boys’ less positive relationships with teachers, less positive well‐being at school and less positive attitude towards schoolwork. Furthermore, the results showed that—in the lower tracks—boys who were the least attentive in the classroom, the least interested in learning tasks and the least motivated towards learning tasks achieved better than expected. Post‐hoc analyses revealed that these are the more intelligent boys. Possible explanations of the demotivation of the more intelligent boys in the lower tracks are discussed.

The invisibility of the underachieving girl

The recent high profile of the underachievement debate in the media, through research initiatives, and in resulting remediation programmes within the classroom, has focused almost exclusively upon boys, such that the identity and needs of the underachieving girl have been rendered invisible. Underachievement has become so closely associated with the gender identity of boys that the idea of girls underachieving has become virtually inconceivable. This paper is concerned with teachers’ perceptions of the underachieving girl in the light of the overwhelming attention on the underachieving boy. It is argued that the focus of attention should be underachievement as a complex phenomenon rather than focusing exclusively on the underachievement of boys.

Mentors and Role Models: Masculinity and the educational 'underachievement' of young Afro-Caribbean males

In September 1999, the British Government embarked on its 33 million mentoring programme. Learning mentors have been awarded the task of helping secondary pupils to overcome barriers to individual learning. These measures coincide with increasing calls within the black community and among anti-feminist male activists for the provision of male role models to remedy the current underachievement of male students. In New Labour's educational discourse, gender and racial inequality are defined as problems of ineffectiveness, standards and performance. For anti-feminist male activists, the prevalence of female teachers, 'soft' pedagogic practices and matriarchal families are the prime cause for the underachievement of boys. Neither discourse recognises the dynamic and relational properties of gender and the complex, contradictory relations between discourses of masculine and feminine identity. More insidiously, both discourses provide conditions for the promotion and legitimation of hegemonic forms of masculine identity. Writers have variously identified how misogyny and homophobia are often deployed in the construction of hegemonic heterosexual masculinities. Part of the problem resides with a lack of socially informed research providing critical analysis of mentoring practices and the forms of masculine subjectivity which are their condition and outcome. Conversely, this article examines the socio-historical, political and cultural processes involved in the interplay between mentoring, ethnicity and the production of masculine identities.

Electronic Communication and Under-achieving Boys: Some Issues

The under-achievement of boys in secondary schools throughout the United Kingdom has been a matter of concern for several years. Recent national assessment results suggest that the gap between the achievement of boys and girls is becoming increasingly wide. Can developments in electronic communication provide disaffected boys with real contexts, purposes and audiences for writing and reading? This paper examines some of the main issues and concludes with the suggestion that the ‘frame’ provided by the computer screen has the potential either to offer a supportive structure upon which boys can build — or to become yet another means by which their academic failure can be measured.

Reappraising the Apparent Underachievement of Boys at School

This article challenges two widely-held beliefs about the differences in the performance of boys and girls at school. The 'gap' between the achievement of boys and girls is not growing, and may be shrinking. The gap is not predominantly a problem of low achievement, nor is it uniformly distributed across the range of attainments. The gap, in favour of girls, mainly appears at the higher levels in any assessment. The change in understanding of the nature of the gender gap described here comes from simple methodological advances in the analysis of gendered results in examination and statutory assessments. The implications for research and policy in this area are substantial, since unless the nature of the problem is well understood research may be directed at explicating, and policy directed at ameliorating, a gender gap of a form which simply does not exist. For example, while disaffection from the process of education may be a very real problem and certainly one that is worthy of research, there is little evidence here that it is primarily a gender-related problem.

Gendered Responses to Group Reading

This paper draws on data from a qualitative research study that examines some of the issues which surround the current debate concerning the underachievement of boys in reading. The paper attempts to identify children's gendered responses to group reading sessions, which are now an important element of the National Literacy Strategy (DfEE, 1998) and which are incorporated into the daily Literacy Hour in a majority of our primary schools. Data were gathered through classroom observations and field notes collected in four south east London primary schools. The paper highlights the interplay between gender, teacher and peer group influences and examines the responses of some bilingual boy pupils. The paper concludes that these sessions can be valuable and that teacher input is crucial to their success.