Sexism in exams (and how generally unrigorous they are)

[larrygrylls]

AIBU in being shocked at how unperturbed the media is in announcing a 9.2% outperformance by girls in the top four grades at GCSE?

How have we got to the stage where vague empathetic answers (at which girls excel) have become more important than learning hard facts and problem solving (which boys enjoy)?

In addition, how can anyone seriously debate the dumbing down of exams when 50% of all private school A level results came out at grade A. Frankly it is a joke and discriminates against the truly able. How are decent universities meant to select the top candidates? By lottery ticket?!
When I look at maths A level today, the questions are marginally above what I studied at O level and well below what I did at AO (the old exam taken by brighter pupils simultaneously to O level and by some others aged 17).

Why are parents of boys not crying foul and threatening to sue schools and exam boards using discrimination legislation. Were it a 9.2% bias in favour of girls, they certainly would be.

Aye, I read that too. Either way, they've sold twice as many books.

Lots of things to raise with you larry...

'Vague' and 'discursive' are completely different in meaning. As somebody pointed out down the thread, disussion is how you show you understand the "hard facts" you have learned. It isn't just problem solving, even in Science. And statistics for that matter.

I think in my subject, which is Science, you are right in that there has definitely been a move from hard facts to discursive. I think the question therefore needs to be which approach do we want to take with our young people, and should that decision be influenced by whether it is an approach that will suit one sex more than the other?

I was a bit hasty in my last post, and concentrated on assessment practice, but that has changed along with the curriculum. What we teach in Science has changed, and therefore so has how we assess it. So if your argument is that girls are better than boys at the discursive stuff, and that is what the teaching and learning emphasis is, then these skewed results do not necessarily indicate an unfair assessment system, rather a skewed performance.

Are girls just better at what we are trying to do with them in Education? And is that a bad thing?

Not saying that is the case BTW, but I think it s somethng that must be considered before we tinker with part of the education system yet again. Any changes should be considered as part of the whole.

Crikey mikey, you just can't help yourself larry can you, you give your true feelings away at every turn.

So because I refuse to accept that girls are good at "empathetic vague answers" while boys revel in hard facts and problem solving, I get the response "Were you bullied at school for being a geeky scientific girl? "

It kind of reveals what you really think about women and girls - you are deeply uncomfortable when they are good at things you consider to be the province of men.

And no of course I wasn't bullied at school, I went to a girls school where we were encouraged to study whatever subjects we were interested in. In fact people who took more "difficult" subjects or were very bright were respected. Ditto 6th form and university. I was lucky.

It is an interesting point about what we value as a society. Maths and Science, typically, are subjects which boys enjoy (something about obsessivly making lists perhaps ) These are also the subjects that are bandied about in the press as being 'hard' or 'rigouous' subjects. Whereas those subjects which require a bit of 'empathy' or 'emotional reasoning' are seen as less rigorous, possibly because they are percieved as 'female' subjects.

So you get 'female' subjects (English, History, Sociology etc) being discussed in the Media as being too easy and an example of how standards are dropping. On the other hand there is a moral panic about how girls are now outperforming boys in 'hard' 'male' subjects like maths and science. There definintly appears to be an intellectually rigourus = male subjects = high status vs intellectually less rigourus = female subjects = lower status dichotomy going on.

The same thing happens in the workforce. As professions have more and more women joining them, they tend to lose status. At one time clerical work and teaching were almostly exclusively male professions and had high status. Nowdays they are female dominated and much lower status (and less well paid). You can see the same thing happening to the law and, to a lesser extent, medicine.

Incidentally, having both an Arts degree and a science degree, i cannot see that either is any less intellectually rigorous. If anything, the science degree required less in the way of breadth of knowledge (but not in depth) and, if anything, the arts degree was more of an intellectual challenge.

Larrygrylis, in some ways I agree with you. In the past boys typically outperformed girls in exams, but for the last 20 years (since the GCSE replaced the O'level), girls have been outperforming boys. I agree that this is highly statistically significant and I am also shocked at how unperturbed the media is. I seem to remember that it was not considered acceptable for boys to routinely outperform girls.

I do have an issue with the second paragraph of your op though. I think it is commonly accepted that it is coursework, rather than everything coming down to a final exam as in the o'level days, that contributes to girls outperforming boys. The exam only approach is known to favour boys as they are more likely to have a go if they don't know the answer (girls are more likely to leave it blank).

I think the general increase in pass rates is down to exams being easier/smaller syllabus/whatever. I don't buy the argument that 16 year olds are suddenly taking exams more seriously than 16 year olds 20 years ago.

Surely the point is that an intelligent person, of either gender, will be capable of retaining facts, problem solving, and discussing their subject in essay-style.

And it is not all or nothing - if it is even true that there is a difference between the sexes withj boys faring better in exams and girls with coursework - simply make the qualification 50% of each. Problem solved.

Personally I really dislike this hard and fast "girls are good at this, boys at that" stuff. It is so patently untrue such a lot of the time, with loads of children/adults of both genders excelling at things which are traditionally for the other gender.

Until we have any firm and conclusive proof of how "gendered" different types of thinking and skill really are, and really know how much of this is down to different hard-wiring in the brain and how much is down to social conditioning, my view is that we should steer clear of assumptions about who is good at what. Treat each as an individual.

Not least because the things that girls are "traditionally" good at seem to inevitably point to lower paid roles while the men with their "traditional" skill sets are able to swan off and earn loads of cash.

Plus a lot of what slug said about status and "female" professions.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I would have been in no danger of outperforming any boys at school! Well, maybe a few, but not many. We are all different, that's what makes life interesting, don't you think? Try not to worry would be my advice.

Exams were not designed by people who suffer from the sudden onset of heavy periods

I have often heard that the spread of boys' IQ is generally much wider than the spread of girls'.
I think that if you imagine the 2 distributions plotted on a graph and you move the 'pass' cut off mark lower you include more of the girl 'bulge ' in the middle than the flatter boy distribution line.So you get the effect of girls improving at a faster rate than boys.
My DSs are at a selective school which selects only on reasoning papers ie no Maths no English.Twenty-some percent can pass and boys always out number girls at the school.Which I think is further proof of the IQ spread theory.
I disagree with the use of so much coursework .Passing an exam should be about how much you know about that subject not about how hard a worker you are.

Know about it, or understand about it? I have a fab memory for the so-called "hard facts". I distinctly remember rote learning stuff I didn't understand and fairly indiscriminately splurging it out onto an exam paper if the subject came up. I am old, so did O levels, and it was a rather successful technique for them. TBH, I now as a teacher give the advice to my students that if they are just before an exam and they really don't get something (despite my and their best efforts), that they should do the same if necessary. I think it works less well with the new style assessment though. Which is larry's point perhaps?

The IQ issue is a bit of a red herring as IQ tests, and indeed the whole concept of IQs, are notoriously gender biased.

By GrendelsMum on Thu 27-Aug-09 16:08:21
I love the idea of these exams that demand empathetic answers. I might start changing the exam questions we offer.

Biology: "How does a tadpole really feel as it becomes a frog?"

Physics: "Describe the emotions of an electron. How have its relations with the nucleus changed over the past 70 years?"

Geography: "Empathise with continents as they drift."

Thank you so much for this post, GM - I am ROFLing!

Op, I generally agree with you. Most teachers are female, middle class and white. They tend to communicate best with other people who are female, middle class and white. Tinkering with GCSE format will not change that.

We need to increase the diversity of people teaching in primary schools. By the time they leave primary school, many boys are already underachieving.

It's a vicious circle though. Teaching, especially primary, has become a feminised profession. As a result it has lost status. Men tend not to apply for low status professions. (There's also the hint of paedophilia hysteria to factor in here.) Teacher's salaries have dropped dramatically in real terms in the last 20 years, possibly as a result of the lowering it's status. Boys don't see male primary teachers any more so they don't consider primary teaching a 'male' profession. Ergo less men in teaching means even fewer men in teaching in the future.

I agree that the teaching prefession should be much more representative of the population ie a better mix of men and women from all types of background. But even if say, half of the teaching profession was male, it would still mean that in all classes, roughly half the pupils there will be being taught by somebody of the opposite gender.

Unless we segregate the genders in school, there is no way round this.

Do girls currently do less well when taught by male teachers? I had a male teacher in my final 2 years of primary school and he was fab.

There's no evidence of girls doing less well with male teachers that i know of.

To be honest, I'm a bit dubious of the theory that it's all the fault of those nasty women teachers, feminising our boys. Follow that logic through and shouldn't you be separating boys from their mothers at birth to stop them being disadvantaged by all that female empathy? Hang on, isn't that what the Spartans did?

'AIBU in being shocked at how unperturbed the media is in announcing a 9.2% outperformance by girls in the top four grades at GCSE?'
Because when the media gets a bit between its teeth, it tends to have such a positive effect, doesn't it?
Although having said that, as various other posters have pointed out, there has been media interest in the subject. Possibly because now girls appear to be out performing boys, men feel a little threatened so rather than accepting that perhaps our girls are more mature or dilligent, its easier to claim the exams are skewed in the favour of girls?
Although I'm very pleased that my 'vague, empathatic answers' in 'girly' subjects (English Lang, Sociology and History) got my the three A's I needed to sit my degree course, I like to think those grades were acheived because I worked myself into the ground. Not because of my sex.
Anyway, I can't make any better arguments than the very clever ladies who have already posted. I think they're an argument in itself for the intelligence of women, and applaud the fact they make such sensible, analytical and far-from 'vague' arguments rather than sitting and complaining 'its not fair.' Unlike the OP when commenting on boy's grades.

Oh and another thing that gets my goat is these wishy-washy non academic diplomas that are worth 7 GCSEs.How can a diploma in media studies be valued the same as GCSEs in solid academic subjects
The least academic school in a neighbouring town has the highest no of GCSEs per student !

Depends on the diploma though, Dh took a diploma thing in IT back in the eighties and it was very rigourous: we were worried it would hinder his Uni application but thankfully the admissions staff we re familiar with it and offered him an unconditional palce straight up at interview.

I have fopur boys and I won't lie, the facts over exams do worry me. naturally as a woman I also occasionally want to go 'Yessssss ha ha ha ' to DH

I have a bit of Psych under my belt and have been reading up on this a bit, and I do think boys should be helped to eprform better. Same exams absolutely- in no way would it be fair toehrwise- but I like the suggestion that Steven Biddulph gives where boys and girls are educated separately for Englsih, a technique that worked in the study he gave. If we know that the genders process information differently then we should be catering for both throughout education.

That can mean inventive teaching but should be great for all, as a female I am unusual in having a misual learning style and whilst the fact that is combined with a photographic memory ahs helped me, without that addition I think I probably would struggle more tbh.

We need a system that allows both genders to achive, delivering learning in ways both can access. And in all truth I think a lot of that starts with attitudes: I remmeber ds1's teahcers complaining they ahd 'too many boys and that makes for a bad class' in front of them, and have witnessed evident favouroutism towards girls because girls, in our school, tend to 'fit' the system better.

Ultimately i think the goal has to be that the learning styles and needs of both genders need to be identified and supported throughout school, so that when they can all sit down to the same exam they can all attempt it with a history of learning that has prepared them, for some girls as well as many boys that mnight mrean a more practical, energetic response to challenges earlier on.

Morris the book I was reading yesterday suggested that rather than separating kids into gewnder based schools (something I am [hmm[ of through the single sex ed'ed boys I know) and depriving them of that socialising contact, the trick is to separate when skill sets differ amssively- the school in the example used English classes for that. A sort of half way house that I woudl support

Yes babybarrister, you and I are both "geeky scientific girls" as per the OPs highly intelligent riposte. As a consequence we are naturally lacking in empathy and unable to string a sentance together.

Anyhoo..

Peachy thinking about your post - has it been proven that girls and boys fundamentally process information differently though? I'm not sure it has, and I shy away from separating the genders which IMO only helps with a gender divide in subjects etc which seems to mean that girls, in the end, do worse...

Far better to challenge the gender stereotyping that occurs from a very young age - to accept and encourage children who are good at things outside their traditional gender subjects.

IMO both genders are capable of excelling at a wide range of subjects, and both have a wide range of ways of learning. So better to indentify who is good at what and eductate and encourage them accordingly, rather than indulge in this artificial male/female competition that is forever harped on about.

There are other ways of splitting the stats, which could well give much wider margins to get worried about. Different parts of the country, different ethnic groups, different family incomes, different parts of cities and so on. But every year it's the gender thing which grabs the headlines. Because of innate sexism - girls do better than boys shocker - the world has gone mad??

"As a consequence we are naturally lacking in empathy and unable to string a sentance together."

It would have made a more emphatic point if you had spelt 'sentence' correctly.