Teachers and education system bias towards girls

[asdmumandteacher]

What do you all think? I am a teacher (secondary) of 14 years and feel the secondary curriculum (and primary too) is heavily weighted towards girls' natural skills and less so to boys' skills. I have taught all girls for most of the last 14 years in selective (grammar)and high schools (the equivalent of secondary moderns) and i have two sons. We are forever hearing about girls outperforming boys (when in O level days twas the other way around and the 1967 Plowden report sort to redress the balance) I think it has gone way too far in the other direction.

"Perhaps 'the elephant in the room' is that average girls are actually more able academically than average boys."

Goodness me.

But MI doesn't agree with you, she told me so. I think.

Why should the average girl be more academically able than the average boy tho?....not having a go just wondering....

blue, you cannot expect everyone who disagrees with you to therefore be agreeing with mi. We are all individuals, our points of view will differ

everything you do in the classroom - sounds a bit big brotherish to me....every utterance to come from your mouth - every little jokey quip with your class.... yeah right...am sure all teachers keep abreast of daily research findings and act awiftly within their classrooms

gotta go now - school run!

Please asdmum et al - do you not see the irony of your position.

Here you are suggesting that there is a bias towards girls in schools. You are whispering with your colleagues who agree that such a bias exists. You believe girls and boys learn differently (although have no evidence for this) and that boys need a school experience that is more 'boyish' (cringe)

The four year research carried out called 'Raising Boys' Achievement', concluded that there's a gap etween the achievement of the average boy and girl because of the societal influences that define what manly is. If any of this is caused inside of schools, it is because of teachers holding the incorrect assumption that boys cannot achieve as well in certain types of subjects or settings.

If it is epidemic in schools that teachers hold onto those prejudices, then there clearly is a problem inside of schools. But nowhere does research point to the curriculum being gender-biased and nowhere does research point to greater male achievement by de-'feminising' (not my choice of word) schools.

No, I don't, I was being silly, I didn't realise you were the only person allowed to be sarcastic on the thread. Sorry about that.

I asked MI this direct question and the idling person said she agreed with her, so I was just being silly.

I am trying to avoid the elephant, politely. Because I don't believe that there are innate gender differences in our brains. And if there are, anyway, it all gets very confusing because sex and gender and sexuality are really quite fluid, if you ask me.

What do you mean, you are trying to avoid the elephant politely. Why?

I mean, you just don't agree with it. You're not ashamed of that are you?

Oops epedemic

god I love your italics
they're so helpful

Italics are used for emphasis. I'll emphasise what I choose to emphasise.

Look, I'll say it again:

A small proportion of boys are doing worse than girls at school. They always have.

In order to redress that imbalance - and sorry you have to take that in its full sexist context - the education authorities fiddled the entrance criteria for grammar schools. A perceived balance was achieved.

Since then, the fiddling has been removed. At the same time, education methods have changed. VERY IMPORTANTLY, these changes were made with the aim of improving the education system overall; so although raising boys' achievements were not a specific, articulated aim at that stage, I think (correct me if I'm wrong) they should theoretically have improved all children's access to education. And it is true tat children's educational achievements have improved (with the obvious caveats about the national curriculum, SATS, etc etc etc). However, these changed education methods still appear to have made no overall impact on boys' lack of achievement.

children's educational achievements have improved

thats a whole other debate lol!!

I thought there were innate gender differences in the brains of males/females (but I could be wrong).

Where are they located? What determines them? Are there innate differences between gay and straight men's brains? What about transgender brains? And are there ethnic differences too - are Chinese brains different from French ones?

Oh, don't tell me, I'm asking yet again in a most unwomanly unreasonable way for proof...

mabanana, once again, bias can be unintentional and unconscious and systems as in the OP can be accidentally biased.

As I've said many people believe that coursework is biased towards girls. If that is the case then it's no one's fault. No one could have even foreseen it.

To say that it's possible that teachers and the education system biases one group in favour of another (as girls over boys but could equally be middle class over working class etc etc) is NOT the same as blaming or criticising teachers. You need to get over this because it's really not constructive.

Nobody at any point on this thread including the original poster has said that teachers specifically female teachers or women or even schools are to blame.

Everybody here is saying there are hugely complex factors at work - social attitudes, family relationships, methods of assessment, perceptions of gender, stereotyping, the school environment etc etc

Mabanana, MI, Pointy.

Is there a link about the discrimination or quota system in the 11+ exam?

I can find only information about Birmingham Council being forced to abandon the policy of setting the girls' level higher.
I'm sure you must have meant more than one education authority.

Can you give me the link if you have it?

see second bullet point here

I really think people need to accept that accusing teachers of a bias towards girls (and therefore against boys) in the very title of your thread is an accusation. The fact that this bias may be unconscious makes it no less reprehensible if it is a bias held by professional people who should know better and should examine their prejudices regularly. Would you like to be accused of being biased against black people? I expect not, because it is an accusation.
Now, as that is cleared up, it astonishes me that the people on this thread most vociferous in their belief that there are huge differences between the sexes, such huge differences that boys require a completely different teaching system to that currently practised (despite all the evidence is that the suggestions made have been shown in studies to make no difference) are also the most vociferious in their assertion that it is simply impossible that girls are more intelligent than boys.
As it happens, there seems at present little evidence that girls possess a really striking IQ advantage, however, there also seems no evidence that boys are disadvantaged by a/female teachers b/learning methods that encourage discussion, independent research and project work, which really leaves us with the possible and to me plausible suggestion that it is influences in wider society (fathers who run away from family life, pornography and guns held up as the ideal lifestyle, the idolisation of footballers as the perfect male role models etc) which may be at the root of any underachievement by boys. And these, clearly are not caused by female teachers or their fluffy classrooms, or by continuous assessment or home corners in reception classrooms.

t before the ?open enrolment? reform, there was a change affecting admissions
thanks I'll look at yours I just found this

This is the relevant part:

Up to 1988, girls and boys were assessed in different categories such that the same percentage would obtain a given transfer grade (and hence be admitted
to grammar school). Following a high court ruling in June 1988, this practice was discontinued and from then on, girls and boys were assessed together (which affected
grammar school intakes in 1989, i.e. cohort 1978). This change was to the advantage of girls since they outperformed boys on the ?verbal reasoning? tests that were the basis of selection at this time. The comparison of cohorts born after and before 1978 by gender
confirms that the increase in grammar school attendance was stronger for girls than for boys. Also we find a stronger effect of the reforms on girls? subsequent educational attainment than on boys?.

Not sure what the "reforms" and the "effects" are in the final sentence but I haven't got time to read right now.

I had a bit of crappy extra text at the top there.. ignore.

Your posts are really hard to read mabanana.

The Bristol study which I don't have time to read hints there of the effects of educational reforms on girls' attainment. I will read tomorrow to see (it's very late here) but you could go there first if you like!

MI if that's an important source for you, why don't you associate the disparity with educational changes?

In March 2005, the then Department for Children, Schools and Families released the following information:

Boys' performance is lower than girls' in all literacy related tasks and tests in England.
Four decades ago, girls were doing better than boys in the 11-plus examination, requiring education administrators to set a lower cut off point for boys to ensure equal numbers of each gender went on to grammar schools.
Three-quarters of mothers read with their children but only half of fathers do so.
Girls do better in every area of learning before they are five.

I also draw your link to the penultimate and ultimate points in MI's excellent link.
The gap emerges before children even get into one of these 'fluffy' classrooms. So it is either that some boys are less intelligent, that they simply mature later, or that the influences from family and society are already affecting a number of boys.

You find them difficult to read? They are in quite simple English really.