Language A levels- more girls than boys?

[ToastAndJames]

DS happened to mention that, in his French A level class, there are 13 girls and 2 boys. Apparently all the language A level classes are similar.

I wondered whether this was the case everywhere or just a quirk of DS's school. Are languages more popular with girls?

You might find this interesting

And now consider which subjects on that chart are more or less likely to lead to solid, lucrative jobs and which to a possibly less secure future.

There was a lot of subtle and not so subtle sexism involved when I was at a co-Ed school along the lines of girls being good at English/drama/languages/arts and boys being good at science/maths/technology.

Surprise surprise, the subjects broke down along sex lines as the girls didn't want to be the only physicist and the boys got the message that languages were "for girls".

Sexist bullshit that evaporated when DBro and I switched to single sex schools. His all-boys school taught loads of languages and had an amazing English department, and my girls school sent physicists and compsci and mathmos to uni.

I had hoped this garbage would have died a death but it seems strong as ever in a lot of my friends' kids co-ed schools. (We chose single sex for this, among other reasons!)

It was the same when I was at school and also university
There were 70 of us in total and 62 were girls.

I was actually told, with my parents at the Y9 gcse selection evening that I shouldn't do extended maths GCSE because "girls often struggle" I ended up reading maths at university.

It would be interesting to see the split of subject by sex separated into one chart for mixed schools, one for girls only, one for boys only and those two combined. When DD was doing her A levels the subjects with the most girls taking them were maths, biology and then chemistry and history pretty much tied. Yes, a girls school.

Interesting to see English so girl-heavy on that table. There are only 2 boys in DD's English A Level classes (both Lang and Lit). I was surprised but clearly I shouldn't have been!

Thank you, that's really interesting- I had no idea!

Interesting that music is boy heavy compared with performing/expressive arts which is the most girl heavy.

I wonder if that is because music has rather a mathematical lean to it compared with other arts subjects - or another reason.

Music at a professional level - both classical and other genres - are still pretty male-dominated, aren't they? Hiring of women for orchestras was improved by blind auditions, which shows there was (probably still is) a lot of sexism, nothing to do with talent.But how many male vs female composers or conductors could you name?

omg yes. My old HoD was a man (and not gay) and he used to say he had a great time at uni as everyone in his dept was female.

Women outnumbered men on my MFL course at uni by about 4 to 1.

while single sex schools do not show the same split, there still is bias.

there was a school local to us ideal for dd, she would have been eligible for a sports scholarship as a county/national team player, school had it’s own swimming pool, lots of activities.

however, it was a boys school. We looked into the “partner” girls school, but the only scholarships were art and drama, no sports facilities to speak of.

i remember years ago I was they only girl in my physics class. The teacher was most unimpressed to have a girl in his class.

But those are popular subjects in all types of schools. Are the proportions taking those subjects higher than in mixed schools offering a similar range of subjects?

But those are popular subjects in all types of schools. Are the proportions taking those subjects higher than in mixed schools offering a similar range of subjects?

Not sure, that's why I'd be interested in the data. It's certainly the case that girls are more likely to do physics at A level if they're in a single rather than mixed sex school.

Meant to say, OP, kudos to your ds's school getting 15 students to take A level MFL! Two in Dd's year (both girls btw)