And the winner is...

As reported here boys this year overtook girls in maths GCSE. Why? Because of the eradication of the coursework and it being purely assessed now by exams; which, we are told, boys do better at. We are told "Coursework will be scrapped from nearly all GCSEs next year". I'm sorry but should we be rejoicing at this removal of coursework in future GCSEs because it means boys can statistically get ahead?

In The Guardian write-up, Mary Bousted (general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers) is quoted as saying:

The problem has been that in the 1960s and 1970s boys were getting 12-13% more O-level passes than girls and no one really talked about it. When girls started to do better there were Panorama programmes and inquiries and a national debate. There's a national panic if girls and women start to be successful. Girls have been more successful at GCSE and A-levels but that hasn't closed the gender pay gap. Even if they do better they don't get paid as much.

This is exactly the points I have stressed again and again in any writing on the gender gap in education - firstly this completely unjustified panic over girls 'doing better' than the boys and secondly the fact that despite what the qualification statistics show, better attainment at GCSE/A-Level does not equate with the better pay. Why can't female students be seen as 'doing better'? And why this stress on the "gender gap"? What about differences according to ethnicity or socio-economic background? Because I'm sure as hell that it's not every girl 'doing better' - what about those who aren't?

Teacher training courses emphasis the importance of differentiation and using a variety of techniques for learning and assessment in our lessons because no-one learns the same. We are told that coursework is becoming a problem because of plagiarism but then is that really a reason to remove what is potentially an effective assessment method for a large number of female students (if indeed we take the slightly deterministic argument that coursework benefits girls, exams boys)? Isn't reliance of assessment through exams not differentiating?

A side thought (not properly investigated or backed): I think it's telling that coursework is being removed at the educational stages where firstly girls are 'doing better' and secondly where girls and boys are present in proportional figures to the population when, for instance, no-one would dare suggest the removal of essays (or even dissertations!) at undergraduate level. It would be interesting to see whether such gendered patterns are present at this educational stage and the ratio of female to male undergraduates.

x-posted over at Subtext

News Fix

A selection from The Guardian over the last week:

Boys outperform girls at science in UK, gender stereotyping to blame?

Interview with a Shanghai professor of women and gender studies

Orbituary

Patricia Crawford, Australian feminist historian.

Betty Scharf, Academic (LSE, Fawcett Society).

Does a Problem of Failing Boys Really Exist?

With regards to this issue it might be wise to consider statistics on GCSE attainment which suggest that perhaps it is more the case that girls are merely continuing to improve, rather than boys failing. In 1993/94, 48.2 per cent of females achieved 5 or more GCSE grade A*-C compared to 39.2 per cent of males. This pattern persisted in 2003/4 with 59.3 per cent of females and 49.2 per cent of males (National Statistics). I use these statistics to reflect how boys are not so much failing at school, having indeed improved on previous attainment levels, as they are failing to catch-up with their female counterparts. Why should this be such a problem? As Chris Keates (NASUWT) notes (The Guardian, 14/06/06) there is perhaps now an overemphasis on the failing of boys with men trying to “fight their corner”. I believe that this overemphasis is somewhat unnecessary. The gender gap in performance in schools does not appear to have a detrimental effect on males as a whole giving the gender pay gap and occupational segregation that exists. Much research shows that despite females generally outperforming males in education they tend to still be concentrated in less skilled, lower paid employment. Tony Selwell’s argument that males are failing now in the jobs market as well as in education is somewhat laughable.

Selwell argues that the curriculum has become feminised, with an overemphasis on coursework and a lack of nurturing of male traits (The Guardian, 13/06/06). Selwell could be criticised for assuming a position of biological determinism, a position which is highly contested by many feminists, and of homogenization. It is perhaps dangerous to accept the view that all boys thrive on competition and leadership or need to participate in physical activity, just as it is to accept the idea that all girls are outperforming the boys - what about those who are not? In terms of assessment, not all boys excel in exam conditions as opposed to coursework and this varies from student to student, male to female. Maybe we should now concentrate on addressing the way individual students learn and focus on training them in the various modes of assessment, rather than blame the failing of boys, or indeed the achievement of girls, on their supposed inherent traits.