Background
to the
Research
- The paper examines evidence
showing that the academic performance of girls in NI has risen at
a faster rate than for boys. While policy concern has tended to concentrate
on religious differences, the paper suggests that this may help to
create a discursive environment within which equity considerations
are given more attention. Thus there has not been the same evidence
of 'moral panic' over gender differences in education and the focus
on religious differences has drawn wider attention to the role of
social dimensions mediating performance. The paper argues that current
gender patterns are related to rising expectations among girls that
can be linked to equal opportunity measures. It is not that something
has gone wrong for the boys, but rather that something that has gone
right for the girls.
Research
Approach
- The paper begins by offering a brief outline
of the basic features of the education system in NI.
- It reviews research evidence which has
focused on gender achievement, highlighting evidence of an emerging
pattern that the achievement levels of girls, as measured by examination
results, is rising at a faster rate than that for boys.
- It then considers, briefly, the broader
context of research on educational achievement in NI.
Main
Findings
- Much of the research on achievement in
NI has tended to focus either on the outputs of the two religious
school systems or on the consequences of the selective system.
- There has been very much less large scale
research on gender issues and practically no research in NI on the
ethnic minorities beyond the main religious groups.
- There is a greater tendency for girls
to stay beyond compulsory schooling than boys.
- The lowest level of measured achievement
is found among boys leaving Catholic secondary schools in comparison
with those leaving Protestant secondary schools.
- Throughout the 1980s, the examination
pattern for boys had changed little, while that for girls had moved
towards a science only, or science and arts mix.
- Changes in the pattern of A-level subject
choice were attributable less to girls perceptions of the academic
subjects themselves, and more to their perceptions of the occupational
opportunities they believed to be open to them in the future.
Conclusions
The evidence on gender and achievement
in NI considered in this paper highlights a number of themes:
- Gender has been given less priority than
religion in policy and research in NI.
- Despite this, the fact that there has
been so much research on religious differences in educational achievement
has meant that a lot of data on gender and achievement has been available,
albeit that it has not received the extent of concern it should have
received.
- Overall attainment levels, as measured
by performance in public examinations, has steadily increased over
a considerable period of time.
- The attainment levels of boys has risen
over time, but the rate of increase has been higher for girls than
boys.
- For girls, the changed patterns of A-level
subject choice were linked to preferred career and a view held by
girls that the opportunities available to them were wider than in
the past. The article suggests that this pattern perhaps highlights
the positive gains of equal opportunities measures over the past two
decades.
- In educational terms, it highlights a
factor which may independently affect the achievement level of girls
in a positive direction.
- The paper suggests that anti-school cultures
and disaffection may help to explain some of the low achievement levels
of some boys: this may represent a factor which independently, or
predominately, affects boy's achievement levels.
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