Why are boys a problem for the education system today?

Introduction:

Until the middle 1990s boys were not generally seen as aspecific problem in British education. Many
researchers in education tendedto focus on the disadvantages facing girls in schools and the way they
tendedto be channelled into soft subjects such as cookery and health and socialcare while boys were left
to dominate subjects such as the sciences (apartfrom biology), mathematics and wood and metal
working.

The increasing penetration offeminist arguments into the debate on education however has
increasinglyundermined these gender distinctions while the ending of O levels in 1988 andtheir
replacement by GCSE led to a more girl-centred examination regime with thefocus on course work.

It has thus become possible tospeak in recent years of boys as a distinct problem for the
educationalsystem in Britain. As this essay will seek to point out, though, this is by nomeans to the
exclusion of other significant problems such as poor classroomdiscipline, weak teaching in some schools
and continuing social and economicdisadvantage for some social groups.

It became evident indeed duringthe 1990s that girls were increasingly out-performing boys across almost
allsubjects, especially English, Art, Design and Technology and modern languages.This difference
emerges in primary school at Key Stage 1 where a higherproportion of girls than boys achieve a level 2 in
reading and writing comparedto boys and continues right through secondary school (ranging from 9.1% in
1998to 7.2% in 2002). The gap between girls and boys in reading and writingcontinues into Key Stage 3
where it widens to up to a 15% difference in 2002.Only in Mathematics do boys outperform girls by a
small margin (2.8% in 1998and 0% in 2002) (Ofsted 2003, pp. 38-39). These differences are by no
meansunique to Britain since similar differences have been found in otherOrganisation of Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. In all27 OECD countries boys scored lower than girls in
reading tests although onlyfive countries (including Portugal and Denmark from Europe) had a smaller
gapthan the UK. It is possible to take some pride in the fact that the UK's gendergap is smaller than the
average of OECD countries (Ofsted 2003, p. 8)

It is evident that boys do face agreater degree of difficulty in learning compare to girls in almost
allsubjects. This gap has probably widened as more opportunities have becomeavailable for girls to excel
in a wider range of subjects than twenty to thirtyyears ago. It may therefore be the case that we are not
faced with a distinctlynew problem but one that has always been there but is now becoming moreevident.
Girls, it is generally recognised, are happy to work over long periodsof time at producing full coursework
portfolios. Boys, on the other hand, tendto prefer putting off revision for exams until the last moment,
meaning thatthey are reluctant to engage in extensive coursework and prefer crammingthemselves for a
final one-off examination (Bleach 1998, p. 13).

The reasons for the difficultiesfacing boys in education can to some extent be put down to basic biological
andgenetic differences between the sexes. Boys possess an X and a Y chromosomewhile girls have 2
Xs: some biologists have concluded from this that this makesboys genetically less well disposed towards
understanding the feelings ofothers, forcing many to learn social skills which tend to come to girls
morenaturally. This makes them more resistant to school discipline and it isimportant to note that in British
secondary schools boys are four times morelikely to be excluded than girls while in primary schools the
ratio is 14:1(Kitching, 2001: 7). In the case of school work, too, boys are more likely torebel against the
constant attention to detail that a course work basedcurriculum demands (Bleach 1998, p. 3)

It is probably unwise to pushthese biological arguments too far since the obvious question arises if
boysare doing badly now as a result of genetic background why have they not donebadly in the past?
There are clearly a series of other reasons that need to belooked at in order to be able to understand the
relatively poor performance ofboys in schools in Britain compared to twenty to thirty years ago.

Indeed, another way of looking atthis issue is to see it not as part of a long-standing problem concerning
boys'ability to learn but also one that has been produced but a new set ofcircumstances both inside and
outside the school that have produced a situationthat is increasingly disadvantaging boys as a group
compared to twenty tothirty years ago. Boys are emerging as a increasing problem in school policy.In this
essay I shall look at this argument in two main areas: firstly, therise of the single parent family and its
impact on the culture of laddismand, secondly, the teaching regime within schools.

The single parent family and the rise of laddism

In the course of the 1990sresearchers in education tended to shift their attention away from extra
schoolforms of explanation for the success and failure of children towards moreschool-centred
approaches. This was driven to a considerable extent bypolitical values as radical researchers became
increasingly hostile toexplanations for the relatively poor performance of working class children inschool
in terms of working class family life The newer school-centred approach,by contrast, has been keen to
stress poor performance in terms of unequalallocation of classroom resources as well as the bias and
hostility amongteachers towards certain categories of pupils and their active sponsorship ofothers
(Foster, Gomm and Hammersley 1996, p 111).

In the case of the poorperformance of boys this new school-centred approach has been favoured in
muchof the recent discussion and I shall look at this in the next section. Howeverit is also clear that the
older extra school approach has a lot of value whenit comes to understanding the difficulties confronting
many boys in school.

One of the central explanationsfor the relatively poor performance of many boys relates to the
changingstructure of the family in Britain. High divorce rates and family break-upshave impacted more
highly on boys compared to girls. Boys, it has often beenargued, need a male role model more than girls
and if they are unable to findsuch a role model within the family in the form of the father than they willseek
one elsewhere as a yardstick for masculinity. Often this can be amongother young men similar to their
own age and this leads to them identifyingthemselves with a very limited conception of a boy as a non
girl. This thenleads them to valuing coolness, hardness and in some cases a homophobic andanti gay
outlook (Neall 2002, p. 13). Here are the ingredients of a culture ofladdism that has been much talked
about in recent years in terms of the antisocial behaviour of many young men both in school and outside.
It has oftenbeen used to explain yob culture in city and town centres as well as theunruly behaviour of
soccer hooligans.

Macho and lad culture haveclearly penetrated into schools and has some impact on the poor
performance ofsome boys in school. Some research conducted by Keith Shipman and Keith Hicksin 1998
for example pointed to the importance of what was termed boys peergroup culture and that for a small
number of boys home background has such anegative effect on motivation and is causing such disruption
in their livesthat they can be classed as 'pupils under pressure'(cited in Ofsted 2003, p.10). Since the late
1990s this negative peer group pressure may well haveescalated in many schools to the point where a
distinct anti learning culturehas taken hold preventing many boys as well as girls from doing any
seriouswork in class.

This anti learning culture amongboys takes a number of forms in schools. It is manifested by a reluctance
toengage with lessons and either passive withdrawal from the teaching process oractive disruption of
lessons. In addition it can lead to progressive nonattendance and truancy from school as well as the
involvement with gangcultures which have now penetrated many schools in Britain, especially in majorcity
areas. The anti learning culture can in some cases contribute to a declinein the morale of many teachers
who may leave the profession and so furtherundermine the confidence of many boys in schools where
there is a rapidturnover of teaching staff.

The anti learning culture amongboys is often a form of defence against low self esteem. As one former
teacher,Peter Neall, has pointed out boys have adjusted to being branded as idiots andhave turned it
almost into a fashion accessory. This has led to a situationwhere it has become cool to be a fool, which is
a kind of self preservationmechanism coming into play. Rather than be put down, boys will put on a
frontthat they want to under-perform or be disobedient from their own choice(quoted in Bale 2003).

This anti learning cultureembraces girls as well as boys in many schools and, from recent reporting inthe
media, appears to be spreading to the point where many schools have lostcontrol of pupil discipline. This
is an issue that schools do not like to havereported but, as the recent undercover filming by one supply
teacher of aseries of classes that were seriously disrupted, has led to the point in anumber of schools
where discipline has effectively broken down (Henry 2005).This can be in part explained by the anti
learning culture among many boys;however, since many girls are involved in this disruption too, it would
be anexaggeration to say that this is the whole explanation.

The situation within schools

Another type of explanation forboys. relatively poor performance compared to girls focuses on the
regimeoperating within schools. Here the main issues concern both the allocation ofschool resources as
well as the type of teaching employed to cater to the needsand interests of boys.

There is no real evidence thatresources within schools are allocated in a distinctly gender-biased way
tofavour girls. Indeed traditionally schools resources have been skewed infavour of subjects in which
boys have traditionally excelled such sciencelaboratories, carpentry, metal working and sporting facilities.
The issuerelates far more to the kind of teaching regime that different schools employ,though this is an
area that is notoriously difficult to quantify and compare ina rigorous manner. Much of the research in this
area has been of an ethnographicnature based on the participant observation by researchers in class. It
may bepossible to show from this research that the attention of teachers is unequallyallocated to
particular groups of pupils though it is still difficult from aseries of snapshot observations to deduce from
this the actual overall amountof teacher attention that is misallocated or its frequency (Foster, Gomm
andHammersly 1996, p. 111).

However the general impressionhas emerged from the research that has been done that boys'
performance is moreaffected by the kind of learning regime operating in a school compared togirls. For
instance, from survey work conducted in 1996 in mixed by HerMajesty's Inspector of Schools (HMI) it was
found that in more than two thirds oflessons teachers gave little or no attention to where boys and girls
sat in theclassroom. This though clearly did have an effect on performance sinceboys-only groups or
pairs within classes performed markedly less well than whenthe class as a whole was put into either
mixed set groups or pairs (cited inOfsted 2003, p. 8).

In addition it is also evidentthat many boys performed far better in schools which have an ethos
encouraginghigh standards and that engages their interest and commitment and that insistson good
behaviour and close partnership with parents Boys tend from thisevidence to perform much better in
schools with a good learning culture whereasgirls are rather better able to learn from indifferent or poor
teachingcompared to boys (Ofsted 2003, p. 3). The implication of this is that manyschools need to rethink
their teaching and learning strategies in order todevelop a whole-school focus that employs base line data
in order to measurepupils progress and takes into account gender. By setting targets forindividual pupils it
becomes possible to raise expectations as well as trackthose pupils who are under-performing. The
adoption by schools of a mentoringsystem may also help in this process as the performance of boys is
tracked.

It is also evident that singlesex schools in many cases help a lot of boys. In contrast to the picture ofthe
twenty to thirty years ago where under-performing girls were oftenconsidered to be better off in single sex
schools. It is now often argued thatboys perform better in situation where they do not face competition
fromgirls. The 2001 GCSE results appear to confirm this as boys achieving 5+A*-Cgrades was higher in
single sex schools except for schools where over 50% ofpupils were entitled to free school lunches,
suggesting that family backgroundalso plays a role in this. Boys from middle income homes are thus
more likelyto do well in single sex schools than mixed ones where this may be less so forboys from
poorer backgrounds (Ofsted 2003, p. 27). However only 7%of boys incomprehensive schools are in
single sex schools, though the implication ofthese results may be that boys as a whole will benefit from
more single sexschooling. It should also be pointed out that the results for girls also confirmedthat girls in
single sex schools outperformed girls in mixed schools (Ofsted2003, p. 270.

Conclusion
This essay has sought to showthat in many ways boys can be seen as a problem in the educational
system inBritain in terms of the fact that they are under-performing relative to girls.In addition, boys are at
the centre of contemporary discussion concerning ananti learning culture that has penetrated many
schools along with macho andladdish behaviour.

The sociological explanations forthis underperformance can be located both outside the school in general
socialand economic trends as well as within schools themselves and their teachingregimes. While the first
is often referred to the main emphasis in much recentdiscussion such as the 2003 Ofsted Report on Boys
Achievement stresses thecentral role of the teaching within schools. This emphasis is part of a
moregeneral shift in educational research since the 1980s towards the school andaway from wider
economic and class factors though as Foster, Gomm andHammersley point out this has led to a
redefinition of the concept ofeducational inequality away from the original concept of equality
ofopportunity towards the concept of equality of outcome. This has also meantthat almost anything that
schools do can be treated as contributing toeducational disadvantage through exploitation of the
uncertainty whichsurrounds our understanding of the effect of treatment on outcomes (1996, p.176).

It is probably too easy to blame schools for theseapparent disadvantages for boys which also need to be
explained in terms ofwider pressures from the surrounding culture outside schools. Getting thebalance
right in this form of educational debate though is probably never goingto be very easy.

References

Bale, B, 2003. Taming the Classroom Rebels, TheAberdeen Press and Journal, 6 February.

Bleach, K, 1998. Why the likely lads lag behind. InK.Bleach, ed. Reviewing Boys Achievement in Schools.
London: TrenthamPress, 2-17

Foster, P, Gomm, R, Hammersley, M, 1996. ConstructingEducational Inequality. London: The Falmer

Press.

Henry, J, 2005. 'The disruption made teaching virtuallyimpossible. I could not believe what I saw'. The
Sunday Telegraph, 24April.

Ofsted, 2003. Boys Achievement,July. London: HMI.