Male culture disadvantages boys in education Essay

Until the late 1980s, most sociological literature center on the underachieve manpowert of girls. Girls were less likely to pursue A levels and consequently to enter higher schooling. However, in the primeval 1990s, it was argued that girls had begun to outperform boys at most levels of the education system.The main sociological focus today at that placefore is on the underachievement of boys. Epstein et al.(1999) state that boys underachievement is not something new, but in the past was not a distressful trend for two reasons working-class boys used to move easily into jobs without good qualifications in the days when sons followed fathers into mines, factories, and so forth And the structural and cultural barriers preventing females access to high-status jobs and the pressure on women to become wives and mothers, etc. meant that males always achieved better paid jobs in the long run. However, today Epstein notes that governments argon anxious close large amount of unemploye d young men because they ar a potential threat to social order.There ar umteen reasons why boys are under-achieving in education. In some schools, the extent of boys underachievement has become so unsafe that twice as many girls are getting five GCSEs grades A-C. It is estimated that by the age of 16, well-nigh 40% of boys are lost to education. Some sociologists have suggested that the fault lies with teachers. Studies of classroom interaction and the relationship in the midst of pupils and teachers suggest that teachers are not as strict with boys as with girls. It is claimed that teachers tend to have lower postations of boys, e. g.they expect work to be late, to be untidy and boys to be disruptive. Emphasis in the past has been on excluding much(prenominal) boys rather than looking for ways to motivate them.Consequently a culture of low achievement evolved among boys and was not acted upon because the emphasis in schools for many years was to make education more relevant and interesting for girls. Boys implementation in schools is a complex issue. This policy issue of boys underachievement can be understood in many different ways. The issue can be framed in terms of human capital, class incatchity, equal opportunities or social justice.Links can be drawn between the low educational acquisition of some boys and the low employment rates of some young men. There is also for some boys an ill will between educational attainment, even attentiveness, and the performance and achievement of particular and valued masculinities. Mac An Ghaill (1996) argues that working-class boys are experiencing a crisis of masculinity. Their socialisation into traditional masculine identity has been undermined by the decline of traditional mens jobs in manufacturing and primary industries such as mining.Mass unemployment found in working-class areas way that boys are no longer sure about their future role as men. This confusion about their future role may lead working-cl ass boys to conclude that qualifications are a waste of metre because there are only limited opportunities in the job market. The future looks bleak and without purpose so they dont see the point in working wicked. They may temporarily resolve this crisis by constructing delinquent or anti-school subcultures, which tend to be anti-learning.Research evidence indicates that boys appear to gain street believability and status in such cultures for not working. In 1994 Panoramas The Future is Female by Hannon suggested that with more opportunities for women in the work place, a change in the female ideology and with a fairer education system women simply passed the boys. Boys are not actually doing worse than they have done in the past, they are improving, but girls improvement outstrips boys Hannon, The Future is Female, 1994.With father opportunities of women it is easy to realise the origins of the current masculinity crisis, as there is no set role. Boys are no longer thought of as maturing later and comfortably paseo into sustainable education. Instead men are expected to work hard throughout education to delineate the rewards later but this is against the gender class portrayed through the agents of socialisation. With this problem the new man was created producing a crisis for men on which to evolve into.Both published in socialisation agents boys have the problem of evolving into fulfilling the laddish stereotype or one in which they draw away from the idea that it is not male to work hard in education. Other sociologists have pointed to the feminine culture, which surrounds younger children as a possible influence on male under- achievement. Children, both male and female, may equate learning and therefore schooling with femininity. As boys generate up, they identify with more masculine role models and may reject academic learning and skills such as presentation and reading as feminine.Boys and reading and boys and literature are frequently mentioned by teachers as get to spots in educating boys. Many young boys belong to anti-learning sub-cultures and they would therefore be deemed as un-cool if they achieved well in school especially in a girly subject such as English. Many boys dont try to achieve at school simply to conform to their groups norms and values. If their group doesnt value education then they wont. They believe it is more valuable to be popular and in with the right crowd as opposed to achieving in school and education.