Gender Gap

Gender Gaps in Education
Not too long ago there have been rising signs of important changes in gender differences on individuals’ experiences in the education system. Even though the results for both genders have improved over the years, the girls’ improvement rate has been faster than the boys and an important, big gap has opened up. A national survey found that girls scored higher in all tests. The results were that sixty-two percent of girls were able to focus on their work without supervision for ten minutes and only forty-nine percent of boys could achieve this. Girls have a better chance of passing and achieving higher grades. Another example is that in 2006 ninety-five percent of girls passed two or more tests and only ninety-four percent of boys passed. There are many factors that contribute to the gender gap, but I believe that the teacher’s attention, the gender theory, and schools don’t adapt to male and female learning and assessment procedures are the most contributing factors to gender gaps between boys and girls.
One of the core factors which play an important part in the gender differences in achievement between boys and girls is the teacher’s attention. Joan Swann and David Graddol found that boys are usually more energetic and draw attention to the teachers gaze more often than girls. This gives boys more chances to speak. Research was conducted and resulted in findings that the way teachers interacted with girls was more positive because it focused on their schoolwork rather than behavior. Swann also found that when girls work in groups, a girl’s speech does not involve aggressive interruptions that are usually affiliated with a boy’s speech. This could explain why teachers see girls as cooperative and respond more positively to them, than to boys, seeing them as disruptive. This leads to a “self-fulfilling prophecy” in which positive interactions with teachers build girls’ self-esteem and increase their success levels.
Another factor inside of school that causes gender differences between boys and girls in achievement is because of the gender theory. Boys and girls enter the educational system with different behaviors, attitudes, and values. This difference in male and female behaviors, attitudes, and values causes a line to be drawn between masculinity and femininity, causing a gender gap between boys and girls. In a school setting a male’s behavior, values, and attitudes interferes with a male’s educational achievement. This causes boys to be disruptive, anti-school, and only paying attention to masculine subjects. For example, Warrington, Younger, and Williams found that boys were more likely to be ridiculed by their peers for working hard at school than girls. Then they turn to “laddish” behavior such as challenging authority, and draw attention to themselves and pretend not to care about school work in order to be accepted by their peers.
The last factor that contributes to a gender gap between boys and girls in academic achievement is that schools don’t adapt to both female and male learning and assessment procedures. It had been said that teaching and schooling has become “feminized” and schools are no longer addressing boys’ educational needs. The facts that sway schooling to be considered as “feminized” are: school and classroom regimes that favor mostly females, a lack of male teachers to act as academic role models for boys, a lack of toughness in discipline, a rejection of competition, and a prejudice towards feminism in the educational system. Fergusson and Horwood examined the links between gender and educational achievement in teacher reported classroom behavior.
In conclusion, there are many factors that contribute to the gender gap between boys and girls in the educational system. The most significant factors are the teacher’s attention, the gender theory, and that schools don’t adapt to male and female learning and assessment procedures. The outcomes of these factors are the reason why we now have gender gaps in our educational system. In order to cease a greater gender gap, action should be taken immediately and schools should adapt to both male and female needs in the learning environment.