Examine the reasons for changes in the educational attainment of males

Examine the reasons for changes in the educational attainment of malesand female persons in recent years (20 marks)For the by recent years girls have significantly outperformed boysin educational attainment and this is due to a number of factors. TheGCSE results for 2000 and 2001 shows the degree to which thepercentage of girls achieving grades A*-C exceeded that of boys. In2002, 62.4% of female GCSE entrants achieved grades A*-C, comparedwith 53.4% of males. Research published in 2003 shows that the gapbetween girls and boys widens as they grow older. The almost recentbarrier which is being broken down is that of university entry. Themost recent official figures for a gender breakdown in universityadmission are from 2001. These show that while 43% of all youngpeople entered higher(prenominal) education, the figure for girls was 46.7% andfor boys 40.4%Joan Gannod drew a number of conclusions as to why this was. Onereason is for the lad culture that resides in numerous schools. Thea ttitude that school is bad, an anti-social culture wreakingagainst learning. Keith Shipman and Keith Hicks identified that thepresence of friends in a company make you work less. That boys sawlooking cool as being more(prenominal) important than being studious. Also, PaulWillis identified that working class boys were much susceptible tothis as it was the middle class values that were prized in theclassroom via the secluded curriculum which influenced the boys intoworking against the education system. Another theorist, Peter woodsIn The Divided School (1979) argued that boys are more concerned withthe approval of their peer group than the approval of their teachers.Another further reason is the lack of role models for boys,p... ...he number of girls expressing professional career hopessuch as doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc. Sharpe has argued thatthese changes in attitudes towards marriage and work are factors inexplaining why girls are performing better at school than they weretwenty years ago.I think that the interactionist perspective for example, Peter Woodsis successful in theory, as he be consistves that it provides informationwhich could lead to better teaching and a reduction in conflict anddeviance within schools and this Marxist approach has itslimitations and its main focus is from a macro perspective and doesnot appear to focus on each individual. The relative uniformity ofmeanings that lie behind what counts as knowledge and ability,suggests that such meanings are not simply constructed in theclassroom but rather they have a wider and fundamental basis.