Gender differences in achievement and subject choice, and ethnic differences in achievement, explained through external factors and internal school processes including teacher labelling and ethnocentric curricula.

What this dot point is asking

AQA wants you to explain how achievement differs by gender (including subject choice) and by ethnicity, using both external factors (home and society) and internal factors (school processes), and to evaluate them. Watch for the trap of treating gender or ethnic groups as uniform.

Gender and achievement

Girls now outperform boys at GCSE and A-Level, a reversal of the historic pattern. Explanations include:

• External: the impact of feminism raising expectations and self-image; changing ambitions (Sue Sharpe's interviews found girls shifted from prioritising "love, marriage and children" to "careers"); and the decline of male manual jobs ("crisis of masculinity"), so qualifications matter more for boys' futures while their motivation lags.
• Internal: more coursework-based assessment (said to suit girls' organisation, Mitsos and Browne), positive female role models among teachers, and laddish anti-school subcultures and lower literacy among some boys, partly linked to gendered socialisation and reading habits.

Gender and subject choice

Achievement has converged, but subject choice remains strongly gendered (boys dominate physics and computing, girls dominate English and the social sciences).

• Gender role socialisation channels boys and girls towards different activities and self-images (Norman; Browne and Ross's "gender domains", the tasks each sees as their territory).
• Gendered subject images make science look masculine (Kelly, science as a boys' subject) and the humanities feminine, reinforced by textbooks and the gender of teachers.
• Peer pressure polices gender identity, so pupils avoid subjects seen as inappropriate for their gender, and boys may police others' masculinity (Paechter, Mac an Ghaill on verbal abuse).

Ethnicity and achievement

Achievement varies sharply by ethnic group (Chinese and Indian pupils often exceed the national average, while some Black Caribbean and Gypsy/Roma pupils underachieve), so generalisation is dangerous.

• External factors: material deprivation (which overlaps heavily with class), cultural and family factors, and the controversial cultural deprivation argument, criticised as victim-blaming.
• Internal factors: teacher labelling and racialised expectations, an ethnocentric curriculum, and pupil responses. Gillborn and Youdell found teachers' racialised expectations led to Black pupils being placed in lower sets; Sewell examined how some Black boys respond by forming subcultures (the "rebels"); Mac an Ghaill studied how labelling shapes ethnic and gender identities.

Evaluation

External and internal factors interact: home disadvantage shapes the labels schools apply, and school processes then amplify them. Crucially, class often cuts across ethnicity and gender, so apparent ethnic gaps may partly reflect material deprivation, and gender gaps differ by class and ethnicity. The most convincing answers stress this intersection rather than treating any group as uniform.