Tag: subject choice

Why do Males and Females Choose Different Subjects?

parental and teacher stereotypes combine to reinforce gendered subject images!

Despite gender becoming more fluid in recent decades, students continue to choose subjects aligned to stereotypical, traditional male and female gender identities.

While it is true that subject choice is becoming gradually less gendered, gender stereotypical subject choices are still apparent when we look at the statistics in the 2020s.

For example, 95% of candidates studying Health and Social Care BTEC are female while Computer Science and Engineering are dominated by males.

For a more in-depth dive into gendered subject choices at different levels of education in 2022 please see my post on gender and subject choice.

Explaining gendered differences in subject choice

There are three broad explanations for why boys and girls continue to choose gender stereotypical subjects:

  • factors external to the school such as socialisation in the family home and peer group pressure.
  • In school factors such as the gender of the teachers teaching certain subjects and gender stereotypes held by teachers.
  • Ingrained gendered subject images which is a result of home and school factors.

Socialisation and gendered subject choice

Some research suggests that the gender stereotypes of parents still influence what toys boys and girls and play with, with some parents believing that certain types of toys are only really suitable for boys and girls.

Girls being steered into playing with dolls from an early age may influence their choice to study health and social care later on as teenagers, with its focus on child care.

Similarly, boys being steered towards toy tools and trucks may result in a higher proportion of them choosing to study engineering at university.

More generally, socialisation differences may result in different levels of self-confidence for boys and girls.

The results of laboratory experiments also suggest that men are more likely to enter competitive arenas than women because of higher levels of confidence (Gneezy et al., 2003; Niederle and Vesterlund, 2007).

Colley (1998) found that peer groups often subscribe to gender stereotypes and may encourage girls to choose more traditionally feminine subjects at GCSE and vice-versa for boys.

Teacher Labelling and gendered subject choice

Traditional beliefs about masculinity and femininity may still be held by teachers, lecturers and careers advisors, especially in mixed schools.

Some contemporary sociological research suggests that teachers’ gender stereotypes result in girls being less likely to choose STEM-related choices within high school and beyond ((Lavy and Sand, 2018; Lavy and Meglokonomou, 2019; Terrier, 2020).

There is a gender divide based on the subjects taught by men. Male teachers are more likely to specialise in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and PE, whereas women are more likely to teach humanities and languages. A lack of educational role models in STEM and PE can put some girls off taking these subjects. The effect is particularly visible among teenage girls who feel that male PE teachers cannot understand their needs properly (Gender Trust).

The fact that subjects in secondary schools such as English are more likely to be taught by women, and girls may feel more drawn to such subjects because they prefer the discursive style of female teachers. Similarly, subjects which boys are more likely to choose at GCSE and A-level, such as computing and physics, are more likely to be taught my males lower down in secondary schools, and boys might be more drawn to these subjects because of the more matter of fact way they are taught by male teachers.

Colley (1998) notes that girls in single-sex schools are twice as likely to study maths at university. This could be because the cultural pressures to not study maths are less likely to exist in single sex schools

Gendered Subject Images

The combination of external and internal factors above results in subjects becoming gendered: they develop an identity as essentially male or female.

This makes it harder for boys to choose ‘female’ subjects and girls to choose ‘male’ subjects.

Colley believes that the gender-identity of subjects may well shift with curriculum changes. For example the introduction of more technology into music is correlated with more boys choosing to study it.

Conclusions: Why do gendered differences in subject choice persist…?

Boys are more likely to choose traditionally male subjects and vice versa for girls as a combination of home and school factors such as gender stereotyping held by parents and teachers, which affects boys and girls self-concepts which are in turn reinforced by peers.

In a review of the literature Skelton et al (2007) noted that ‘gender stereotyping’ and ‘differential constructions of gender among pupils and teachers’ are probably the most significant factors in explaining gendered differences in subject choice.

It is very difficult to pinpoint one main causal variable for gendered differences in subject choice, the reasons are due to a multitude of factors.

Signposting

This material has been written primarily for students studying the education option as part of their A-level in sociology.

Gender and Subject Choice

The most female dominated subjects are performing arts, health and social care and sociology, the most male dominated subjects are computer science and I.T., construction and engineering.

Subject choice in post-16 education remains heavily influenced by gender in 2022.

If we look at the total numbers of students taking A-level and BTEC subjects we find that girls and young women are still more likely to choose subjects which conform to the norms and roles associated with females, such as performing arts and health and social care.Boys and young men on the other hand are more likely to choose subjects which align with traditionally male gender norms and roles such as physics and computing.

However these trends are just generalisations and there are of course exceptions, and the ‘traditional gender-divide’ in subject choice has been reducing over time.

This post explores some of the differences in subject choice by gender in 2021-2022, focusing on A-levels, BTECs, higher education and apprenticeships. (I don’t look at GCSE level or below because students do not have freedom of subject choice until they pass their GCSEs and pursue post-16 education.

  1. Computer Science: 80% of pupils are male
  2. Physics: 75% male
  3. Further Mathematics: 65% male
  4. Design and Technology: 64% male
  5. Economics: 63% male.

The most female dominated subjects at A-level are:

  1. Performing arts: 90% of students are female
  2. English Literature: 78% female
  3. Sociology: 77% female
  4. Art and Design subjections: 75% female
  5. Psychology: 74% female
  6. Spanish and French: 74% female.

Most other subjects have a much more equal gender balance, so are best characterised as gender neutral.

Gender and Subject Choice at BTEC

Subject choices at BTEC also remain heavily gendered in some subjects. For example:

    • 90% of students choosing health and social care are female.
    • 85% of students choosing Information Technology are male.
    • 75% of students choosing Sport BTEC are male.

Business BTEC is more gender neutral with nearer a 60-40 split in favour of males and Applied Science is the most gender neutral subject with almost equal numbers of male and female students in 2022.

The gender divide continues into Higher Education, once again with subjects broadly divided along stereotypical gender lines:

The top five degree subjects for females are:

  • Subjects allied to medicine
  • Social Sciences and psychology
  • Veterinary sciences
  • Education and Teaching
  • Design and Creative and Performing Arts.

    Five subjects where there are more males studying them than females are:

  • Engineering and Technology
  • Computing
  • Architecture
  • Physical Sciences
  • Mathematical Sciences.

Gender and Apprenticeships

The traditional gender divide is somewhat apparent when it comes to the types of apprenticeship men and women choose, but it less dramatic than with subject choices at A-Level, BTEC and University.

    Females dominate in health and social care and education apprenticeships. Males dominate in construction, manufacturing and transportation. But many apprenticeships are gender neutral such as retail and public administration.

Signposting

This material is relevant to the gender and subject choice topic within the Education topic of A-level Sociology

You might also like to read this post on why males and females choose different subjects in education.

Sources

Name Gender, Achievement and Subject Choice in English EducationHESA Student Enrolments by Gender Gov.uk Apprenticeship Data by enterprise and learner characteristics

Outline three reasons why girls are less likely to choose science subjects than boys (6 marks) 

This is a possible 6 mark question for the AQA’s 7192/1 Education and Theory with Methods Paper –

The technique to answering such a question is to think of it in terms of 3 lots of 1 + 1 – you need 3 identifiers and then three developments

Possible identifiers

  • Teacher’s sexist ideas channeling girls into ‘girls subjects’
  • Science taught in a male way using male examples (engines), put girls off
  • Biological differences. Girls better at communication, not much discussion in science subjects
  • Differential parental encouragement
  • Boys more likely to play with technical toys
  • Fewer girls in text books
  • Fewer female science teachers
  • Boys dominate classroom by dominating practical equipment

Three identifiers plus three explanations/ developments…

  • (ID) Teachers may have stereotypical ideas that girls would struggle in male dominated subjects such as physics, (EX) and they may try and put them off, steering them towards other, more traditionally feminine subjects such as English, meaning fewer girls end up doing science subjects. 
  • (ID) Science subjects are often taught using masculine examples – for example, physics text books might use cars to illustrate the laws of motion. (EX) This might put girls off doing physics because they have no interest in the masculine examples used to teach these subjects. 
  • (ID) Girls are more likely to be socialised into discussing their feelings, (EX) and thus they might be more likely to choose subjects such as history and English where you need to discuss things more, rather than sciences where there is less discussion and ‘one right answer’. 

For more examples of exam practice questions, please see links on my ‘exams page‘!

Analyse two reasons why women remain economically disadvantaged compared to men despite the increase in the gender gap in educational achievement (10)

Using material from item A and elsewhere, analyse two reasons why women remain economically disadvantaged compared to men despite the increase in the gender gap in educational achievement (10)

Item A

Girls have been outperforming boys in education for 30 years now. However, despite this, men still earn more than women.

There are many explanations for this: the most obvious being that schools fail to adequately tackle other aspects of gender inequality: such as gender differences in socialisation, social roles and gendered differences in subject choice.

Suggested Answer

gender gap education work

One reason is that despite getting better qualifications than men, women are more likely to work part-time than men.

This is because despite changes to education in the world of work women are still more likely to be the primary child carers, and thus take time off work, putting their careers on hold in order to bring up children.

According to Radical Feminists this shows that schools fail to tackle in-grained gendered socialisation learnt at home and via the media…. girls may increasingly be going into careers, but by the time they get to 35 and have their first baby it is generally women who take time off work, not men.

This might be because schools only focus on the formal aspects of qualifications (i.e. exam skills, grades) and fail to challenge gender-stereotypes about appropriate future work roles for men and women.

This could also be linked marketization – the curriculum narrows to focus on teaching to the test rather than focussing on broader educational issues such as promoting gender equality and diversity.

A second reason may be that girls are more likely to choose caring subjects which are linked to lower paid careers such as health and social care which leads into nursing.

In contrast boys choose more technical subjects which are linked to more highly paid careers, such as maths and computer programming leading onto engineering and computer programming.

According to labelling theory, this happens because of gendered stereotypes held by careers advisors, with subject advisors steering girls and boys into ‘traditional subject choices’.

This criticises the Liberal Feminist view that mere ‘equality of opportunity’ is sufficient to being about wage equality, and supports the Radical Feminist view that patriarchy (in the form of stereotypical assumptions) still works within schools to disadvantage girls.

However, all of this is changing and that a higher proportion of girls are choosing to do traditionally male subjects and are going into male jobs in greater numbers and that things are actually becoming more equal. Supporting evidence for this lies in the fact that women in their 20s actually earn more than men in their 20s.

 

 

Women do lower payed jobs than men.

Gender gap

Educational achievement

Also subject choice

Gender and Subject Choice 2017

Looking at the A level exam entries by gender in 2017 over 90% of people who sat computing were male, compared to only 23% of people who sat sociology A level.

A Level Subjects Gender 2017

 

Either click on the above graphic or check out the interactive version here (irritatingly I can’t embed dynamic visuals in a wordpress.com blog, yet!) 

These are only selected A-levels, to make the amount of information more manageable…. I didn’t deliberately select it so sociology was the most feminine, but it’s certainly ‘up there’ as one of the most female dominated subjects… must be all that empathizing us sociologists do?!

Talking about empathy, or lack of it, I have to say absolutely no thanks whatsoever to the Joint Qualifications Alliance who did not even respond to my email request for a spread sheet of this A-level data.

The JCQ only make this public data available in the form of a PDF which makes it less accessible for data manipulation – I had to enter this info by hand, which was massively inefficient use of my time.

This post is primarily me testing out the capabilities of Tableau (Free data viz software)…. More on subject choice at different levels of education later, as well as analysis of WHY males and females choose different subjects…..

Source:

Joint Council for Qualifications and Enemies of Open Data. 

 

Analyse two reasons for gender differences in subject choice (10)

The trick here is to pick two broad (rather than very specific) reasons, which will give you the most scope to develop

 The first reason is gendered differences in early socialisation

Fiona Norman (1988) found that most parents socialise boys and girls in different ways – they tend to be more gentle with girls, protect them more, and encourage them in more passive activities, such as reading with them, whereas ‘typical boys’ are encouraged to run around and ‘let of steam’ more.

Later on in school, this might explain why more boys do active subjects such as P.E. and why more girls do reflective, academic subjects such as English and sociology.

A further gender difference in socialisation is the toys boys and girls play with – dolls for girls and cars and tool sets for boys, which could explain differences in vocational subjects – health and social care subjects (working with children) are very female dominated, engineering (making and fixing) are very much male dominated.

However, Postmodernists would say that these stereotypes are breaking down, and that gender stereotypes in socialisation are much less common than in the past, hence why we are seeing more gender diversity in subject choice today.

Peer group pressure might also encourage boys to do ‘typically boys subjects’ and girls to do typically girls subjects.

This linked to hegemonic (dominant ideas about) masculinity – stereotypically, ‘real men’ are good at sport, and so boys are under pressure play sport to fit into their male peer group, this doesn’t apply to girls and could explain why more boys do PE later in their school careers.

Similarly hegemonic femininity also requires that girls ‘look good’ (as Louise Archer found) which could explain why it is mostly girls who do hair and beauty courses.

Verbal abuse is one way these peer groups reinforce dominant gender identities. Boys choosing girls’ subjects can be accused of being ‘gay’, and vice versa for girls, and this may steer them away from subjects which don’t fit in with their gender domains.

To analyse this even further all of this is especially true of working class girls and boys, and for younger children, less so for middle class and older children (doing A level for example).