Education Policy and Gender – ReviseSociology

Table of Contents

Last Updated on November 7, 2026 by Karl Thompson

Education policy in England has dealt with gender in three broad phases:

Until the 1970s, policy largely reflected the gender roles of the time: boys and girls were often educated separately and prepared for different adult lives.
From the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and feminist research led to policies aimed at girls’ underachievement, especially in maths and science.

From the 1990s, once girls had overtaken boys at GCSE, the focus switched to boys’ achievement, while newer policies have dealt with equality law and sexual harassment.

This post covers each phase and evaluates what the policies achieved. It’s part of the gender and education topic in the sociology of education module (AQA Paper 1, 7192/1). For education policy in general, see my summary of education policies.

Gender and education before the 1970s

In the 19th century, middle-class education reflected a sharp division between men’s and women’s roles. Public schools and grammar schools were mainly for boys, preparing them for politics, the professions and business, while many middle-class girls were educated at home with an emphasis on domestic and social accomplishments. Women had no vote, and the law on marriage and divorce was heavily weighted against them: divorce through the courts became possible in 1857, but on more demanding grounds for wives than for husbands.

The Elementary Education Act 1870 created school boards to provide elementary schools wherever there weren’t enough places, for girls as well as boys. Attendance became compulsory in 1880, and elementary education became largely free from 1891. Access was opened up, but the experience of school remained gendered: girls were taught needlework and domestic subjects, boys more practical and technical ones.

Women over 30 who met a property qualification won the vote in 1918, and women gained the vote on equal terms with men in 1928. Neither change did much, by itself, to alter how girls were taught.

The tripartite system and comprehensives

The Education Act 1944 introduced free secondary education for all, and in most areas a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools, with selection by the 11-plus. Many grammar schools, most of which predated the Act, were single-sex. Where an area had fewer grammar school places for girls than for boys, girls could need higher marks to get one. In 1989 the House of Lords ruled that Birmingham City Council had discriminated unlawfully against girls under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, because it provided more grammar school places for boys, so that girls needed higher marks than boys to win one.

From 1965, Circular 10/65 asked local authorities to reorganise secondary schools along comprehensive lines. Most comprehensives were mixed, but the circular didn’t abolish single-sex schools, many of which still exist. And within mixed schools, subjects were often still divided by gender, with girls steered towards needlework and cookery and boys towards metalwork and woodwork. The selection policies post covers the tripartite system in full.

The 1970s and 1980s: girls’ underachievement

The Sex Discrimination Act 1975 made it unlawful for schools to treat pupils less favourably because of their sex, including in access to subjects. Together with the Equal Pay Act 1970, it marked the start of a policy focus on girls’ disadvantage.

Feminist research at the time showed how school reinforced traditional gender roles. Sue Sharpe’s Just Like a Girl (1976) found working-class girls prioritising marriage and children over careers. Judith Whyte’s Beyond the Wendy House (1983) examined sex-role stereotyping in primary schools. Dale Spender’s Invisible Women (1982) argued that girls were marginalised in classrooms, with teachers giving boys more of their attention. These studies are covered on my posts on the gender gap and the feminist perspective on education.

Getting girls into science

The 1980s saw several initiatives to get more girls into maths, science and technology.

Girls into Science and Technology (GIST) was an action research project in the early 1980s which investigated why so few girls chose physical science and technology and worked with teachers on ways to change it. Its story is told in Judith Whyte’s Girls into Science and Technology (1986).

The Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) campaign was launched in January 1984, with support from the Engineering Council, to encourage girls and women into science and engineering. It still exists today.

Other schemes encouraged teachers to monitor gender bias in their own classrooms and to develop anti-sexist practices.

The 1988 Education Reform Act and the national curriculum

The 1988 Education Reform Act was mainly about marketisation, not gender, but one of its measures mattered a great deal for gender: the national curriculum. By making science a core subject that every pupil had to study, it ended the old pattern in which many girls dropped physical sciences early. Girls now take maths and the sciences at GCSE in almost the same numbers as boys (in 2026, 48.1% of GCSE physics entries were from girls).

The GCSE, first examined in 1988, also introduced a much larger element of coursework. Girls overtook boys at 16 within a few years, and coursework was often blamed. But the evidence doesn’t support coursework as the main cause: girls stayed ahead after most coursework was removed from GCSEs in the reforms that began in 2015.

From the 1990s: the switch to boys

Once girls had overtaken boys, policy attention switched to boys’ achievement. Government-funded research such as the Raising Boys’ Achievement project (Younger, Warrington and Gray, 2005), carried out for the Department for Education and Skills, investigated how schools could raise boys’ achievement. Recruiting more male teachers, especially in primary schools, has been proposed repeatedly, even though research has found that teacher gender makes no difference to pupils’ results. Whether the concern about boys was justified is covered on my post on boys’ underachievement.

Gender and education policy today

Three more recent strands of policy matter for gender:

Equality law. The Equality Act 2010 replaced the Sex Discrimination Act, and places a duty on schools not to discriminate on grounds of sex (and other protected characteristics, including gender reassignment).
Relationships and sex education. Relationships education in primary schools, and relationships and sex education in secondary schools, became compulsory from September 2020. For how schools are expected to respond to pupils questioning their gender, see my post on gender identity and education.

Sexual harassment. Ofsted’s 2021 Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges found sexual harassment so widespread that many pupils saw no point in reporting it. Schools’ statutory safeguarding guidance, Keeping Children Safe in Education, sets out their duties on child-on-child abuse. The findings are on my post on gender socialisation in schools.

Timeline: education policy and gender

Date	Policy or event	Significance for gender
1870	Elementary Education Act	Elementary schools for girls and boys; curriculum still gendered
1944	Education Act	Free secondary education for all; tripartite system, many single-sex grammar schools
1965	Circular 10/65	Comprehensive reorganisation; most comprehensives mixed
1975	Sex Discrimination Act	Unlawful to treat pupils less favourably because of their sex
Early 1980s	GIST project	Getting girls into science and technology
1984	WISE campaign launched	Women into science and engineering
1988	Education Reform Act; first GCSE exams	National curriculum makes science compulsory for all; coursework expands
1989	House of Lords ruling against Birmingham City Council	Unequal grammar school places for girls ruled unlawful sex discrimination
2000s	Raising Boys’ Achievement research	Policy focus switches to boys
2010	Equality Act	Replaces the Sex Discrimination Act
2015 onwards	GCSE and A-level reforms	Most coursework removed; girls stay ahead
2020	Compulsory relationships (and sex) education	Statutory RSE in all schools
2021	Ofsted review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges	Sexual harassment of girls found to be widespread

Evaluating gender and education policy

Policy helped girls’ access and achievement. Equality law, the national curriculum and initiatives like GIST and WISE removed formal barriers and changed expectations, and girls have outperformed boys at 16 since the late 1980s. Liberal feminists see this as evidence that policy works.

HOWEVER, policy has done less to change subject choice. Girls take GCSE physics in almost equal numbers to boys, but only about a quarter of A-level physics entries are from girls (2026). Once choice opens up, the old pattern returns, which suggests the deeper causes lie in gender identities and subject images rather than in formal access (see gender and subject choice).

The switch to boys was contested. Feminist sociologists argued that policy focused on boys as a group when class and ethnicity mattered far more, and that it pushed girls’ problems, such as sexual harassment, out of view until Ofsted’s 2021 review.

Policy often follows research. Many of the policies above were prompted by research, from Sharpe and Spender in the 1970s and 1980s to the Everyone’s Invited testimonies that led to the 2021 Ofsted review. That’s a useful point when you’re evaluating whether sociology can influence policy.

How this comes up in the exam

Gender and policy are most useful as evaluation in Paper 1 (7192/1) essays on gender and achievement, such as June 2020’s question: “Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological explanations of gender differences in educational achievement” (see my full answer). Equal opportunities initiatives are one of the issues AQA’s mark scheme for that question lists.

Sociology of Education Revision Bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.

Signposting and Related Posts

This material is mainly relevant to the gender and education topic within the sociology of education.

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Sources

R v Birmingham City Council, ex parte Equal Opportunities Commission [1989] (House of Lords)
WISE, The history of WISE
Whyte, J. (1983) Beyond the Wendy House: Sex Role Stereotyping in Primary Schools, Schools Council; Whyte, J. (1986) Girls into Science and Technology: The Story of a Project, Routledge
Younger, M., Warrington, M. and Gray, J. (2005) Raising Boys’ Achievement, DfES Research Report 636

Sharpe, S. (1976) Just Like a Girl; Spender, D. (1982) Invisible Women: The Schooling Scandal
EngineeringUK (2026) Level 2 results: GCSE, VTQ and National 5 and A level and Scottish Highers results 2026, from JCQ data
Ofsted, Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges (10 June 2021)

For boys, girls and science in the 1970s and 1980s, the HMI discussion paper archived at Education in England