Pedagogy N. (Also Paedagogy 1583, O.E.D)

Pedagogy n. (also Paedagogy 1583, O.E.D) Masculine, feminine or neuter?

Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, University of Exeter, England, 12-14 September 2002

Jenny Gubb – University of Cambridge, University of Plymouth

1 Pedagogy n. (also Paedagogy 1583, O.E.D) – Masculine, feminine or neuter?

Abstract

Teachers’ perceptions and thoughts on gender reflect on their teaching decisions and actions. This can be observed both in the classroom and in collective school policies. Some teachers and schools acknowledge differences associated with gender and strive to cater for those differences, others adopt a gender-blind stance and strive to ‘treat them all the same’, yet others regard differences as essentially individual and try to match their pedagogy to each child’s need irrespective of gender. Pupils may have a different view about gender differences and the initiatives provided to address them. This paper contributes to our understanding of teachers’ perceptions of, and decisions about, gender by exploring ways in which teachers in 7 secondary schools in West Sussex accommodate, or choose not to accommodate, gender as a component affecting their own pedagogic actions.

Introduction

In the original Greek, a pedagogue was a slave charged with the safe delivery of a child to his place of education. If only it were that simple! For the purposes of this paper, pedagogy refers to the teaching techniques and the school strategies within which learning takes place. It has at its centre the interactive process between pupil and teacher and how that affects performance. Our particular interest is in the way in which gender is implicated in that process, both from the teacher’s point of view and that of the pupil.

The underachievement of boys has in recent years been an issue for both national and local debate. The evidence available from all measures of performance from SATs, GCSEs and A levels suggest that boys and girls are having different levels of success in education (Arnot, Gray, James and Rudduck 1998). Boys are already behind in early literacy skills and later on in English. The gap is evident from the start of school and continues through primary and secondary levels. Boys perform considerably less well than girls in GCSE examinations (DfEE 2000). A larger proportion of girls than boys secured five or more higher grade passes from the late 1980s onwards and this continues. In addition, girls have been making greater progress between the ages of 11 and 16 than boys - in comparison with girls, boys secured only small improvements through the 1990s in their performance at GCSE (A*-C grades). About two thirds of the 40,000 pupils who leave school without a single graded GCSE are boys (Wragg 2002). At A level, girls and boys are now performing equally well and the gap which once favoured boys is no longer evident (DfEE 2000). Nationally, girls have been outperforming boys by a considerable margin in English, while in science boys maintained a small advantage. In mathematics performance was similar. (Arnot et al, 1998).

Considerable interest has been generated by the differences in academic performance between boys and girls and the DfEE has commissioned a three year project from

2 Homerton College, Cambridge into boys underachievement at school. Only a small minority of schools appear to have found ways of being equally effective for both sexes (Arnot et al 1998). This small study seeks to make a contribution to the debate by looking at 7 secondary schools in West Sussex where patterns of performance for boys and girls are different from the national pattern and where boys have narrowed the gap with girls.

The West Sussex GAP Project in Secondary Schools

In 1999, West Sussex LEA approached the University of Cambridge to conduct an investigation into gender and performance (GAP) in secondary schools. This was followed in 2002 by a second study into primary schools. Dr Madeleine Arnot, the project director, worked with a researcher and the Advisory and Inspection Service of West Sussex to design a series of interviews to provide a snapshot of the work going on in schools where boys seemed to be making good progress in relation to girls. The secondary study Adding Value to Boys' and Girls' Education was published in September 2001. The primary study is still in the drafting stage. The purpose of this paper is to share some of the thoughts about teaching boys and teaching girls that seem to be coming out of the research. Various themes came out of the research which seems to make a case for a link between pedagogy, performance and gender. This paper concentrates on the work in secondary schools.

THE SAMPLE

Secondary schools in West Sussex were asked to submit expressions of interest to take part in a study investigating the story behind girls' and boys' performance at GCSE. From those expressions of interest, school results were analysed using a value added model devised by the West Sussex Research and Information Unit and based on prior attainment scores for individual pupils in English, Science and Maths. It was hoped that by using value added measures to distinguish between boys and girls within a given school, differences in performance would be less likely to be governed by the socio-economic features of the school intake. The value added data generated for boys and girls was then used to distinguish those schools where boys seemed to be 'bucking the trend' of underachievement. Performance of boys in English was the primary measure for selection. 7 schools were selected on the basis of their improving performance for boys in English which narrowed the gap with girls' scores in their school. Some of the schools also had rising levels of achievement in Maths for girls. Our aim was to discover if we could, whether gender was implicated in any way in the performance levels of boys and girls. We looked at English, Maths, Science and Foreign Languages. We visited each school for 2 days to interview managers, staff and pupils (separate groups of boys and girls in Year 12 at secondary school). The recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed to provide a snapshot of current gender beliefs in the 7 schools.

GENDER AND PERFORMANCE

3 In all our schools, Heads, teachers and pupils subscribed, more or less reluctantly, to the view that in the new millennium, schooling was tied to maintaining and improving their position in the league tables. Every school was focused on raising their percentage of 5 A*-C passes and for the majority, this meant improving boys’ scores.

All the schools were very aware of the gender debate around performance and all of them were working on the issue in some way. In all the schools considerable time, effort and money had been put into gender initiatives. They took part in courses provided by the LEA, they took part in research projects (Raising Achievement in Secondary Education, Learning about Improvement, Managing the Improving Department) and worked on the expanding MA programme funded by West Sussex and the University of Sussex. They put effort into training and raising awareness about gender issues, they had worked on identifying gender bias in their resources, and on providing a selection of boy friendly books in classrooms and libraries.

Every school had a system for tracking performance, but not all schools looked at the figures in terms of boys and girls. They were aware of the national picture but not everyone looked at their own school figures in this way, preferring to adopt a gender- blind approach based on an underlying belief in equality. They did not all accept the value-added model that the county had devised and some disputed whether their boys were improving in comparison to girls in their school. In some schools, differences in performance were associated with individual cohorts and year groups and teachers and pupils were cautious about assigning the differences to gender. Those pupils and teachers who talked about gender differences in relation to performance, often talked in terms of developmental maturity between boys and girls and explained performance as a feature of biology rather than aptitude. Others talked in terms of pedagogy, with some teaching styles and approaches better suited to one sex rather than the other. Heads, teachers and pupils held varying views on every aspect of gender as one might expect. However, the transcripts revealed three broad approaches related to gender and raising school performance levels – targeting boys, improvement for all, a pastoral approach - these overlapped one another in each school but some schools, departments or teachers emphasised one rather than another.

SCHOOL APPROACHES

The emerging debate within schools about gender and learning was couched in terms of boys as a deficit model requiring extra help, pupils as individuals requiring differentiated learning programmes linked to ability rather than gender and boys and girls with different needs linked to differing rates of maturation. Broad school approaches fell into three categories in our study - targeting boys, improvement for all and a pastoral approach.

Targeting boys Three schools tended to target boys in their efforts to raise school achievement. Gender was a central concern where boys were targeted. When targeting boys, the emphasis was on providing content and structure with boy appeal – this included boy- friendly texts and topics, clear guidelines and frameworks for tasks, opportunities for practical work, discipline and competition. Often this targeting boys approach operated within a system of setting and was used particularly in lower ability groups which often had more boys. C/D borderline groups and mentoring at secondary level,

4 were associated with targeting boys because boys were more likely to be in those groups. There was some anxiety about over-emphasising boys' needs and the possibility of neglecting girls.

Improvement for all Two schools took an improvement for all approach. Individual ability, regardless of gender, was the central concern of those operating an improvement for all model. This model was characterised by the language of individual learning styles and a belief that as long as a range of content and structure was provided pupils would, regardless of gender, select the mode of study best suited to their needs. Content was presented through differentiated learning materials matched to ability rather than to gender.

Pastoral approach Two schools took a pastoral approach to improving performance. Encouraging mature behaviour and fostering a sense of responsibility was central in schools where there was a strong emphasis on the pastoral. The pastoral approach tended to focus on the social and emotional needs of pupils and to emphasise the importance of self-esteem in learning. This made schools and teachers conscious that boys and girls often had different needs as learners. It was strongly associated with a shared vision between pupils, teachers and parents, and a marked tendency for boys and girls to feel equally respected in school. In the secondary schools this approach was related to strong support structures such as a house system, tutor system, mentoring (mainly of boys), an emphasis on sports teams, links with parents and the community, pressing boys into taking on challenges and responsibilities. It was linked to valuing the different contributions of boys and girls, working with their different needs, accommodating their different interests, and recognising their different approaches.

GENDER AND PEDAGOGY

The challenge for schools seemed to be to raise the boys' achievement without undermining the girls. Even with the value-added data, we felt that the different individual teacher views and different contexts of the 7 schools meant that we could not generalise about one type of school approach being more effective than another in raising performance for boys. Instead we aimed to identify the strategies that teachers from across schools perceived to be effective in raising boys' performance. Effectiveness was measured through the weight of professional opinion expressed by Heads, pupils and teachers across the schools.

Initial findings on effective learning strategies

Many teachers believed that they did not treat boys and girls differently, but in interview it was clear that as they worked hard to raise performance, they were expending most effort on finding ways to raise performance amongst boys. This was particularly noticeable with regard to the importance given to improving the relative under-achievement of boys in English but not to the relative under-achievement of girls in Maths and in one school of girls and Science. Boys themselves felt clearly

5 undervalued even though so much effort was being expended on their behalf – many boys and girls reported that on the whole, school played to girls’ strengths, rather than to boys’ and a few boys expressed resentment at this perceived discrimination.

Although all staff emphasised the complexity of the relationship between teaching and learning and all of them advised against making generalisations on the grounds of gender, they were nevertheless prepared to share their insights into what seemed to them to be best practice for boys, for girls and for pupils as a whole. Pupils themselves were also cautious about making sweeping generalisations about boys and girls but at the same time they were prepared to explore what had made learning effective for them. The list that follows, summarises teachers and pupils beliefs about the most important factors for effective learning.

Organisation - pupils and teachers gave the strongest endorsement to good organisation, robust lesson structures and clearly defined goals as the sine qua non of effective learning. Boys, girls and teachers said that this was important for all pupils but it was especially important for boys – without it boys could not thrive.

Fairness and the quality of teaching relationship was given very high importance – by teachers and by pupils. The paramount quality for good teaching was that the teacher should listen to pupils and be responsive to them. Boys and girls reported that boys had more difficulty in their communications with teachers than girls and boys and girls observed that boys were much more likely than girls to have negative responses from teachers from reception class onwards. Amongst the boys, there was a deep well of resentment evident in this area of discussion.

Feedback was seen as a very important component in learning and teaching for all pupils – for boys rapid feedback was considered to be crucial. The importance of feedback for boys was endorsed by girls.

Competition and the need for challenge was considered especially important for maintaining the engagement of boys – this view was expressed by some pupils and some teachers in all schools. Two schools with a pastoral approach, made competition and challenge an integral part of everything that happened in the school and staff and pupils in those schools saw it as the natural way to foster excellence and a pride in achievement that everyone could aspire to – as individuals or as part of a collective effort. These two schools put special emphasis on fostering individual responsibility through rewards, awards, ‘pressing’ boys into serving the school community and accepting positions of authority and duty.

Modular courses and coursework that is broken into manageable sections were regarded by teachers as important for learning. Teachers often cited a change to a modular examination syllabus as a reason for improved results, particularly amongst their boys. Allied to this was a belief that boys thrived better where they were given writing frames, word limits, prompt sheets and model answers.

Monitoring performance, targeting underachievers and mentoring those who were in danger of slipping further behind was given a high profile by pupils and teachers. Boys were seen to be more in need of the support afforded by this than girls

6 and were seen to benefit from it more than girls because they were more likely to be targeted. Boys and girls expressed appreciation of the personal help provided through the monitoring system and several pupils attributed their improved grades to the help they had received through it. This was the area of work most often cited by teachers as being responsible for improving boys’ ratings in examination tables.

Discipline was mentioned by a few staff in terms of shared rules and expectations – however it was more likely to be seen as a function of a well ordered lesson. Several boys said they wanted discipline in terms of controls on behaviour. Girls felt that boys needed discipline because they needed help in curbing their more unruly behaviour. Most of the learning strategies described as being effective for boys were generally considered as effective for girls too, but whereas girls could manage in a variety of learning situations, boys needed a more closely controlled environment if they were to thrive

Study leave and revision classes produced a surprising set of findings. Staff had little to say on either topic but boys and girls held passionate views on both. Pupils saw revision classes as extremely important – as an opportunity for clarifying areas of confusion and, for those who had shared classes with an unruly peer group, as a welcome opportunity to catch up on missed or hurried work (unruly peers do not attend!). Study leave was regarded as missed opportunity for study because pupils could not utilise their time effectively – the sudden freedom proved too much, particularly for boys. Both boys and girls felt that study leave was particularly hard for boys who lack the discipline required to be self-motivated. This is an area that schools might do well to investigate.

Group work - many pupils and teachers felt that girls learn more happily in groups where they can talk while boys learn more happily alone where they cannot talk. This seems to be a salient gender difference – identified and taken into account by a maths teacher who had remarkable results for boys and girls. If this gender difference really exists then it presents a challenge to teachers, particularly in a climate where pupils and most teachers find the idea of single sex grouping unrealistic, unpalatable or likely to be counter-productive

Discussion – girls in most schools mentioned the importance of discussing their work with friends. Boys felt they did not have the self-discipline to handle small group discussion in class – they liked whole class discussion where the teacher acted as chair. One Maths teacher put great emphasis on the girls’ need for peer discussion as the key to their success in his subject.

Directed seating –directed seating was endorsed by many teachers and some boys and was official policy in several of the schools in the study. But girls disliked directed seating and reported that it made them anxious and unable to learn because they were separated from friends and the all-important discussion and because they suspected they were being used by their teachers to police the behaviour of the boys.

English and Modern Foreign Languages - at secondary level, high performance for boys in English and Modern Foreign Languages was associated with

1. boy friendly texts

7 2. class discussion 3. working alone 4. being motivated by results 5. competition, mocks and practice papers 6. variety and interest 7. teacher attention and rapport 8. computer work, group work, oral work 9. clearly defined parameters for the task 10. visible progression 11. help with planning and organising 12. step by step planning for coursework 13. strong coursework to underpin final exams 14. help in identifying personal learning styles 15. explicit instruction about learning and revision strategies 16. strict, structured lessons with a coherent plan 17. clear sequence of achievable tasks 18. clear explicit standards of behaviour and attainment 19. an introduction to new work to set it in context 20. time limits and word limits on tasks 21. feedback, especially private formative feedback given verbally 22. organised teachers and materials 23. structured and purposeful homework

Maths - at secondary level, high performance in Maths for girls was associated with

1. working in groups 2. discussing work 3. practice 4. teacher feedback and reassurance 5. building confidence

DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS

In such a small sample, it is not possible to make reliable assumptions about correlations between background factors and performance. For instance, the schools with the strongest pastoral approach had the strongest performance scores – but they also had the lowest FSM numbers and reported the highest levels of support from parents. It may be that in those schools performance would be high whatever the system. More interesting is to look at what common factors are shared by all these widely different school communities where the gender gap between boys and girls has narrowed. Our research findings suggested that there was a dialogue in schools between regarding pupils as individual people without reference to gender and an emerging belief that pupils should be regarded as boys and girls with different learning needs.

Two common factors related to gender and pedagogy seem relevant in the performance debate – discriminating teachers and perceived equality amongst boys and girls. Teachers who studied their pupils in terms of what suited boys best and what suited girls best, were associated in turn with boys and girls reporting that they were fairly treated in school. Pupils did not demand equality of treatment, what they

8 appreciated was parity of esteem and this depended on respect for their individual aptitudes, likings, aspirations and needs. Boys and girls felt that girls had a better rapport with their teachers and that this was a major impediment for boys' motivation and engagement. Where boys and girls felt equally valued, this tended to be linked with good results within their FSM grouping in the county and was not confined to the highest socio-economic intake.

All the schools in our study were effective schools in that they had improved school performance scores for boys beyond the national and county averages. They were particularly effective in that they had improved performance scores for boys in English. Many of them had also improved their performance scores for girls in Maths. But some teachers were reluctant to talk about gender effects. They felt gender was a red herring – these teachers pointed out that summer birthdays, home background and individual personalities were all better indicators of success than gender. One teacher said you sit down and it's .. oh dear …we need to help the boys, you need to blah, blah …and then the following year because the intake is different the boys do better than the girls. However, this did not explain the general national trend for boys to underachieve in English and Languages and for girls to underachieve in maths. Neither did it explain how their schools were bucking the trend according to the West Sussex value added data. Instead they explained boys' improved performance in terms of more rigorous planning and delivery - tightening up their learning intentions, focusing their teaching, by setting, by teaching to the test, by giving revision classes, by providing practice tests, by making marking criteria explicit and by teaching exam or test techniques. All of these are part of the 'masculine' discourse around learning.

Other teachers and most pupils were prepared to consider gender. They felt that the greatest gains were made in classrooms where there was an emerging dialogue about the different learning needs of boys and girls. This emerging dialogue discriminated between boys and girls and worked with the differences. There were underlying general principles to improve teaching and learning for all pupils, applicable to both boys and girls – structured and well organised lessons with clear objectives that are shared with pupils; feedback, especially formative feedback to pupils; increased opportunities for active participation by pupils; focused support for tests and exams through revision groups, high teacher expectation, challenging but achievable goals. But additionally there were strategies that were particularly useful for the different inclinations of boys and girls - a pastoral approach which emphasised responsibility and involvement helped boys mature.

Examples of successful approaches using gender differentiation might provide some insight into the practical implications for pedagogy, performance and gender. One of the most effective Maths teachers in our study, with a long history of high GCSE results for both boys and girls, gave an interesting account of his particular approach. He organised his class with girls grouped together down the centre of the room to facilitate discussion, and boys around the perimeter to facilitate their preference for working alone. He spent time supporting the girls during classroom time and kept his boys motivated with highly structured assignments. He also encouraged boys especially to compete with their own best scores and with each other.

9 What we would argue from the preliminary results from these limited case studies is that although individualised learning is clearly important it may not be sufficient to cover the different needs of boys and girls. Our findings seem to suggest that where teachers take gender into account as well and provide positive discrimination for both boys and girls, learning is more effective. Where boys or girls feel undervalued in relation to one another, they become alienated and less likely to achieve their full potential. In relation to gender and performance, it seems that pedagogy should therefore address both the feminine and masculine if we want both boys and girls to get the maximum benefit from their schooling.

The research reported in this paper was based on individual semi-structured interviews with heads, heads of department and equal opportunity co-ordinators in each of 7 schools. In addition, two groups of 6 year 12 boys and 6 year 12 girls took part in focus group interviews in each of the schools. Research was fed back to the schools 6 months later at a conference hosted by West Sussex LEA and a report Adding Value to Boys' and Girls' Education was published in September 2001.

References

Arnot, M. and Gubb, J.(2001) Adding Value to Boys' and Girls' Education Cambridge, Cambridge University School of Education

Arnot, M., Gray, J., James, M., and Rudduck, J. (1998) Recent Research on Gender and Educational Performance, London, HMSO

DfEE (2000) The Standards Site Gender and Achievement http://www.standards.dfee.gov.uk/Gender and Achievement

Wragg, E., Opinion: Male might falls short Times Educational Supplement Aug 30th 2002 p.13