Patterns of educational achievement

Overview

Gender, class and ethnic patterns in GCSE results and university entry, free school meals as a measure, exclusions, and worked comparisons of attainment gaps.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

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1. 1

   Describe the main gender pattern in GCSE results in the UK.

   Model answer

   Girls outperform boys at GCSE in most subjects, and the gap is widest in English. Girls have gained better results than boys since around the late 1980s.

2. 2

   How has the gender gap in education changed since the 1970s?

   Model answer

   In the 1970s, boys were more likely than girls to take A levels and go to university. Girls have since overtaken boys in both.

3. 3

   How do men and women compare in entry to higher education?

   Model answer

   UCAS data show women are more likely than men to enter university in the UK. DfE figures show White British boys eligible for free school meals are among the least likely to go.

4. 4

   Outline how subject choices differ between boys and girls.

   Model answer

   Boys are more likely to choose physics, computing and engineering at A level and university. Girls are more likely to choose English, languages, psychology and sociology.

5. 5

   Describe the main social class pattern in educational achievement.

   Model answer

   Middle-class pupils achieve higher results on average than working-class pupils at every stage of education. DfE figures show pupils eligible for free school meals gain lower GCSE grades than other pupils.

6. 6

   Why do sociologists often use free school meal eligibility to measure social class in education?

   Model answer

   Free school meal eligibility is recorded for every state school pupil, which makes comparison easy. Free school meals only identify the poorest families, so they cannot show differences within the working and middle classes.

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