This is a pretty a-historical account, and there is much written elsewhere on the issue of boys in education, from at least Socrates on! Teachers are confronted with proof of our own negative bias against boys - “a simple tally of comments revealed 54 positive comments about girls compared with 22 negative […] 32 positive comments about boys compared with 54 negative comments” - alongside our prejudice against children from low-income families: “It’s us we need to focus on”, because with hard-to-reach families “perseverance - not prejudice - gets results”.

I’m reflecting on how these principles can be applied to online learning, something we have been working on as a staff. Yet while teachers and parents alike are crying out for answers, we may not all like the mirror held up to us by the authors. Exploring gender differences in education forms akey part of the specification Iteach in ALevel Sociology, in particular looking at explanations for gender differences in attainment. Dozens of studies have been conducted along these general lines, including studies using materials more like those used in classrooms, and overall the theory is not supported.Yet, just in this blog, I’ve used phrases like “challenging boys” and described a low set without mentioning the gender divide, assuming the unequal gender divide of bottom sets to be implicit.

It is an area of Sociology that Iam particularly passionate about and the insights that students provide when we discuss this topic are endlessly fascinating!

Get boys onside by engaging with “banter” lowers standards and makes you a “cultural accomplice” to unhelpful stereotypes. One such idea was competition – in an English class he would gather the boys in teams, each team would create a piece of writing and then “knock out” others in a World Cup of writing.