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GENDER AND EDUCATION - MYTHS, MISCONCEPTIONS AND REALITIES.

13/4/2013

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The ‘gender effect’ is a matter of concern not only for England but many countries around the world.  As a result, gender and educational attainment continues to be the focus of research.   Initially the focus was on ‘girls’ underachievement’ in the 1970’s but since the 1990’s, however, the discourse has shifted significantly to focus on ‘boys’ underachievement.’  

This issue regularly preoccupies the minds of many politicians and parts of the media, and from time to time it gives way to a moral panic.  However, in terms of inequalities in education it is worth remembering that class has over five times the effect and ethnicity has twice the effect compared to gender. [i]  That is not to say that that the effect of gender is not still significant but it should be considered within this context.  The actual issues affecting inequalities in education can be quite complex and to gain a better understanding of these issues it is important to look at how class, ethnicity and gender come together to interplay on educational outcomes.  It is recommended that senior leadership teams and staff in school look holistically at the needs of their particular pupils and groups of pupils who are currently underachieving before developing strategies to address these needs.  It is also worth remembering that there are more variations within the overaching groups of ethnic minority and pupils eligible for free school meals, as there are between them too, largely because groups are not homogeneous and have a wide variety of needs.

This fascination with the ‘gender effect’ has resulted in many myths and misconceptions being perpetuated.    For colleagues interested in addressing gender inequalities Equitable Education has produced the following Infographic exploding 12 myths and misconceptions commonly associated with gender.  The Infographic has been based on the publication called ‘Education and Gender – Mythbusters. Addressing Gender and Achievement: Myths and Realities’ produced by the DCSF in 2009 and written by Gemma Moss, Becky Francis and Christine Skelton.


[i] Gillborn D & Mirza H (2000), ‘Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Gender and Class. A Synthesis of Research’. Ofsted London 
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The realities to these myths are outlined below:
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The original publication ‘Education and Gender – Mythbusters. Addressing Gender and Achievement: Myths and Realities’ produced by the DCSF in 2009 and written by Gemma Moss, Becky Francis and Christine Skelton it is available here in PDF format for you to download. It includes further information, along with research evidence to back up these assertions.

We shall be coming back to this topic in future postings, so do visit our blog regularly to keep updated. In the meantime, should you require specialist advice and support in addressing educational inequalities in.your school, please do contact us at Equitable Education by e-mailing us on [email protected]k    

If you would like a PDF version of our Infographic to use in your school, please get in touch with us by using the e-mail above.  We look forward to hearing from you.
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Research finds NO negative impact of EAL learners on non–EAL learners attainment in schools!

5/4/2013

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Recent research by Professor Sandra McNally et al at the London School of Economics has discredited the negative popular view perpetuated by the media, that pupils with English as an additional language drive down standards for pupils for whom English is a first language.  Newspaper articles, especially around the time of the EU enlargement frequently used negative headlines to highlight this myth – ‘English is the foreign language for 40 % of primary school pupils’ - Daily Mail, November 2007                'No place at school if you’re British' - Daily Express, October 2006 or  'More Catholic schools needed to cope with East European influx' - Independent 22/6/ 07.  This is not accounting for the negative rhetoric used then and now by politicians too.

The research entitled ‘Non-native speakers of English in the classroom: What are the effects on pupil performance?’ by Charlotte Geay, Sandra Mc Nally, Shqiponja Telhaj, was published by the Centre for the Economics of Education at LSE in March 2012.  The researchers highlighted the fact that the number of EAL learners has more or less doubled over the past fifteen years from approximately half a million to the present 1 million of EAL pupils in schools in 2012.   The key focus of their research was ‘Does it matter for the educational attainment of ‘native English speakers’ at the end of primary school?’ 
  

The researchers used data from the National Pupil data base, which is the census of all pupils in state schools from 2012 -2009 and linked this to school level data sets.  The Census data provides information on a range of factors such as EAL, ethnicity, gender, Free School Meal eligibility, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, as well as prior attainment.   These factors are often called pupil characteristics.  They were also able to look in depth at school level data such as the school type, the size of the school, how many of the pupils were from disadvantaged backgrounds, pupil – teacher ratios and the amount of funding it receives etc.  Much of this data nowadays for individual schools is in the public domain and is readily available on the DfE performance tables, which are available here.

Using this information they carried out two pieces of research focusing on KS 2 SATS which are exams that all pupils have to take in Year 6 and marks the end of primary schooling in England. 

The two key areas they looked at were the following:

1. What was the association between the percentage of non–native speakers in Year 6 and KS attainment of native speakers of English, taking into account detailed characteristics of pupils.

2. Whether schools that had an increase of white non-native speakers as a result of EU enlargement had a change in attainment of native English in speakers, compared to other schools.


Their findings were as follows:

“There is a negative association between the percentage of non-native speakers and attainment of native speakers of English if we do not control for anything else”.  Now this if is very important because of factors such as disadvantage which is measured by the proxy indicator of eligibility for free school meals (FSM).  The researchers highlight that 15 % of non EAL speakers are eligible for FSM, compared to 18 % for white EAL learners and 28 % non –white EAL learners.    Therefore, when minimal controls are put in to take account of these various characteristics “ …….this negative association goes away” .  This is as a result of the fact that EAL pupils or non-native English speakers on average go to more disadvantaged schools.

They conclude……….’ negative association in the raw data between the percentage of non-native speakers and the educational attainment of native English speakers is easily removed – even by controlling for very limited characteristics of native English speakers. The negative correlation can be explained by sorting of non-native speakers into schools with less desirable characteristics. Under certain assumptions, the strategies used in this paper can be used to make an inference about causal effects. Both strategies suggest that negative effects can be ruled out. This is not surprising in the light of positive selection of first and second immigrants to the UK in terms of their educational attainment, although it does refute perceptions (in the media) that the increase in students who do not speak English as a first language is detrimental to the education of native English speakers.

The result also makes sense in the context of other research about ethnic minorities in England. Dustmann, Machin and Schonberg [1] show that most ethnic minority groups progress through primary school at a faster rate than white British students (as measured by the increase in attainment between age 7 and 11) and that improvements in the proficiency of the English language is likely to be the most important contributing factor. Thus it seems likely that most primary-aged students catch up in English proficiency at a rate such that they do not impede the progress of their native-speaking peers.”

Should you wish to watch Sandra McNally giving an overview of the research report, a short video clip is available here courtesy of Cambridge Assessment. 

A full copy of the report is available here.


[1] Dustmann, C., S. Machin and U. Schonberg, (2010), Educational Achievement and Ethnicity in Compulsory Schooling. Economic Journal, 120(546): F272-F297


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    Equitable Education 

    Equitable Education's blog keeps you updated with the latest news and developments in closing the gaps in education.  We regularly share best practice materials and case studies of proven strategies to close the education gaps, along with the latest research from the UK and internationally.

    The blog is written by Sameena Choudry and the views are entirely her own or of her co-authors when written with colleagues.

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