Gender Gap and Gender Identity
Since the early 1990’s there has been an on-going debate surrounding boys’ underachievement in relation to reading, it has been a highly contentious area of concern among educationalists and government officials (Younger & Warrington, 2005). However, this issue is not a new phenomenon, before now it has gone on unnoticed or been deemed irrelevant. In the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke (2007) raised concerns with boys’ poor language skills compared to girls and during the 1950’s girls had a higher pass mark then boys for the 11+ exam. This is a clear indication that people were aware of boys’ underachievement but there was a cultural acceptance of boys being outperformed by girls (Epstein et al., 1998). …show more content…
In refute of this theory, Lloyd (2011) conducted a systematic review of research evidence and found no support for this claim, he declared that boys’ reading problems are not biological and therefore not inevitable. Furthermore, research conducted by The National Literacy Trust (2012) found that boys underachievement and the amount of time spent reading is related to a variety of elements, with a key factor being male gender identity; which underpins negative attitudes towards …show more content…
However, Martino, Kehler and Weaver-Hightower (2009) criticise this approach as being highly stereotypical and attempting to homogenise boys, rather than attempting to create boys that love and value a wide range of genres. The social theorist Victor Seidler (2006) also disapproves of this approach, he believes this is a way of pandering to boys’ needs and perpetuating the cycle of boys disliking fiction. Instead, Seidler (2006) believes schools should be challenging boys by providing them with a range of genres to change their attitudes rather than the books. Bleach (2000) believes that boys do not have an innate dislike for fiction books, but instead their lack of interest in fiction is associated with a desire to suppress emotions; something that boys are conditioned to think is what ‘men
Since the early 1990’s there has been an on-going debate surrounding boys’ underachievement in relation to reading, it has been a highly contentious area of concern among educationalists and government officials (Younger & Warrington, 2005). However, this issue is not a new phenomenon, before now it has gone on unnoticed or been deemed irrelevant. In the 17th century, the philosopher John Locke (2007) raised concerns with boys’ poor language skills compared to girls and during the 1950’s girls had a higher pass mark then boys for the 11+ exam. This is a clear indication that people were aware of boys’ underachievement but there was a cultural acceptance of boys being outperformed by girls (Epstein et al., 1998). …show more content…
In refute of this theory, Lloyd (2011) conducted a systematic review of research evidence and found no support for this claim, he declared that boys’ reading problems are not biological and therefore not inevitable. Furthermore, research conducted by The National Literacy Trust (2012) found that boys underachievement and the amount of time spent reading is related to a variety of elements, with a key factor being male gender identity; which underpins negative attitudes towards …show more content…
However, Martino, Kehler and Weaver-Hightower (2009) criticise this approach as being highly stereotypical and attempting to homogenise boys, rather than attempting to create boys that love and value a wide range of genres. The social theorist Victor Seidler (2006) also disapproves of this approach, he believes this is a way of pandering to boys’ needs and perpetuating the cycle of boys disliking fiction. Instead, Seidler (2006) believes schools should be challenging boys by providing them with a range of genres to change their attitudes rather than the books. Bleach (2000) believes that boys do not have an innate dislike for fiction books, but instead their lack of interest in fiction is associated with a desire to suppress emotions; something that boys are conditioned to think is what ‘men