NASUWT the teachers’ union
Boys to Men
Teaching and learning masculinities in schools and colleges
National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers - the largest union
representing teachers and headteachers throughout the UK
CONTENTS
Page
Chapter 1 Introduction: Teaching and Learning Masculinities 4
Chapter 2 ‘Boys to Men: the NASUWT Perspective on Masculinities and 11
Gender in Education’
Chris Keates
NASUWT
Chapter 3 ‘Building Resilience in Boys: Leadership, Competition and Excitement’ 15
Tony Sewell
‘Generating Genius’
Chapter 4 ‘Practical Strategies for Addressing Homophobia and Issues of Sexual 19
Identity Within Schools’
Mark Jennett
Freelance Consultant
Chapter 5 ‘Tackling the Underachievement of Black Boys in London and 23
Teacher Networks’
Murziline Parchment
Mayor of London’s Office
Chapter 6 ‘Boy Teachers or Girl Teachers? Pupils’ Perceptions of Teachers and Gender
26
Christine Skelton
Roehampton University
Chapter 7 ‘Men Teachers in a Predominantly Female (Not Feminised) Profession’ 31
Mary Thornton and Patricia Bricheno
University of Hertfordshire and University of Cambridge
Chapter 8 ‘Male Teachers in Primary Education’ 35
Michael Watkins
Training and Development Agency for Schools
Chapter 9 Postscript 38
Contributor Biographies 39
Bibliography 42
the largest UK-wide teachers’ union
NASUWT the teachers’ union
Chapter 1
Introduction: Teaching and learning masculinities
The debate over gender – including such apparently diverse strands as the ‘underrepresentation’ of men in teaching, the educational ‘underachievement’ of some minority
ethnic boys and whether or not teaching is becoming or has become a feminised
profession – has assumed a critical importance for policymakers, practitioners and other
bodies, including trade unions, in education systems around the world.
The pursuit of equality of educational opportunity, reducing the educational attainment
gap, and ensuring that schools contribute to wider public and political concerns on the
need for social cohesion and social justice has dominated the debate, in the UK at least, in
recent years. Political parties of all colours have arrived at a consensus of sorts: namely,
that education is a key election priority – a vote winner and a vote loser.
The debate on the education of boys sits at the centre of public concerns about the
contribution that schools and colleges should make to society. Indeed, the election
battleground on education has been marked (if not marred) by the efforts of political
parties to win for men. Regrettably, the public discourses which have helped shape public
education policy have tended to reflect a desire to reproduce dominant, normative values
and practices of the society at large; in the context of the schooling of boys, education
policy has been engaged in reproducing the ‘male order’ (Chapman and Rutherford,
1988). In this sense, the current concerns about the fate of boys and men in schools and
colleges cannot be separated from wider concerns about what is (or should be) the nature
and structure of society as a whole.
Debates on the causes of and solutions to differential educational attainment by gender
are not new. However, in many respects, the debate has altered considerably over the last
few years. The attention of government and other bodies has, over the last three decades
at least, shifted from concerns about the educational outcomes of girls and the negative
effects of this on their employment and life chances. The formation of organisations such
as Women into Science and Engineering (WISE) as but one example was part of a
concerted effort to address the paucity of young women securing stable, high-status
careers in a wide range of occupational sectors. Indeed, the programmes of positive action
which ensued were also an attempt to tackle prejudice and gender stereotyping in schools
and the workplace, and to deliver social justice for all women. For it was then and remains
today the case that women experience disadvantage and unequal opportunities in their
access to employment, the political process and other key areas of social life (see Women
and Work Commission, 2006).
However, since the 1990s, much of the debate on gender and education has migrated
towards an intensive focus on the ‘underachievement’ of boys and concerns about the
plight of men in society. Indeed, it has been argued that as once traditional occupations
and industries have ceased to exist, men (particularly working-class men) have needed to
find new roles for themselves within society. The decline of Britain’s manufacturing base,
and the dominance of service industries, has resulted in men either facing a future of
unemployment or having to negotiate future careers within the traditional arenas of
“women’s work” (Kauppinen-Toropainen and Lammi, 1993). Concerns about the personal,
psychological and social behavioural condition of men and boys (Biddulph, 1998) have
also been instrumental in fuelling the recent public policy drive to tackle the problem of
boys and men.
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Latterly, the political desire to tackle the claimed low educational attainment and school
disaffection of boys has become a key national priority. In England, at least, the political
concern appears to have reached its height in a period of post-millennial anxiety, fuelled
by a pervasive media interest in stoking the issue (see Halpin, 2000a, 2000b and 2000c;
Mooney, 2001).
In 2003 the Department for Education and Skills launched its strategy to ‘Raise Boys’
Achievement’, which exhorted the need for concerted action by schools and local
authorities to tackle the problem of male underachievement:
“The issue of the underachievement of many…boys is not a recent
phenomenon…Most schools do need to respond in one way or another, whether
guided by their own judgement or prompted by local education authorities’ (LEAs’)
education development plans, which are now required to address the issue of
groups of underachieving pupils” (DfES, 2003: 4).
The Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), produced a series of reports setting out
its view of ‘good practice’ within schools on how to successfully engage boys in learning
(OFSTED, 2003a and 2003b). Other initiatives at that time, such as the Government’s
‘Dads and Sons’ programme, focused on the contribution of fathers to stimulating and
maintaining the educational interests and motivation of their sons; for, as the former
Minister for Schools claimed: “Dads often have a unique bond with their sons, and can
make a real difference to what they achieve at school” (DfES, 2002).
The Government has also provided financial support for a range of local, school-based
initiatives and, through the Primary and Secondary National Strategies, has sought to
raise pupil achievement through strategies designed to appeal to all pupils, particularly to
boys. Indeed, as the DfES has argued:
“The strategies promote teachers’ understanding of individual learning needs and
encourage fast-paced, interactive lessons (which can be especially effective in
engaging boys). ‘Booster materials’ are available for use with secondary pupils,
particularly boys, who need extra support” (DfES, 2006).
The idea of associating boys’ attainment with the contribution of adult males is not new
(see Thornton and Bricheno’s chapter in this report). However, as recent developments
have shown, male role model theories have gained considerable ground; the Training and
Development Agency for Schools (formerly the Teacher Training Agency) established a
national target for recruiting men into initial teacher training courses in order to fashion a
more gender-balanced profession. The message of these and other policies appears to be
that raising boys’ achievement to equal or surpass the achievement of girls requires
recourse to a set of gender-specific strategies that exclude women teachers.
Boys’ attainment
Since 1997, there has been considerable evidence of improvement in the examination and
test results of pupils across all social groups. Nevertheless, whilst not universally the case,
boys have tended to do less favourably than their female counterparts. The reasons for
these differences are complex and the solutions appear somewhat elusive. However, the
direction of public policy has maintained, despite challenge from other quarters, that it is
possible to tackle gender inequality in schooling through the deployment of boy-centric
teaching and learning strategies:
“Opinions differ over whether boys and girls have distinct ways of learning or benefit
from separate classes. The Government’s main focus is on raising attainment
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overall. However, it has supported initiatives that target underachieving boys
without negative effects on girls” (DfES, 2006).
In the 2005 Key Stage 2 national tests, 63% of girls achieved Level 4 or above with a
corresponding figure for boys of 51%. At GCSE level, it is possible to draw similar
conclusions from the figures for 2002 which show that, while 64.2% of girls achieved five
GCSEs A*-C, only 53.4% of boys achieved a similar standard. However, whether this is
evidence of a widening attainment gap that merits the forms of intervention introduced by
the Government and others is questionable (see 5 Skelton (chapter 6) and Thornton and
Bricheno (chapter 7) in this report). Although there is some evidence that certain groups of
boys (particularly boys from Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African-Caribbean backgrounds)
have fallen behind their peers (see Parchment, chapter 5), it is not certain that the
strategies to tackle boys’ ‘underachievement’ have sought to take account of the social
class, ethnic, cultural and religious differences between boys as a social category in any
real way and there is clearly a need to do so (Majors, 2001; NASUWT, 1999).
In many respects, and for the generality of boys and girls, the attainment gap today is no
wider than in the past and it may even be narrowing, in spite of recent efforts (Gorard, et
al, 2001). Indeed, despite claims made to the contrary, it may also be the case that the
emphasis on boys’ attainment is not without consequence for girls: masking the problems
of underachievement faced by workingclass girls and denying them access to specific
interventions from which they might otherwise benefit. Thus, it might well be argued that
the problems faced by many working-class girls have become lost in a growing
preoccupation about the alleged underperformance of boys (Plummer, 2002).
So, what is to be done to tackle the problem of boys’ attainment? Does a differentiated
curriculum, more adult males in schools and classrooms and the prospect of boys being
taught separately provide the answer?
The debate on the extent to which gender differences that manifest themselves in terms of
learning behaviours and preferences can be explained by genetics or socialisation
remains highly charged and deeply contested. Nevertheless, there appears to be some
indication at least of a hardening of the belief that there exist specific learning
characteristics that are quintessentially “masculine”, leading to the conclusion that
particular teaching strategies, staffing and environments will be more suited to meeting the
educational needs of boys. The extent to which teachers’ professional practices have been
informed by these debates is relevant here, as is the extent to which teachers’ professional
knowledge, skills and judgement are able to be exercised fully to identify and meet the
learning needs of all pupils – boys and girls. Teachers cannot escape these discourses
and whether by design or default must, it is argued, be in some ways shaped by them.
The belief that boys and girls hold markedly different attitudes towards different curriculum
subjects, and the labelling of subjects as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’, has driven students’
subject choice and given rise to gender-based job segregation, which has been to the
financial disadvantage of women, and the detriment of the nation’s economy (Kyriacou,
1997; Women and Work Commission, 2006).
Policy makers continue to pursue curriculum and assessment strategies which are
believed to be ‘boy friendly’ (see OFSTED 2003a and 2003b; Daly, 2001; Qualifications
and Curriculum Authority, 2000). Yet, these responses have not always succeeded in
eliminating the problem of boys’ relative low achievement (see Skelton, chapter 6). It may
be argued that these policy shifts have required teachers to adopt ‘masculinist’
pedagogical approaches based on cultural stereotypes and exclusionary practices. Far
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from providing a responsive or tailored curriculum, these policy responses have
engendered a fixed and narrow set of answers to complex and fluid issues and challenges
facing teachers in the classroom.
A further question raised in this debate revolves around the extent to which the education
of boys and girls should be different and, indeed, separate. In the context of widespread
public interest in the need for equality in school admissions, the debate over single-sex
schools shows no sign of abating. Proponents of single-sex schools as a solution to the
problem of boys’ attainment might well cite as justification such factors as boys’ distraction
in mixed-gender settings, or boys’ concern to dissociate themselves from behaviours
linked with girls, or boys’ invisibility in classrooms where girls are present. Indeed,
research conducted by the University of Cambridge (Younger et al, 2005) on ‘Raising
Boys’ Achievement’ has concluded that there is evidence to suggest that limited sex
segregation can improve both boys’ and girls’ attainment in some subjects, but only if
classes are carefully planned and targeted. However, the Cambridge study also found that
some boys-only classes could lead to the development of a ‘macho’ culture, which could
be antithetical to learning. Furthermore, research by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at
the Institute of Education (Leonard et al, 2006) examined the academic, social and
economic consequences of single-sex and coeducational schooling for girls and boys. The
research found that single-sex schools had relatively little impact on the academic
achievement of boys and girls, but did have a beneficial effect on the breadth of subject
choice by both boys and girls, encouraging more atypical choices of curriculm subjects
and employment careers.
In Chapter 4 on ‘Practical Strategies for Tackling Homophobic Bullying and Issues of
Sexual Identity Within Schools’, Mark Jennett argues in this report that macho-cultures
within schools may give rise to homophobic bullying as a consequence of attempts by
boys to practice what they believe to be the dominant masculine norms and in an effort to
assert their masculinity within the school through a range of anti-school behaviours.
Indeed, a report by NASUWT has also suggested that dominant masculinising processes
within schools may impact on boys’ self-esteem and the confidence they display in the
classroom (NASUWT, 2002).
In this sense, teaching and learning may be regarded as value-based processes which are
an expression of the values of the society, the institution, the group and the individual.
OFSTED has made a similar point in its report on boys’ achievement in secondary schools
(OFSTED, 2003a), which suggested that the structure of the school system is of lesser
significance than the way the school is organised and its values. OFSTED’s findings point
to the importance of the school’s ethos – whether there is a culture of high expectation of
all pupils, a focus on the quality of teaching practice, and a commitment to high standards
of behaviour by all pupils – as a key contributor to boys’ attainment.
Men teachers
A considerable level of debate has centred on the need for male role models within
schools and concerns about the relatively low number of male teachers, particularly in
primary schools. Some commentators have claimed that the ‘feminisation’ of schools has
hindered the progress of boys generally (BBC, 2002a and 2002b; DfES, 2002; Lightfoot,
2001; Charter, 2000). Indeed, some others have sought to point the finger of blame for the
underachievement of black boys on a white, feminised school system and the contribution
of white women teachers in the education of black boys (see Miller, 1994; BBC, 2002a;
Clark, 2002; Blair, 2001; Majors, 2001; Sewell, 2002a and 2002b).
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Public policy, no doubt, has been influenced by these views. Indeed, the remarks of the
former Schools Minister, Estelle Morris, in 2000, confirm this point:
“We want to see more male applicants becoming primary school teachers as boys
benefit from positive role models” (BBC, 2000).
Yet, whilst the focus on recruiting more men has come to dominate the discourse on
equality in the teaching profession, there is relatively little evidence that the number of
male teachers has any significant impact on boys’ educational outcomes (Times
Educational Supplement, 2005; and see Thornton and Bricheno in this report).
Nevertheless, the Teacher Training Agency (now the Training and Development Agency
for Schools) responded to the political imperative at the time by establishing a national
target for the recruitment of men into primary initial teacher training programmes (see
chapter 8 by Watkins in this report).
Indeed, the political drive to address the under-representation of men in the teaching
profession has been bolstered, to some extent, by the statistical data which lays claim to
the under-representation of men in the teaching profession, particularly within the primary
phase. However, whether and to what extent a new crisis has emerged in relation to men’s
representation in the teaching workforce is not certain (Harnett and Lee, 2003; and
chapter 7 by Thornton and Bricheno in this report).
Nevertheless, the number of men in teaching is certainly an issue of concern to policy
makers, researchers and others, both in the UK and internationally, and so too,
increasingly is the issue of the diversity of men who teach (see Roach, 2005).
Although there may be some evidence that men are under-represented in the teaching
profession, nevertheless those few male teachers that exist are far more likely to rise to
positions of seniority within schools compared to their female counterparts (Coleman,
2005, 2002, 2001 and 2000), although the ‘patriarchal dividend’ (Connell, 1995) may not
be enjoyed equally by men teachers who are gay, black and minority ethnic or disabled
(see Powney et al, 2003; Roach, 2005).
Despite these differences between men – which do merit an informed consideration and
debate – the predominant experience, it is argued, remains the operation of ‘institutional
sexism’ in the interests of men (see chapters by Keates, Skelton and Thornton and
Bricheno in this report). At the same time, as studies of teachers’ life stories suggest,
where men are conditioned and expected to conform to dominant masculine roles and
behaviours, the effects of institutional sexism (and patriarchy) can be damaging to men’s
sense of self-worth and their wider social contribution, and may serve to militate against
men’s entry into teaching (Roach, 2005).
Perhaps few would deny the need for a workforce that is reflective of the wider society;
however, this should not contribute either to the demonisation of women, the denial of
women’s career opportunities or the rejection of factors beyond the school in shaping (if
not determining) boys’ achievements:
“NASUWT rejects the assumption that the cause of boys’ apparent academic
underperformance is due to the presence of women teachers; this is in itself a
traditional, although outdated, view….A central problem is with the structure of the
curriculum, parental support and public attitudes…” (NASUWT, 2005).
Moreover, the policy desire to recruit more men teachers should not lead to the
recruitment of uncritical men who are not committed to the pursuit of gender equity and
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social justice (Lingard and Douglas, 1999). Thus, the value system within the profession,
and within schools, matters considerably if more men are to form the view that teaching is
a career for them.
The Women and Work Commission report ‘Shaping a Fairer Future’ (2006) documented
comprehensively the existence of a gender pay gap right across the economy. The
Commission’s report argued that it would take a generation to tackle this problem, and it
made a series of 40 recommendations to tackle occupational segregation and
discriminatory practices in the workplace.
NASUWT has also argued that: “in order to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, the gender
pay gap, existing equal pay legislation needs to be significantly strengthened to include
the introduction of mandatory equal pay audits in the public, private and voluntary sectors”
(NASUWT, 2006).
The available evidence suggests that within the education sector there is a pay gap in
favour of men of 11.5% for full-time equivalent earnings (Equal Opportunities Commission,
2006). However, the extent to which there is a pay gap amongst teachers remains an area
meriting attention. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that men teachers have enjoyed
higher levels of remuneration, as a result of discretionary pay and reward systems for
teachers that (until very recently) have lacked transparency and accountability (see
chapter 2 by Keates).
Tackling unequal and discriminatory pay systems is one of the key challenges for trade
unions in education; but so too is the need to expose and challenge the value systems
which give greater currency to men (and boys) where these operate to the detriment of
women (and girls). There is a need to open up the debate on gender in education, and, by
doing so, to fashion new opportunities and ways of seeing and experiencing masculinity in
schools and colleges.
About this report
As part of its equalities strategy, NASUWT hosted a major national conference to examine
the issues affecting boys and men in schools and colleges1. The conference, which took
place on 14 June 2006, explored a number of questions, including:

is the education system loaded against boys?

are men inhibited from becoming teachers?

do black boys have the skills to survive their schooling?

do men make better teachers than women?

is teaching a feminised/feminist teaching profession?

is there a gender biased school curriculum?

are social class and ethnicity more important than gender factors in boys’
attainment?

should women teachers be blamed for the educational underachievement of boys?

is the problem of boys and men in danger of disadvantaging girls and women?

is the education system institutionally sexist?
These questions lie at the heart of the current debate on how schools and colleges can
raise educational standards for all pupils/students. However, the very notion of a crisis in
1 The NASUWT Boys to Men Conference was held on 14 June 2006 at the Queen
Elizabeth II Conference Centre, London.
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boys’ educational achievement and in men’s representation within the teaching profession
is a highly contested area which this report highlights.
In Chapter 2 – ‘Boys to Men: the NASUWT perspective on masculinities and gender in
education’ – Chris Keates (NASUWT) seeks to dispel a number of myths around the
position of boys and men in education. Chris Keates argues that rather than being
disadvantaged, men and boys have been the beneficiaries of the system, and increasingly
so, as the system is becoming ever more geared around boys’ needs as a reaction to
wider public concerns.
In Chapter 3, Tony Sewell explores the experiences of African-Caribbean boys within the
British education system and examines racism, cultural norms and influences and the
behaviours associated with education, including whether or not learning is perceived as
somehow ‘feminine’. He argues that building resilience in boys via “exposure, experience
and encouragement” is the best way to negotiate the triple quandary. Tony Sewell argues
that there are biological differences between boys and girls which affect their development
and their disposition for learning. Indeed, and perhaps controversially, Sewell argues that
boys have access to very few resources and structures to support their emotional and
psychological development, unlike girls. Sewell also argues that there are distinct, positive
aspects of a boys’ identity which should be recognised in terms of teaching methodology
and catered for via active learning and by occasional teaching by gender and he
concludes that doing so would benefit both boys and girls.
The issue of masculinity as a practice in school life is explored in Chapter 4 by Mark
Jennett, who considers the way in which homophobic behaviour has become a normative
social practice in schools. Mark Jennett describes how the use of the word ‘gay’ has
evolved into a common term that is often used in an offensive and derogatory manner
giving rise to increased homophobia in schools. Indeed, Jennett disputes the notion that
children at any age, including in primary schools, are unaware of issues of sexuality or
seek to locate their identity without reference to sexuality. Drawing on reports Jennett has
published elsewhere (‘Stand up for us’), he provides positive examples of how primary and
secondary schools can challenge homophobia within their policies and curriculum
practices.
In Chapter 5, Murziline Parchment highlights the impetus behind the ‘London schools and
the black child’ initiative. Parchment’s chapter provides a plethora of statistical information
on the educational attainment of black pupils in London schools which indicate little
improvement in relation to the educational outcomes of black African-Caribbean boys. In
particular, Parchment suggests that part of the solution to the problem of black boys’
achievement is to ensure that the teaching workforce is high quality, and reflects the
diverse pupil population in London schools, whilst rejecting recourse to tokenism.
In Chapter 6, Christine Skelton draws on research evidence to explore the issue of pupils’
perceptions of teachers and gender. Skelton argues that the answer to the problem of
boys’ achievement does not lie in having ‘boy teachers for boys’. She suggests that
gender matching pupils and teachers has no discernibly advantageous effect on the
school performance of boys, and may even be counterproductive. Skelton’s research
highlights the diversity of boys and men as a social category and stresses the importance
of differences by background and circumstances in relation to teaching and learning.
Skelton’s chapter calls into question the public policy claim that more men are needed
within the profession as role models for boys, and that, in many cases, pupils will identify
with the professional skills of the teacher rather than the teacher’s gender.
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In Chapter 7, Mary Thornton and Patricia Bricheno examine how the teaching profession
in the UK has changed over the last century. They confirm that there has been a public
panic about the number of men teachers, but suggest that this does not reveal evidence of
a contemporary crisis since men have always been in the minority within the profession.
Thornton and Bricheno’s study of data through the 20th Century reveals that the
proportion of teachers who are men has remained relatively stable. What has changed,
they argue, is the fluctuating nature of the public discourse and attempts to reassert men’s
interests. Notably, the authors conclude that rather than suffering at the hands of women,
boys’ educational fortunes have depended on women’s efforts in the classroom and in
schools, including during those historical periods when girls’ attainment lagged behind that
of boys.
In Chapter 8, Michael Watkins outlines the role and responsibilities of the Training and
Development Agency for Schools (TDA) and describes the policies and strategies being
pursued by the TDA to increase the representation of men in initial teacher training.
Watkins considers some regional differences in relation to male/female recruitment and
outlines how the TDA is exploring possible solutions to the problem of attracting more
high-quality graduates into teaching. Watkins concludes that despite the TDA’s target for
recruiting more men teachers, the TDA’s aim is to see all children experiencing a full,
satisfying and relevant curriculum taught by high-quality, confident teachers, regardless of
gender.
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Chapter 2
‘Boys to Men: the NASUWT perspective on masculinities and gender in
education’
Chris Keates NASUWT
As the largest union representing teachers and headteachers across the UK, NASUWT
can bring a perspective to equality issues which is informed by the practical experiences
and opinions of our members and our commitment to the pursuit of equal rights and social
justice in schools and in society. As an elected National Executive Member of NASUWT, I
was the first Chair of the Equal Opportunities Committee when it was established and the
agenda set by that Committee has been one where the Union prides itself not on being
content to identify problems, but seeking to advance solutions and make the agenda truly
one of equality and action. The issues of boys and men in schools and colleges are critical
to the equalities debate. Some of the debate has been controversial and provocative and
that is exactly how it should be, and in engaging in some myth-busting I have taken two
seemingly unconnected issues which individually often provoke fierce debate in the
education world.
The first is the frequent assertion that there is a developing crisis in relation to the
underachievement of boys and their disengagement from formal education. The second,
the under-representation of male teachers in the profession and the contributory factors.
Much of the debate about boys’ underachievement has focused on their position vis-à-vis
girls. Particular concerns have been expressed about the lower aggregate levels of
attainment of boys in writing and other areas of literacy, particularly at the end of Key
Stages 2 and 3. It is claimed that boys’ underachievement is linked to the underrepresentation of men within the teaching profession, the existence of a ‘feminised
curriculum’ and ‘feminine pedagogy’. The progress of boys, it is claimed by some, is
hindered by the fact that they are less likely to be taught by teachers of the same gender
to whom they are more likely to relate. Such assertions, I believe, wrongly seek to make
women teachers the scapegoats for the educational outcomes and experiences of boys
and conveniently ignore not only issues of achievement relating to girls but also the impact
of background, social class or economic circumstances on achievement for which there is
much evidence. The focus on boys’ underachievement and the apparent success of girls,
in fact hide the problems of underachievement for many girls from working-class
backgrounds.
The significant rise in achievement levels for girls is largely a middle-class phenomenon
and in many instances does not read across for girls in all socioeconomic groups and
ethnicities. We seem to hear nothing else but concerns about the underachievement of
boys yet I have struggled hard to try to remember the same amount of energy expended in
debate – the same amount of consternation and general hand-wringing – surrounding
underachievement amongst girls in the past and, indeed, now. It is of course absolutely
right to be concerned about differential achievements. It is wrong in my view to focus
excessively on one group.
Since boys’ underachievement became the hot topic, no stone appears to have been left
unturned to rectify this problem. For example, the curriculum has been adjusted in terms of
the teaching of literacy. Short extracts of major works rather than the whole text are now
the order of the day to compensate for the claimed short attention span of boys. The
literacy curriculum has been geared to focus on adventure texts which are felt to be more
appealing to boys and girls have to cope. Changes in assessment practice too have
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moved from extended analysis to multiple choice. Small project work has become a key
feature of the assessment system. Meanwhile, the pressure for greater curriculum
flexibility at the 14-19 stage has been fuelled by concerns about tackling the disaffection of
boys. Each of these are strategies to which boys are meant to respond better. I’ve only
scratched the surface of the changes which have taken place but all of this raises
questions of how the learning needs of all children can be accommodated when the
design of the curriculum, learning styles and assessments are dominated by the perceived
needs and preferences of boys as learners. There is a danger that the adoption of a boyfriendly learning approach merely reinforces socially constructed gender stereotypes.
It is widely recognised that men are under-represented within the teaching profession,
particularly in primary schools, and statistics undeniably bear this out. The extent to which
the make-up of the teaching profession, in terms of gender mix, fails to reflect society has
been a longstanding cause for concern. The Training and Development Agency for
Schools has set a national target for recruiting men into initial teacher training and had
success in reaching its targets, largely because it has focused on recruiting ‘career
changers’.
NASUWT’s view of the composition of the school workforce is guided by our own
equalities policies and can be summarised as a belief that staff within the school should
broadly reflect the community they serve. However, that doesn’t go far enough; in addition
to this, the fundamental issue is that schools must have a workforce that has the
commitment and the capacity to tackle prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination in all its
forms.
The most common rationale offered for men’s under-representation in the teaching
profession seeks refuge in explanations which apportion blame to women. We are all
familiar with the claims that teaching is an occupation more suited to women because the
nature of the teacher’s contracted hours enable them to combine work with family
responsibilities, or the assertion that men do not enter the teaching profession because it
is a low paid, low status job and because it is perceived as ‘women’s work’. These
perceptions may well be correct and low pay and low status has been a genuine problem,
but not just for the recruitment of men.
Some men claim that they assume employment in primary schools because there is an
expectation on them to take responsibility for discipline. In practice I believe that is more
self-delusion or has origins within parental and governor attitudes. A large part of the
academic discourse around men in teaching, particularly in the early years of education,
highlights the fact that men feel they have to manage other people’s perceptions of them.
It is still not uncommon for the question to be posed, “why would any self-respecting man
be a nursery teacher?” I think that question speaks volumes not just about the problems
faced by men but also about the attitudes towards women, to early years education and to
those who teach in that phase. It is still common for parents and governors associated with
primary schools in particular to hold the view that there needs to be at least one man on
the staff just in case something goes wrong or a crisis emerges. Authority is very much
seen as a male characteristic and research bears out this attitude. It was neatly summed
up in one text as “you need a rooster in charge of the hen house”.
Such misguided views I believe distract from and mask the real issues. There is evidence
to show that children express fixed views about women and men’s roles at a very early
age. Gender divisions are observed in attitudes adopted to play and to learning activities
and in addition it is perceived that girls and boys are guided towards atypical subject
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choices that impact negatively on their learning and career choices. Boys are conditioned
to behave in particular ways, leading at the extreme, to violence, disruption or bullying.
Hyper-masculine behaviour in the playground is driven by the need to be the dominant
male as determined by wider cultural experiences. Boys don’t want to be associated with
anything perceived to be gay or feminine and that perception alone can generate
compensatory behaviour. There is a need to eliminate this damaging gender stereotyping
which adversely affects the life chances of girls as well as boys.
There is a body of evidence which suggests that the curriculum and the career choices of
girls and boys are founded on gender-based stereotypes which impact on their later
employment choices and learning. If a 14 year old girl chooses hairdressing and the same
aged boy chooses construction then the earning potential of the boy is on the face of it
immediately greater. Parental support and public attitudes are critical factors in
transforming gender and cultural stereotypes. Boys feel constrained about choosing
certain jobs, particularly in caring roles for fear of being perceived as feminine or being
regarded as odd.
All young people therefore need to have access to an appropriate and comprehensive
range of highquality educational opportunities and life experiences. All pupils, regardless
of school phase and throughout the course of their educational career, deserve equality of
opportunity – particularly in their choice of academic and vocational courses. A coherent
14-19 phase with high-quality information, advice, guidance and appropriate work
experience – experience that challenges gender stereotypes – is a critical factor in
transforming gender and cultural labels. Furthermore, work experience and young
apprenticeship schemes must actively promote atypical training placements for girls and
for boys. Creating an inclusive curriculum is also fundamental. It should be tailored to the
needs of pupils but critical to its success is the empowerment of teachers, freed from
burdens of bureaucracy to respond to the needs of pupils, a key feature of our agreement
with the Government to remodel the school workforce.
Performance league tables, against which NASUWT has consistently rallied, contribute to
many of the ills in the system and play a negative part in educational efforts to meet the
needs of girls and boys. At the heart of the achievement debate is the issue of when we
assess – whether at age rather than stage. Performance league tables contribute to a high
stakes assessment system which disadvantages boys and girls and their achievement in
the medium to longer term. We need a sound assessment system that is not skewed and
driven by a push to publish data for league tables.
The gender stereotyping which categorises occupations as men’s and women’s work and
the occupational segregation which this generates, all link directly to the underrepresentation of men in teaching. One of the most effective ways of addressing this
problem is to ensure strategies are adopted which will recruit and retain high-quality
entrants regardless of gender. However, designating an occupation as ‘women’s work’ can
lead to tacit complacency about low pay and poor conditions – it goes with the territory.
NASUWT has never accepted this and has fought for many years for levels of
remuneration which recognise and reward teachers as highly skilled professionals, not
only raising the pay and status of teaching within the labour market but fundamental to
raising standards. It is for these reasons that NASUWT entered into agreements on pay
and conditions of service with the Government and Employers, and through the vehicle of
social partnership we have made great inroads, the most significant advances in over 20
years towards securing a contract which frees teachers and headteachers from tasks that
do not require their skills and abilities, enabling them to focus on their core role of teaching
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and leading teaching and learning. We have reformed the pay system, introducing a fairer
and more transparent structure with clear career paths, which enables those who remain
committed to the classroom to aspire to higher salaries. We have recognised and tackled
pay inequality.
Our strategy has been criticised by some but NASUWT remains unapologetic and, as a
union, rightly and steadfastly maintains that refocusing the pay system to enable those
who remain in the classroom, predominantly women, to access higher salaries and secure
more open and transparent pay arrangements will better promote equal pay for all
teachers and make the profession an attractive option for all. Whilst we continue to
agonise about the under-representation of men in teaching there is an irony which cannot
go unremarked. Under-represented though men may be, those in post in general earn
more than women teachers irrespective of qualifications, skills and experience. Men are
disproportionately represented in school leadership positions and, as evidence shows,
often benefit from the masculinist employer assumptions which portray men as natural
leaders of the profession.
I am not surprised that men are seeking to fight their corner. Their role in society and in the
economy is changing dramatically. The decline in manufacturing and in industries such as
mining and the changing nature of work are funnelling men towards jobs in services which
are traditionally performed by women. This change, the fear it generates and its impact on
traditional notions of masculinity has led, I believe, to the claim of male disadvantage
being elevated out of all proportion, distracting attention from the problems faced by girls
and women. Of course there are issues for boys and men in terms of education and life
chances but there are also issues for girls and for women. Anyone looking for an easy
answer to this will, I fear, be disappointed.
These issues are highly complex and in my view transcend a debate about gender.
Whatever issues are discussed, let us not lose sight of the fact that the real scandal is that
social class remains the biggest determinant of achievement. Don’t blame the women;
tackle disadvantage, tackle deprivation, discrimination, unfairness and inequality to enable
everyone to achieve their full potential as learners and as workers.
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Chapter 3
‘Building Resilience in Boys: Leadership, competition and excitement’
Tony Sewell ‘Generating Genius’
Focusing on some of the complexities around the issue of gender rather than
generalisations, I nevertheless appreciate that part of the notion of a boy and a girl, or a
woman and a man, involves a degree of generalisation. Whilst patriarchy is a real issue,
my main cue on the issue of gender has come from single mothers raising boys. They
accepted what was being said about patriarchy and the need to challenge patriarchy, but
they felt strongly that there was a particular aspect about being a boy as distinct from
being a girl that had to be recognised. What those women said was “Look, raising a boy in
this estate with these pressures, with these particularities about him, I want that
recognised in terms of the school and the way in which the school deals with his needs –
and I also want some support and help in raising him because I recognise that there is a
difference”.
I don’t want to reject notions of distinct biological, psychological and social differences
between boys and girls. They are complex differences but they are there. In the womb
there is a difference. There are differences between the psychological and biological
development of boys and girls. The problem is that biology is seen as a deterministic and
dangerous area but nevertheless we should re-examine this, reconsider the development
of boys, and look at their specific needs.
In particular we need to build resilience in boys. We do not have to go far to see a knife
culture, a gang culture, as alternatives for boys. Instead of seeing boys as confident, I see
vulnerable boys; boys who are not very articulate; boys open and exposed to risk factors
such as low cultural capital. And what are we going to do about this? How do we address
the risk factors for boys?
A recent study looking at the experiences of African-Caribbean boys within the education
system went beyond teacher racism and explored the culture of boys in school and looked
at their attitude to learning – particularly the masculinities that surrounded them – and
there were two outcomes from that study. The first dispelled the notion that there was one
notion of a black boy, and instead came up with lots of different types of boys with different
attitudes. The second considered a cultural attitude still prevalent today; the idea of boys
seeing education as feminine and not masculine and therefore not working and not doing
well in school.
One way in which patriarchy can harm boys is via sexism. In Jamaica, for instance, there
is a serious problem about male underachievement in that society. When talking to six
year old Jamaican boys and girls about their experience and about how patriarchy might
be influencing them, the girls gave a list of what they do for housework which included all
the cooking activities, combing hair, washing the car, looking after animals, watering the
goat. The girls’ list was not untypical and was part of their socialisation. However a group
of boys within the same school asked the same question cited ‘eating’ as the most
arduous task that they had to perform every day in their lives.
This raises some serious implications for society, as Mark Figueroa (1996) has suggested:
“It is the very patterns of early socialisation which produce the eventual differences
in performance between males and females in secondary and tertiary levels of
education. Girls are provided structured and repetitive learning experiences within
the home, requiring attention to detail, patience, and obedience. Boys, on the other
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hand, are the beneficiaries of ‘male privileging’, which relieves them of most of
these structured duties. Thus, girls are better equipped than are boys for the highly
structured English-framed system of education prevailing in the Caribbean.”
Thus, it is argued that the very early patterns of socialisation are able to produce
differences in educational performance between males and females. That is the crisis the
Caribbean faces. This differential impacts in society because of the way in which those
boys are educated at home. Sometimes the relationships that these boys have within
those households are not healthy ones – at ages 9, 10 and 11 some are, to put it in other
words, ‘masters of their own households’. This cannot work emotionally for a 10 year old
boy and is one of the key causes as to why boys are underachieving in the system.
Basically, they are having it a bit too easy at home.
What are the other risk factors for boys within education? Number one is teacher
expectation, which manifests itself as teacher attitudes to boys and girls. This is a key
issue in determining life chances and ultimately whether boys do well in school or not.
Boys are at obvious risk when teacher expectations are low and when the father figure is
absent. In my own community there is a high percentage of families with no father there
and this is an issue. To go into denial about this is to again deny what those single
mothers raising boys I referred to earlier said about their experiences. It is not, however,
saying that single women cannot raise boys.
Additional risk factors are the knife culture and the peer culture. Peer group pressure and
how this works is a key factor in the way that boys behave and is particularly relevant in
shaping boys’ attitudes towards school. Notions of street culture and gangs are also
factors, along with boys’ ‘cultural comfort zone’, and the development of particular
community or group identities which can either block or stop boys from entering the
mainstream of schooling.
An interesting aspect of the available literature centres on the particular issue of boys
being violent or boys misbehaving in school. Many boys have either no access or very little
access to things relevant to their development and the attitude (often from parents to
teachers) is, ‘just get on with it’, ‘boys do not cry’ and consequently boys’ emotional
development is often ignored. I find boys at age 12 or 13 – working-class boys in particular
– just not responding in the classrooms, which are, in a way, dominated by the other
gender. Why is that the case? In primary school similar things are happening and we have
to recognise this.
Consider also who boys talk to and how they talk to each other. What are their
conversations like? I do not recognise the feature of boys with the confidence to rule the
world. I do recognise very vulnerable children and we have got to dispel the myth that, in
fact, men will inevitably come to control the boardroom later. Yes, they may well do that.
Middle-class boys will go to university, control trade unions, control universities, yet
consider what happens to working-class boys at 12, at 13, at 14.
In ‘Black Masculinities In Schooling’ (Sewell, 1999), the ideas and notions of gang culture,
a culture of patriarchy, and seeing education as feminised were attacked. The book
recognised instead that there are some distinct, positive things about the male identity and
drew on those, aiming to help both boys and girls in the long run.
To be successful, boys have to negotiate what can be described as a ‘triple quandary’.
This quandary means that African-Caribbean boys have to be able to deal with a dominant
mainstream culture that is fairly middle class, fairly white and about achieving five GCSEs.
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The quandary is also about how society sees those boys, how they are positioned. For
many black boys they are not popular because they are chess players, great scientists or
answer all the maths questions correctly, but because they can beat people up and kick a
football. Other boys saw them in that context and so these were the behaviours.
Another aspect of the triple quandary for African-Caribbean boys is the cultural comfort
zone, the little corner that can be an area in the school where the people who do not do
well in school hang out – or even a psychological space. The cultural comfort zone helps
to preserve identity, perhaps within a white majority or similarly difficult situation; but it can
also be a problem because boys still have to deal with the mainstream culture. However,
many boys find this balancing act difficult.
The cultural comfort zone also means talking about gender boundaries and possibly
boundaries in terms of sexuality. Some boys have an ability to make language and cultural
switches and develop coping strategies to overcome inconsistencies between mainstream
values and their community values, and it is interesting to note that schools that have
extracurricular activities often make it easier for boys to get through this quandary.
Even though we should tackle the patriarchy, there is still a need to recognise the
particular needs that boys have. My colleague at Leeds University, Edgar Jenkins, did a
survey of 1,200 pupils in England around the gender split in science and gender-specific
syllabuses. He asked the boys what their favourite topics were in science and they replied:
explosions; explosive chemicals; how it feels to be weightless in space; how the atom
bomb functions; biological and chemical weapons; black holes and supernovae; how
meteors, comets or asteroids cause disasters on earth; the possibility of life outside earth;
how computers work; the effect of strong electric shocks and lightning on the body; and
dangerous animals. In terms of what the girls said in response to the same questions
about their favourite topics, they answered: why we dream and what it means; what we
know about cancer and how to treat it; how to perform first aid; how to exercise to keep fit;
sexually transmitted diseases and how to protect against them; what we know about
HIV/AIDS and how to control it; life and death and the human soul; biological and human
aspects of abortion; eating disorders; how alcohol and tobacco might affect the body.
Now, what do you do with this information? How do you interpret this? Are we catering for
that difference in our school in the way we teach and the way we operate or are we
actually ignoring that, to the detriment of the interests and the needs of the pupils? We
must be conscious of the fact that our curriculum should reflect these differences. There
are real reasons why science isn’t working at the moment, why we are not getting
chemists and not getting enough qualified science teachers. Government need to address
that, invest money and I also believe unions like NASUWT need to lobby for that.
For boys, we need to build their resilience by doing three things – exposure, experience
and encouragement. I run a programme called ‘Generating Genius’ which operates in
Jamaica, out of Imperial College. We take boys at the age of twelve – and we will take girls
– and provide them with the chance to become research scientists. They attend the
programme every Summer, doing ELearning and we teach chemistry, nanotechnology,
robotics, and a range of things that they can do in terms of science. The outcome of that is
to produce the next generation of science teachers and building resilience is a key part of
that. Teacher expectations and parental gender expectations have changed, the
curriculum has become different in some ways and the boys compete with each other.
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They elect a project manager, are taught a subject area – for example an African country
that needs a solution around malaria. They then research the drug, the most effective drug
for that area, test it and then present it to the board of CEOs and are ‘fired’ if they’re not
good enough. The best one gets the prize and that is what I believe motivates them. The
programme highlights the need to be much more imaginative in the curriculum and to take
risks because you can transfer that to school, and you can have situations in schools
where you use competition for a very positive end. And you can decide to perhaps do
separate teaching as well, particularly on the emotional side of things, if you are dealing
with a particular topic.
Ultimately, we need to be honest in terms of the debate and recognise that by meeting the
particular needs of boys you can actually meet the needs of girls. For instance, science
lessons would be more interesting if we encouraged more active learning rather than
copying things from the board, a methodology which would benefit girls as much as it
would boys. The logic here isn’t to return to a curriculum that is just ‘boy friendly’. The logic
is to make the curriculum exciting so that girls and boys benefit from the whole thing.
Solutions around gender inequality begin with trying to understand how society has
changed and how children respond differently to different contexts.
Finally, we must also consider the negative influence of a patriarchal attitude to education
which has damaged boys, and the struggle against that must not stop. However, there is
evidence – biological, psychological and social – that boys’ development is different to
girls’. We need to listen to pupils, to their needs and respond to them. The way we teach
and manage boys and girls will then, in the long run, get the best out of them.
The way forward is to have a situation in schools where boys and girls feel comfortable,
feel they can learn in an environment that is positive and one in which the whole school
deals with all their needs.
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Chapter 4
‘Practical strategies for addressing homophobia and issues of sexual identity
within schools’
Mark Jennett Freelance Consultant
In the Summer of 2006 the BBC received a complaint after DJ Chris Moyles made what
many people regarded as a homophobic comment on Radio 1. But Mr Moyles’s behaviour
was upheld by the BBC Governors who declared that the word ‘gay’ now means ‘lame’ or
‘rubbish’ among young people and need not be offensive to homosexuals. They made the
point that this is a widespread, current usage of the word. However, I think this misses the
point and so did Beat Bullying when they said, “the only reason that the word ‘gay’ has any
power as a generic term of abuse is because it is rooted in the notion that being gay, or
homosexual, is a bad thing.”
I recently spoke to a group of young people in a secondary school who were putting
together their anti-bullying policy. I spent an hour talking to them and they too really didn’t
see a problem with using the word ‘gay’ in this way. Towards the end of the hour I asked
them, ‘do you have any gay people in this school?’ They said, ‘of course, of course we do’.
I asked if they knew who any of them were. They all said no they didn’t so I then said, ‘why
do you think that might be?’ You could see it begin to dawn on them that, by perpetuating
the use of the word ‘gay’ as meaning something wrong or stupid, they had contributed to
an atmosphere in which gay students or staff might feel uncomfortable about being open
about their sexuality.
‘Beat Bullying’ research with young people, about all types of bullying, found that more
than three quarters of primary school children identify the use of the word ‘gay’ as a means
of attacking or making fun of someone. So whether or not they know what it means they
do know that it’s a bad word. By the time they do find out what it refers to – homosexual
people, lesbians and gay men and bisexual people – they have already learnt that it is bad
and a way of getting at people.
Research carried out by the Young Women’s Christian Association indicates that, on
average, it takes three years after a young woman realises that she is lesbian before she
tells anybody at all. So for three years she is carrying that around inside her and, in most
schools, hearing all this ‘gay’ stuff. Some of these young women said that they knew they
were ‘different’ as early as six. This may seem surprising to some people who don’t
perceive primary school children as possessing a sexuality – although, speaking for myself
and for other people I know, I certainly knew that I was different when I was that age. I did
not have a label for this back then, but knew that I was different and wasn’t quite like most
of the other people I was at school with.
Something like three quarters of young people who experience homophobic bullying have
a history of absenteeism and the majority of these young people leave school at age 16,
regardless of academic qualifications. This is obviously a concern for us as educators.
Challenging homophobia is a positive thing in itself but it also has a real impact on young
people’s learning.
In putting together ‘Stand Up For Us’, we talked to young people, teachers, parents and
gay youth groups. Two of the boys in those groups had actually been asked to leave by
their school – it wasn’t their choice – they had been asked to go because the school
couldn’t cope with the homophobic bullying that they were facing. One had never gone
back, never gone back to college and had no qualifications at all.
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In the worst cases, bullying may lead to self-harm and even suicide. Research indicates
that homophobic bullying is significantly more impactful than some other forms of bullying.
This is particularly true for young people who grow up to identify as lesbian, gay or
bisexual but it seems to have particularly harmful effects on all young people. This is an
important thing to remember; homophobic bullying is not just something that happens to
gay young people. It happens to all sorts of young people who are different, for example to
young men who don’t conform to certain stereotypical codes of behaviour about how
young men should be.
We worry constantly about boys’ underachievement and why they underachieve. Tony
Sewell has previously advanced some interesting reasons as to why boys don’t achieve,
but I would like to suggest another. The very behaviours that we say we want to inculcate
in young men – to care about what teachers think; to be studious; to want to read; and to
learn – these behaviours can get them bullied. And the very kind of bullying that they face,
we are then not very effective at challenging.
There is still a perception that there is little to support educators in this work, but back in
2000 ‘Don’t Suffer in Silence’, the DfES’s anti-bullying bible, advised that homophobic
bullying should be addressed in schools by:

including it in the school’s anti-bullying policy – and yet the majority of schools still
don’t. Indeed, many schools and organisations still have equal opportunities
policies that say nothing about sexuality;

covering it in INSET days on bullying in general – however, most teachers still don’t
receive this support;

providing support for LGB pupils – yet how many teachers feel confident to do this?

exploring issues of diversity and difference – we do explore these issues but tend to
do so mainly in the context of ethnicity. Occasionally we might mention gender or
disability. We very, very rarely mention sexuality. It is an obvious opportunity to talk
about this in the classroom and yet we don’t take it. And our very silence on the
subject perpetuates the idea that this is something inappropriate to talk about;

explore pupils’ understanding of their use of homophobic language as they may not
understand the impact – my experience in that secondary school, where pupils
could give me chapter and verse on why racist language is wrong but couldn’t see
why homophobic language might be hurtful or inappropriate, only serves to
emphasise how much we still have to do in this area.
There are now a range of resources available to schools to support them in challenging
homophobia and talking about sexuality in the classroom. In addition to those produced by
the DfES and campaigning and support organisations, teaching unions and many local
authorities have produced their own advice and guidance. And we should not forget that,
since 2003, employment equality law has banned both direct and indirect discrimination in
the workplace on the grounds of sexuality. Legislation due in 2006 will make it illegal to
discriminate against LGB people in terms of goods and services. Schools need to be
mindful of their legal obligations to both their staff and students.
A good place to start is to conduct an audit of homophobic bullying in your school. You can
involve young people in this and there is an example of what such an audit might look like
in the Stand Up For Us resource. In terms of school culture and environment, make your
commitment to challenging homophobia explicit. It should be in your policies, but is it in
homework diaries, the school prospectus or the PSHE policy? This not only helps to send
out a positive message but also to support members of staff who may have concerns
about how some parents might react.
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On that subject it is worth noting that, as far back as 1994, the Health Education Authority
found that seven out of eight parents were perfectly happy for schools to talk about
homosexuality. Despite this many schools are still inhibited from addressing homophobia
because of a fear of how parents may react. Being explicit about how your school
challenges all forms of discrimination and promotes the equality of all members of its
community will make it much easier to challenge any rare objections that might occur.
Ensure that challenging homophobia is included in the school development plan. Support
is needed at the top level, so ensure this is brought up with the governors; make sure they
are onside and provide training if needed. If governors are reluctant, explain how
homophobia impacts negatively on young people’s learning; how young people leave
school early; and how it impacts on their emotional health and wellbeing. Ultimately, bring
it back to bullying – we can all agree on our opposition to all forms of bullying and this is a
very common form of bullying. It is now the second most common form of bullying in
schools after bullying about weight.
Schools and colleges should record homophobic incidents. Some local authorities are
already encouraging schools to record homophobic incidents in the same way that they
record racist incidents. This is useful not only in terms of identifying what is going on in a
school, but in sending out a message about how important and how significantly the
school takes this issue. Involve young people, help young people to see how unfair this is
and engage them in the design of such antibullying protocols.
For ideas about how to address the issue in the classroom, look at the Qualifications &
Curriculum Authority (QCA) schemes of work for Citizenship. There are fantastic
opportunities here to discuss diversity, stereotyping, prejudice, and the law and how it
protects particular groups, and to talk about the media and how it presents certain types of
people. Create your own examples that focus on sexuality as well as the much more
commonly cited examples of ethnicity and gender.
For example, while we often talk about the relative invisibility of people from ethnic
minorities in our media, how many lesbians do we see on television? How many older gay
people of either gender?
Consider whether the SRE taught in school makes any acknowledgement of the needs of
young people who are or who may come to identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual. DfES
guidance is clear that such programmes should address the needs of all young people,
regardless of their emerging sexuality.
Consider how talking about sexuality is not the same as talking about sex. It is talking
about loving and caring and relationships. We talk about sexuality with primary school
children all the time: we talk about families; and we talk about who we love, who we like
and the different kinds of relationships we have without ever mentioning sex.
There is no reason why same-sex relationships can’t be discussed in this same context.
When we talk about different kinds of families we acknowledge that not all families involve
a mum and a dad. We also talk about families where mum and dad are from different
ethnicities or live separately. Why can’t you also have a family with two mums in it or even
two mums and a dad who doesn’t live with you?
In my experience, young children have little difficulty accepting these variations and
primary school children are very strong on the concept of unfairness. If you need to explain
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why homophobic bullying is wrong, talk about unfairness; talk about how unkind it is to
discriminate against people who are different. With older children you can explore whether,
even if you disagree with something that somebody else is, does it give you the right to
bully and exclude them? Reiterate that “we don’t tolerate discrimination against anyone in
this school”. Make reference to homophobia in the classroom not just when students
behave inappropriately but encourage them to talk about it so they understand that it is
mature and acceptable to talk about these things.
Encourage young people to discuss the simple statement: ‘We don’t discriminate against
people because they are different, we don’t discriminate against people because of their
ethnicity, we don’t discriminate against people because they have a disability and we don’t
discriminate against people because of their sexuality’.
In sessions for teachers on homophobic language a key message is to be consistent in
how you challenge it; it doesn’t work if you do this sometimes and not at other times; it
doesn’t work if some staff do it and other staff don’t. Consider the language used in
classrooms: “that book/table/homework is so gay”. Challenge this and explain why you are
challenging it. If students were constantly using words which commonly defined a person’s
gender or ethnicity as derogatory terms then we would challenge this. This is no different.
Last but by no means least, a good barometer of a school’s approach to homophobia is
whether LGB members of staff feel comfortable being open about their sexuality in the
same way that their heterosexual colleagues do. Of course, it is any individual’s choice
about how open they wish to be – but how many schools really facilitate that? Most
schools will have LGB staff in them; what could be a more powerful signal that a school
genuinely values diversity and challenges discrimination than for staff – and students – to
feel able to be open about their sexuality?
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Chapter 5
‘Tackling the Underachievement of Black Boys in London and Teacher
Networks’
Murziline Parchment - Mayor of London’s Office
I would like to consider the ‘London schools and the black child’ initiative that the Mayor
started in 2000, an initiative that is equally applicable in the other metropolitan cities where
we have a diverse pupil population.
London is a unique place: there are over 900,000 children in London’s schools, 3,000
schools and 300 languages spoken. Over 40% of young people at school are from a
minority ethnic group. The highest levels of poverty and inequality exist in London. Thirtyeight per cent of the children in London live in poverty, 54% in inner London live in poverty
and yet we also have some of the highest performing schools in England. Twenty-two per
cent of our children are black compared to 7% of our teachers, 18% of our children are of
Asian heritage compared to 6% of teachers and 50% of our children are white compared
to 83% of London teachers.
In terms of some background to the ‘London Schools and the Black Child’ initiative, in
2001 Hackney MP Diane Abbott said that there was a ‘silent catastrophe’ going on in the
schools in Hackney. African-Caribbean heritage children were entering schools on an
equal status with the other groups of children, but by the time they had reached secondary
school their attainment or achievement had completely collapsed. On closer investigation it
was realised that this was not just happening in Hackney, it was happening right across
London and from that the Mayor agreed to launch ‘London Schools and the Black Child’.
The first conference was held in 2002 and attended by 2,000 people, most of them black
parents. There have been subsequent conferences in 2003 and 2004 and the 2006
conference was held in September. It has been necessary to turn parents away from the
conferences because of the huge levels of interest among black parents, in particular, in
education. This has now become established as a major conference, not only for parents
but also for educationalists concerned about issues of race and equality and achievement
in schools and in that respect the support of the NASUWT is welcomed.
In 2004 the London Development Agency published a draft report looking at the
educational experiences and achievements of black boys. Having spoken to quite a
number of pupils, black boys in particular, these boys felt that teachers had low
expectations of them; they were more likely to see themselves as being in conflict with
teachers; and these pupils felt strongly that teachers need to learn how to communicate
with them. These reports called for more black male teachers in schools to act as role
models, with specific measures to address the dearth of qualified male teachers.
In addition, a DfES survey of teachers and pupils in 2004 found that only 42% of black
pupils in London felt that they were respected by teachers (bearing out the report of 2003)
compared to 55% of white pupils and 59% of Asian pupils. So what are the statistics for
black pupils in London?
These are pretty stark. In London, 55.2% across the board achieved five grade A-C levels.
With new league tables across the board this is 43.2%. Black pupils on the whole
achieved just below that, 45.8%, and with the new standard it would be 32.2%. But for
black Caribbean boys, only 28% achieved at the old standard. And if we take into account
class, i.e. the proxy of free school meals, only 10% of the poorest black boys achieve the
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new standard. That’s 9 in 10 black boys from poorer backgrounds having their futures
written off and falling out of the education system.
This is not a new phenomenon. There have been many reports in the past: the Bernard
co-ed report in 1970; the Rampton report in the late 1970s; the Swan report in 1985; the
OFSTED report recently on the achievements of ethnic minority pupils in 1996; and our
own report in 2003. It is incomprehensible that so little has been achieved in all that time.
What can we do to effect change? This story has been unfurling since the 70s, so this has
occurred over 30 years. What can we do, and what can the Mayor do? The Mayor of
London has no statutory responsibility at all for schools or education and so there really is
a valid question here of what he can do. Effectively what the Mayor decided was that he
should use his profile to raise this issue and raise a number of policy areas where he felt
there were simple steps to affect this issue – and the first step is the recruitment of a more
representative teaching workforce in our schools.
Let me remind you again of the ratios. Twenty-two per cent of the pupils in our schools are
black compared to 7% of teachers, whereas 50% are white and 83% of the teachers are
white. Around 45% are black and Asian and this will rise over the next 10 to 15 years.
This is not just about having more black faces in the classroom, this is also about changing
the staffroom and the culture of the educational institution and this should lead to a more
culturally responsive workforce – although it must be clearly set out that just because a
teacher is black or of African Caribbean background that does not put them in a better
position to understand the Somali in their classroom or the Kurdish boy in their classroom.
This is what leads us to the second area of policy that the Mayor has lent his name to and
championed, that is being looked at with the DfES, and that is to provide all teachers that
come and teach in London schools with specific training in diversity issues.
At the moment there is a teacher shortage in London of 1.2%. This amounts to about 620
posts, twice the UK average of shortages. London continues to depend on teachers from
overseas to keep the system running. Again, they come from a variety of backgrounds,
coming to London and facing very diverse pupils within their classrooms. There is concern
for newly qualified teachers who come straight into the classrooms, very often from outside
London, sometimes from outside any metropolitan area, and for the first time facing pupils
from such a diverse background. A survey in 2005 showed that only 35% of newly
qualified teachers felt that they were well prepared to teach pupils from a diverse
background, and one in five of them felt that their training was poor in this area. This has
been addressed elsewhere.
In District 17 of New York, a district with a high proportion of African-Caribbean heritage
students, their schools were rated last in achievement league tables through the whole of
New York. The district leadership insisted that all teachers went through race equality and
diversity training before they came into schools, and over a five-year period they went from
being 42nd out of 42 to the top 20. It took five years for them to do this, so this is not
something that is a quick fix, but the Mayor is committed to working with the DfES to look
at whether something similar could be tried in London.
We know that it is a very complex area and we know many teachers have come to us
saying ‘why have you picked on these two areas and not the other 500 areas?’ The Mayor
is using his profile to raise these issues and these policy changes and believes that these
are the best areas to effect quicker change. He wants to send a clear message of support
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for the teaching profession in their endeavours in teaching a diverse pupil population in
their schools and NASUWT can support the development of this programme for London.
The Greater London Authority and the Mayor understand that teachers are a key agent of
change and that’s why we focus on what the teaching workforce looks like. The Mayor
wants to support teachers in their endeavour to be this key agent of change and wants to
work with teachers in delivering better achievement within schools, particularly amongst
black boys.
There have been good successes in the London Challenge initiative and the continuing
improvements in GCSE results across the board in London. We realise that teachers are
doing a really, really difficult job and despite the difficulties in that job they are still able to
improve achievement. London teachers really should take credit for that. However there is
a long way to go and we would welcome support in these two policy areas: in recruiting a
wider, more diverse teacher workforce and also in participating and helping us build a
good programme of training in diversity for teachers right across the board.
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Chapter 6
‘Boy Teachers or Girl Teachers? Pupils’ Perceptions of Teachers and Gender’
Christine Skelton - Roehampton University
The title ‘boy teachers or girl teachers’ came about courtesy of the seven to eight year old
children who participated in the research. These were not terms that we, the research
team used, but whether interviewing children in North East or South East England, or
inner-city schools or schools in urban areas, they all referred to ‘boy teachers’ or ‘girl
teachers’.
The research to be discussed came about as a result of government policy to recruit more
men into primary teaching. Members of the research team (from the Universities of
Roehampton, Newcastle and London Metropolitan) believe and have written about how
gender is far more complex than just boys versus girls and is just one factor of many that
influences day-to-day classroom experiences. So, for us, knowing the complexity that
surrounds gender, any government policy that sets out to simplistically match pupils and
teachers by gender needed to be questioned. The drive in itself to increase more men
teachers is related to the concern over boys’ underachievement. A number of explanations
have been put forward as to why boys are perceived as neither as academically able or as
well motivated as girls and the absence of men teachers has been seen to be one of
these.
The specific drive for more men teachers in primary schools is based on three
assumptions. The first one being that increased numbers of male teachers will provide an
environment more in tune with the needs of boys and, it has been argued, that primary
schools are feminising institutions. That is, they are dominated by women teachers and as
such encourage girls to the detriment of boys – boys’ needs are believed to be
marginalised or alienated by a lack of male representation in the primary school. The
second assumption is that men teachers are better able to control and motivate boys and
instil discipline, therefore, it is thought that matching teachers and children by gender
improves the behaviour and achievement of boys.
Assumption three is that boys need male ‘role models’. In the research that has been
undertaken on men teachers, a majority say they do not want to be seen as ‘role models’
as men; they want to be seen as ethical templates in exactly the same way that female
teachers do. They do not want to be identified purely because of their masculinity, but to
be respected by pupils for the values and ethics that they bring to their role.
The issue for us here is that there is absolutely no evidence at all that matching pupils and
teachers by gender makes any difference to achievement. And there is only a slight
indication that for some groups, experiences of school might benefit from having a teacher
who is empathetic towards the situation of pupils. For example, Thomas Dee (2005) has
shown in his analysis of large scale US data sets that white and minority (in his case, black
and Hispanic) students are likely to be perceived as disruptive by teachers who do not
share their racial ethnic designation.
Our theoretical perspective is, as I have said, that gender is diverse and that there are
many ways of being a boy or being a girl at school and we would usually challenge any
attempt to water down this complexity by referring to, or analysing, data on the basis of ‘all
boys’ or ‘all girls’. However, the policy on increasing the number of men teachers does just
this and so to explore it we had to find out if, indeed, boys as a group did prefer men
teachers as a group.
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We therefore conducted a qualitative study consisting of 307 Year 3 pupils, 156 in the
North East and 151 in the South East of England. This geographical spread was chosen in
order to get a broader national sample. The South East provided access to multiethnic
schools and the North East offered access to urban, suburban and rural schools. Of the
pupils, the majority (207) were white. Fifty-one teachers were also interviewed (26 male
and 25 female). Two days were spent in each school: day one was spent interviewing
pupils and day two spent observing teacher-pupil interactions and, at the end of the day,
interviewing the teachers.
We chose seven to eight year olds for two reasons.
Firstly, men teachers are being encouraged to work with younger age pupils rather than
always working at the top end of the primary school. And, secondly, research on gender
identity development suggests that children begin to engage with conceptual
understandings of ‘gender’ at the age of about 5 and 6. Up until 5 and 6 they know their
biological sex, they know whether they are a boy or whether they are a girl, but gender is
much more fluid for them. Hence research studies which have shown how the little boy
wearing the gold lamé dress and the high heels who is having a fine time in the Wendy
house, gets told in no uncertain terms either by being thumped or through the verbal
abuse of his peers that boys don’t wear dresses.
There is then much research which shows that boys and girls are quite comfortable
moving between masculinities and femininities at a very young age. Once they start to
learn this thing called ‘gender’ they are very keen about doing gender properly, so that by
the time they get to six they demonstrate what is seen as ‘appropriate’ gendered
behaviour. As indicated, there are several research studies which show children’s
reactions to ‘inappropriate’ gendered behaviour, so this is why we wanted to focus on
seven to eight year olds – on the basis that they are quite certain about what differences in
gender are.
The interviews with pupils were semi-structured and this was to ensure consistency across
the six members of the research team. We had male and female members of the team but
given our belief that gender is a fluid concept, we felt that the matching of researcher-pupil
gender was not a relevant consideration. We asked the children what makes a ‘good
teacher’ and a ‘bad teacher’; whether they liked their teacher, wanted to be like their
teacher; whether their teachers made them want to work hard, or encouraged them and
treated everyone the same. In this way we tried to find out whether any patterns came
through in their responses about the gender of their teachers.
We then asked the pupils more direct questions about men and women teachers, as
government policy assumes the gender of the teacher is of significance to pupils. Usually
the worst way of trying to find out about gender is asking children directly if there are
differences between men and women because they will tell you that there are simply
because you are just asking them that question.
However, as the policy is based on dualistic and essentialist notions of gender difference
we had to follow the same simplistic framework to directly seek out ‘evidence’. Thus, pupils
were asked whether anything would be easier or better, harder or worse if they had a man
or a woman teacher.
Our first key finding is that the gender of the teacher is not important to pupils. The
majority of children rejected the idea that the gender of the teacher mattered. A quarter of
the group thought it did, or that women and men teachers behaved differently towards
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boys and girls and the reasons for this were quite diverse. For example, men teachers
were described variously as: shouting more; being stricter or nicer; kinder; funny; scary; do
more sports; teach more things. Women teachers were said to be: kinder; nicer; more fun;
stricter; and shouting more.
So there is an overlap in how the teachers are seen as similar. We see that the proportion
of boys and girls saying that the gender of the teacher did or didn’t matter was about the
same. The point here is that for a government that talks about needing to have evidencebased policy, the evidence here is that there is no suggestion that boys prefer to be taught
by men teachers, or girls by women teachers.
There can be no doubt that pupils understood the question or the concepts involved, as
when we asked them to explain their answers the majority of these children rejected the
idea of gender making a difference and they specifically drew on a narrative of the
genders as equal and the ‘same’ to support their opinion.
This ‘sameness’ was not related to gender but applied to a common view of teachers
overriding professional sameness and precluding any other potential differences. This
response is illustrative of the way in which children overwhelmingly see the teacher’s
purpose or role as to teach them. The children’s concern is for the teacher’s ability to do
this effectively rather than with what they consider to be irrelevant factors such as gender.
We asked the children three questions that sought to elicit whether gender was operating
at an implicit level in pupil-teacher interaction. The gender of the teacher didn’t seem to
make any difference as to whether boys or girls saw them as making them want to work
hard, to encourage them or treated them all the same. There was no difference regionally
or by ethnicity. This is illustrated below.
Table 1: Does your teacher make you want to work hard?
Does your teacher make
Yes (n=227) No (n=24)
Qualified (n=47) Other (n=9)
you want to work hard?
Boys taught by men
80%
5%
13%
1%
Boys taught by women
71%
10%
13%
5%
All boys (n=153)
76%
8%
13%
3%
Girls taught by men
72%
9%
15%
4%
Girls taught by women
72%
7%
20%
1%
All girls (n=154)
72%
8%
18%
3%
NE cohort (n=156)
69%
11%
16%
4%
SE cohort (n=151)
79%
5%
15%
2%
All Pupils (n=307)
74%
8%
15%
3%
Some of the children gave us examples of why and how their teacher made them want to
work hard. The most common reason for answering “no” to the question “does your
teacher make you want to work hard? Was that the teacher gave insufficient help when
they encountered difficulties.
Now it is interesting to note here that when we were asking boys and girls what their
teachers did to make them want to work hard, or to encourage them, there were
references to those strategies promoted by those who advise that different approaches are
needed to encourage boys to those needed to encourage girls. Several children
commented on the fact that their teacher made them want to work hard or encouraged
them by setting clear expectations, which is one of the strategies suggested for
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encouraging boys, or by providing rewards such as team point stickers or stars, again that
is under the boys’ strategy. However, whilst it was more likely to be boys that were keen
on rewards, it was overwhelmingly girls who were motivated by having the teacher set
them clear expectations.
Next, we asked, “does your teacher treat everyone in the class fairly”? The sizeable
majority (76%) said unequivocally that their teacher treated them fairly and of those,
almost a half were able to justify their replies. The main reasons offered for answering
affirmatively were as follows: “the teacher responds consistently to transgression”; “the
teacher treats everyone the same”; “the teacher is consistent when giving rewards”; “the
teacher is kind”; and “the teacher gives everyone a turn”.
The children’s gender appeared to have relatively little impact on their replies, as girls and
boys alike placed a high value on consistency and even-handedness. So, the first key
finding was that the gender of the teacher was not relevant to the majority of boys and
girls.
Moving to our second key finding, one of the central aims was to ascertain whether
teachers featured among children’s role models because that is part of the drive to recruit
men teachers, to be role models to children.
The majority of children do not see teachers as role models. Of the children that did
identify people as role models, 33% of girls and 13% of boys who identified role models
chose teachers, some identified both their class teacher and another teacher and there
also seemed to be some relationship with the sex of their teacher. Those taught by a
teacher of the other sex were more likely to choose a role model of the other sex.
We can now look at what boys and girls said they liked about their teachers. A total of 173
out of the 307 identified specific ways in which they said they would like to be like their
teachers. Now we see here a very interesting finding, that 46% of the pupils would like to
be like an ‘other sex’ teacher and this raises the question of how valid the argument put
forward by government ministers is, that male teachers are needed as ‘role models’ for
boys, if nearly 50% of the pupils see another sex teacher as one they would like to be like.
This is worth exploring in more detail.
The main single reason children gave for wanting to be like their teachers was that the
child wanted to be a teacher. In comparison with the boys, the girls more often said that
they wanted to be like their teacher simply because she was a teacher and interestingly
both girls and boys more often used this argument when their own teacher was a man.
The boys referred to occupational role behaviour differently to the girls. The boys talked
about wanting to have the authority or knowledge that their teacher had, and they talked
about wanting to be as intelligent or as smart as their teacher. The girls more often said
they would like to emulate the way their teacher behaved towards others and they talked
about wanting to be kind and nice.
To some extent girls and boys interpreted their teachers in gendered ways, for example,
only men teachers were described as being liked because they had particular skills or
knowledge that go with the role of the teacher and they were more likely to be described
as funny.
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Our third finding is that boys and girls are less concerned about teachers’ gender identities
and more concerned about locating themselves in traditional gendered discourses.
We can see this by looking at how the boys and the girls talked about wanting to be like
their teachers. In comparing the responses of boys and girls we can see that boys and
girls locate themselves within conventional gender discourses but, importantly, their
understandings of their teachers’ gender identities were submerged by their professional
identity and function, i.e. boys identified exactly the same reasons in both their men
teachers and their women teachers as to why they would like to be like them but they are
drawing on characteristics associated with conventional hegemonic masculinity such as
authority, knowledge, intelligence, etc.
Table 2: In what ways do pupils want to be like their teachers?
In what ways do pupils want to be like their teachers?
To be a teacher
To have authority or knowledge of teacher
To be as intelligent or smart
Behaviour towards others
eg being kind
Boys
26%
37%
17%
12%
5%
Girls
60%
14%
5%
34%
16%
The girls located themselves within conventional feminine gender discourses when saying
how they wanted to emulate their teachers. As we saw, the boys were quite comfortable
about defining their women teachers in conventionally masculine ways but the girls
couldn’t do that to their men teachers – they weren’t prepared to transgress gender
boundaries. However, they alighted on characteristics of their male teachers that they
could comfortably adopt without having to overstep acceptable gender boundaries.
In summary then: for the majority of the 7 to 8 year old pupils in the sample the gender of
the teacher was not relevant. The professional identity of the teacher is what concerns
children as is teachers’ abilities to carry this out effectively.
The majority of children do not see their teachers as ‘role models’. For those children who
do see their teachers as ‘role models’ these are not necessarily gender matched. Boys
and girls are likely to be concerned about their own gender identity and locating
themselves within traditional gender discourses. They are less influenced by the gender of
teachers than current policies on ‘boys’ underachievement’ would suggest. Indeed there
was some evidence to suggest that teacher-pupil mismatch might have some advantages
for some children. Our research indicates that girls seem to be more positive about men
than women teachers; boys were slightly more positive about women teachers than they
were about men teachers. If the current government policy is right – i.e. that there is
something beneficial about gender match – we would see some trend that supported such
a premise. However, this was not the case.
Although numbers were small, when we look at some of the examples or explanations
they gave us, boys said they preferred the work that women teachers set, whilst girls
preferred the work that men teachers set for them. Boys also seemed to find that women
teachers were more likely to treat everyone the same whereas girls found that men
teachers were more likely to treat everybody the same. Of the small percentage (15%) of
pupils who said things would be improved with a teacher of the opposite sex, the largest
proportion were boys who maintained that things would be better with a female teacher. It
was more likely that boys would see their male teachers than their female teachers as the
ones who wanted them to work hard.
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Finally, although the pupils did not see gender as an issue for their teachers, of the 51
teachers who took part in the study, 36 said they did differentiate between boys and girls
on the basis of gender.
We can only attribute this to the effectiveness of the ‘boys’ underachievement’ debate
which has encouraged teachers to see gender differences between boys’ behaviours and
learning abilities compared to those of girls.
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Chapter 7
‘Men Teachers in a Predominantly Female (Not Feminised) Profession’
Mary Thornton and Patricia Bricheno - University of Hertfordshire and
University of Cambridge
In this chapter, we will draw on our research undertaken over the last 10 years studying
teacher education and teachers’ careers. There has been a decline in the proportion of
men in primary teaching, in particular, and more recently in secondary teaching as well but
there has never been a ‘golden age’ of men teachers in the profession in the past 100
years.
We have explored and used data from 1900 to 2003 to compile a graph (below) showing
how the proportions of men and women teachers in primary schools and elementary
schools before 1944 have changed over the years. If you go back to 1900, about 25% of
primary teachers were male. However, there has never been a time when there was a
large proportion of men teachers in primary schools. In 1938, 29% of primary teachers
were men, hardly a golden age; however, the lowest proportion was recorded in 2004
when men constituted 16%. Without doubt there has been a decline in the proportion of
male primary teachers, but only recently. The year 1952 provided a peak with the post-war
boom after emergency training brought lots of men into primary teaching; then we see a
steady decline in the proportion of male teachers through to 1985, when the same
proportion of men in teaching existed as in 1920 (22%).
Figure 1: Trends relating to male primary teachers 1900-2003
Source 1: (Sources: Statistics of Public Education, Board of Education 1900-1944;
Reports to Parliament, Education, 1944-1964; Statistics of Education, 1964-2004)
Consistently, there have been a large proportion of men as heads of primary schools and
elementary schools. There were 43% of male heads in 1902 and in 1998 there were 43%
of male heads in primary schools. It is worth noting that in that intervening period the
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proportion of male heads hardly fell below 40%. So, although men make up only a small
proportion of the primary teaching force (and always have) they have until very recently led
almost half of the primary schools.
We have witnessed a series of public panics about boys’ underachievement relative to
girls, which has been linked to ‘laddish’ behaviour, single-parent households, lack of
positive role models and the decline in the number of men in teaching. But there is a
wealth of evidence to suggest that differences between boys’ and girls’ behaviour is a
perennial issue: As early as 1868, the Taunton Commission argued that “girls come to you
to learn, boys have to be driven.” In 1923 the Board of Education claimed it is well known
that most boys (especially in the period of adolescence) have a “habit of healthy idleness”.
In 1930 Brierton made a telling remark that, “girls on the whole are more conscientious in
their attitude towards their work. Many girls will work at a subject they dislike, no healthy
boy ever does”. And in 2000, David Blunkett remarked that we need “more good male role
models to challenge boys’ resistance to learning (and laddish behaviour)”.
There is plenty of research evidence, not just recently but from the 1960s, 1970s and
1980s, indicating that boys’ behaviour has long been more problematic than girls’.
However, the following quotations about boys show that these concerns have been linked
to the feminisation of teaching from 1930. Concerns about the behaviour of boys and the
currently argued feminisation of teaching are not new.
Sadly, the damaging influence of women teachers on boys was a frequent theme of the
National Association of Schoolmasters. It was at its 1930 Conference that Mr Gordon of
London wanted boys to be taught by the “manliest type of teacher” and that Mr
Freeborough of Banstead feared the “feminisation of the nation”.
There has always been a concern about boys’ laddish behaviour. Lord Elton in 1989, in his
famous report on discipline in schools, noticed significant problems with boys’ behaviour
long before the very recent dip in the number of men in primary schools. If one looks at
exclusions nationally, about 83% of exclusions are boys who are fifteen times more likely
to be excluded than girls from primary schools and four to five times more likely to be
excluded from secondary schools.
Is there really a problem with boys’ behaviour? Has boys’ behaviour got worse?
Particularly from 1988 with the Education Reform Act, education has become more
masculinised in the sense of accountability, league tables and the very intense
examination regime from the Foundation Stage right the way through. Perhaps because of
league tables we might be becoming less tolerant to poor behaviour and perhaps boys’
behaviour has not got worse: perhaps we are simply less tolerant of it.
We certainly no longer talk about ‘all’ boys now, it is ‘some’ boys. Some research suggests
that some boys construct their masculinity in opposition to the feminine – so if girls read,
are quiet, work hard, obey their teachers, then laddish boys who want to assert their
masculinity are going to do the opposite. They don’t want to be seen to be doing feminine
things by their peers.
Laddish behaviour can also be used as an excuse for academic failure or for lack of effort,
because if one is not actually trying, then one hasn’t failed. It is quite likely to be less of an
ability issue than a peer pressure issue for some to opt out and be ‘real boys’ instead.
Research suggests that some boys (rather than some girls) feel it is unacceptable to be
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seen to engage in academic work. We say ‘to be seen’ because there is a growing body of
research evidence suggesting that quite a few boys do engage in academic work; they just
don’t make it obvious to their peers, they keep it a secret that they have done their
homework. If they get a poor mark they can say they weren’t trying, and a good mark is
explained by the notion of effortless achievement – “well, I didn’t do the homework but I
got a good mark”. So, it doesn’t mean that boys aren’t working; some of the boys’
presentations to the public world are simply trying to mask that.
There is also concern about boys’ lack of role models. During the war, families were
headed by women, and single parents when men didn’t come back from the war. Boys’
achievement didn’t suddenly dip when their fathers were away at war or didn’t come back.
This is not actually a new thing, a new social construct: boys being without men in their
lives is not really that new. Liam Fox joined this debate last year when he said that “boys
should be taught in single-sex schools with strong male role models to help a lost
generation of fatherless young men find their way in life.”
We did some studies of role models with primary and secondary school children. Our
sample was 250 children, over eight classes in four different schools with contrasting
socioeconomic status, to see if there was any difference.
What we found was that the boys and girls that we questioned did not see their teachers
as role models at all. They cited their family and their friends far more than they cited
teachers. Something like 4% of those 250 children actually mentioned a teacher, and even
then not necessarily as their most important role model. As a policy to remedy
underachievement and laddish behaviour, boys are not queuing up to say ‘give me a man
teacher, I want to be like him’, or girls, ‘give me a woman teacher I want to be like her’.
As for the concern about boys being taught in predominantly female environments, we
have done some research on the impact of staff gender balance in primary and secondary
schools. This remains an under-researched area, but what we have found in these studies
concurs with the few other such studies: having a man teacher had no impact on boys’
attitudes to school or their achievements.
We have certainly found that more men teachers were to be found in larger schools, in
junior schools and in schools headed by men. There is certainly a pattern that we can
detect when we look at schools across the country; that men seem to attract more men to
the same school. However, in researching in primary schools we found no direct
relationship between staff gender balance and school performance indicators at Key Stage
2. We certainly found that socioeconomic status – the social class and background of the
kids – had a much stronger correlation with behaviour and with achievement than the staff
gender balance.
Pupil behaviour may be related to staff gender balance, as schools with more women are
judged to have better standards of behaviour. We matched our schools in the gender
balance survey with their most recent OFSTED reports. On reading the OFSTED reports
for this sample of schools they did seem to suggest that schools with more women are
judged to have better standards of behaviour.
We haven’t proved that is the case, but that is certainly an area worthy of further study.
Men still disproportionately occupy the high-status leadership positions in education. In
secondary schools, Janet Powney (Powney et al, 2003) has reported that barely 31% of
heads were women even though 50% of staff were women. In private schools, it has been
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reported that just 5% of coed secondary schools had women headteachers (Lee and
Slater, 2005) and Martin Mills reporting on data from Australia has found that only 6% of
primary teachers are men, while men constitute 22% of principals, 71% of directors and
82% of senior managers (Mills, 2005;12).
There is also a very strong correlation between subject specialism, age range taught,
power, status and being male. Promotion procedures tend to work in favour of men as a
general rule – basically they are less likely to have career breaks – and there is
considerable evidence that women governors as much as men often have traditional and
biased views about appointments within their schools.
There is also growing evidence that promoted women are less able to delegate family
responsibilities; one in three female heads lives alone. Men are clearly still in a strong
position to influence the culture and content of education and that is quite important when
we consider what goes on within schools.
Women competing with men for promotion were less likely to get promotion. And if they
did get it were less likely to get a higher salary. One thing we did was to collect the
qualifications of the teachers who responded and an examination of those qualifications
gave no indication or justification for this anomaly.
We do not think education has become feminised and would argue this by posing these
questions:

does teaching in practice require teachers to exhibit so-called feminine traits such
as care for children and mothering?

is teaching just labelled ‘feminised’ because of the disproportionate number of
women? Is it just the numbers? Do people just say it is feminised because there are
more women there?

is the content, and typical activity in teaching, and learning styles biased towards
the feminine?
Firstly, as teachers, we do care for the children in our care; not as parents but in a very
professional way. Teaching is professional, curriculum centred and gender neutral. Yes,
there are some schools where some women teachers walk around holding hands, or the
midday supervisors have children sitting on their laps, but it is not our experience in the
majority of schools. It requires teaching skills, not parenting skills, to be a good teacher.
Secondly, is teaching merely labelled ‘feminised’ because of the disproportionate number
of women teachers at the ‘chalk face’? If that is the case then teaching has been feminised
for the past 100 years, including the long period when boys’ achievements at age 16
exceeded those of girls and the current period when their achievements have clearly
improved, albeit not as fast as girls. The decline in male primary teachers between 1990
and 2003 of less than 5%, and in male secondary teachers of less than 3%, hardly seems
an appropriate basis for claims of feminisation. The small recent changes are highly
unlikely to have caused poorer behaviour amongst boys or their relative and recent
underachievement when compared to girls.
On the third question “is the current content, typical activity, and teaching and learning
style biased towards the feminine?”, what exactly is ‘feminine’ in the descriptions OFSTED
gives us of highquality teaching and learning environments? OFSTED descriptors are very
professional, academic and very competitive in the way they describe high-quality
teaching.
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What is feminine about imagination, artistic endeavours, musical abilities, reading stories
or poems to children alongside sporting activities, science, technology, playing football,
supporting England in the World Cup? What is particularly feminine about the national
literacy and numeracy strategies which include a mix of activities? What is feminised or
feminine about coursework and projects existing now alongside tests and timed
examinations in class? What exactly is feminine in combining group work and collaborative
learning with individual and remote learning?
We would argue in conclusion that education has not become feminised. Daily practices in
schools, that predate the very recent and relatively small decline in the number of men in
our schools, certainly do not impede boys’ achievements, but are now blamed for boys’
relatively lower achievement and labelled ‘feminine’. In the current panic about boys, a
scapegoat is required and the chosen candidate is so-called feminised teaching practice.
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Chapter 8
‘Male Teachers in Primary Education’
Michael Watkins - Training and Development Agency for Schools
A key responsibility of the Training and Development Agency for Schools (TDA; formerly
the Teacher Training Agency – TTA) is recruitment to initial teacher training (ITT), ensuring
that schools have the teachers they require to meet their needs and that government
targets for recruitment are met.
In September 2005 the TTA’s remit was expanded to cover the training and development
of the whole school workforce. The TDA was formed from the TTA and the National
Remodelling Team (NRT), and asked by government to support schools in managing and
implementing change. The TDA commissions, funds and quality assures initial teacher
training and this remains our core purpose. The work of the ex-TTA has now been
subsumed into a ‘Directorate for Initial Teacher Training’ which has three chief functions:
funding, development and recruitment, each with a group of staff and an assistant director.
‘Funding’ includes the allocation of teacher training places and their funding.
‘Development’ includes support for providers, quality assuring ITT provision and work
around a number of government initiatives, for example, the primary languages scheme.
‘Recruitment’ has a variety of aspects, including stimulating interest in teaching through
the TDA advertising campaign and responding to that interest through the teaching
information line (TIL). We also work closely with providers of ITT to help meet current
challenges, for example physics and mathematics recruitment and making teaching a
more culturally and socially representative profession.
Career exploration activities are also managed in the Recruitment Group. The aim is to
see that the right people go on to initial teacher training courses to begin with – by giving
people a taste of what teaching is like through open schools visits and taster courses, for
example.
Teacher turnover compares well with other social sector professions, but it is still
necessary to recruit around 40,000 teachers into training annually to replace natural
‘churn’. At the moment, the TDA is particularly focused on attracting potential
mathematics, physics and chemistry teachers to the secondary phase.
The TDA’s work to make teaching more diverse includes contact with disability and
minority groups. We think that there is a need to make the primary teaching workforce
more representative by increasing the number of male teachers. We do not think that male
teachers make better primary teachers or that it takes a male teacher to drive up
standards of boys or improve challenging behaviour. The TDA also believes it is up to
headteachers to ensure that male teachers are deployed in a way which does not
reinforce male stereotypes.
Our target for male primary recruitment is to improve the proportion of men recruited year
on year. In the last three years there have been reasonable increases in the number of
men recruited to postgraduate training – at a time when primary allocations increased, the
proportion of recruitment has matched the increases. It is also important to put this into the
context of training at postgraduate level as a whole, which since 2001 has increased in ITT
by 74%.
At the end of May 2006 applications from men going into primary training were about the
same as 2005 (which led to 14% of primary trainees being male). Last year the TDA met
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our national targets for trainees from minority ethnic backgrounds (10%) and our target for
trainees with a disability (4%). These have now been increased.
The TDA advertising campaign is aimed at eliciting enquiries about teaching and
capitalising on that interest through TIL. In the first half of 2006 there were around 2,300
enquiries from eligible men (i.e. those in their final year of a degree or with the right
qualifications to go on to initial teacher training) – this is about one third of the number of
enquiries received from females. Typically, around 9% of males who call go on to make an
application, compared with 15% of females.
More females complete their courses and go on to achieve Qualified Teacher Status
(QTS) than males. We are working with providers of initial teacher training to learn more
about the retention of all trainees, not just males.
Between 2000 and 2001, there were acknowledged recruitment difficulties. Prevailing
attitudes, concerns about the achievement of boys and worries over discipline resulted in
scrutiny of male teacher recruitment. Teaching received a fairly negative press at the time,
which may have exacerbated recruitment problems. Public perceptions of teaching were
also low. Through 2002 to 2003, some concerns continued, for example the increasing
age of the workforce and continued poorer primary application rates from males, although
teacher recruitment in general did pick up considerably, especially with the improved
financial incentives which became available in that period.
The TTA began to conduct research about the characteristics of men who were turned
down by providers of ITT and a picture emerged of some male applicants who: applied too
late for courses; were not aware that primary courses were highly competitive; took less
time and trouble with their applications (especially their personal statements), failed to get
sufficient school experience and, if they did get an interview, were poorly prepared.
In 2004 to 2005, TTA surveys revealed that many pupils lacked contact with male teachers
and there was concern amongst some parents. Over three quarters of those surveyed said
that they would like to see more of a male presence in their children’s classrooms.
The theme of male teachers in primary education tends to generate a lot of interest and
publicity in national and regional media. Where used positively, TDA provides case studies
highlighting the many positive aspects about teaching.
In 2006 we invited interested male primary teachers from a wide variety of backgrounds
and experiences to join a national advisory panel. Themes emerging initially include the
view that expectations of male teachers are comparatively high and can follow similar
patterns, for example expectations that male teachers are experts in IT and PE. Males are
also often expected to deal with so-called ‘laddish’ behaviour and there can sometimes be
uncertainty amongst parents and the community, when schools have limited experience of
male teachers.
Importantly, the advisory panel is united on the enjoyment to be derived from primary
teaching. Many male teachers have changed careers to train, and remain pleased that
they have done so. Male primary trainees regularly describe the high degree of support
that they receive both from providers and from schools.
In 2006 the TDA was more explicit about what a successful application should look like.
We also send targeted information, guidance and materials to people from underthe largest UK-wide teachers’ union
NASUWT
represented groups and people interested in teaching priority subjects. More media
interest has been stimulated in recruitment events, for example ‘Train to Teach’ in Leeds
and in London. We also support vulnerable applicants and trainees and teachers through
our partnership with the Teacher Support Network.
The TDA continues to work with the national advisory panel to establish what the drivers
and barriers are to primary teaching, and to obtain information on effective practice for
providers of ITT into schools. This also helps our partners and fieldworkers.
Male applicants are often concerned about career development and progression. There
are nine regional careers advisers (RCAs) who provide impartial advice and guidance to
career changers (accessed through TIL). TIL consultants are also trained to support and
advise male enquirers. In addition, there are 15 advisers who work with providers to aid
recruitment and retention and to support sharing of effective practice.
The TDA reviews campaign messages annually and considers their impact on recruitment.
In 2006 younger people were encouraged to consider teaching through the student
associate scheme (SAS). There are also many teacher advocates in schools who speak
objectively to anyone interested in a teaching career.
The ‘males into primary’ area is an important but still comparatively small area of TDA
recruitment work. We acknowledge the need to find out more about different groups of
males and to find more effective ways of getting the right people onto courses. But most
important of all is the TDA’s desire to see children experiencing a full, satisfying and
relevant curriculum, taught by high-quality, confident and celebrated teachers, of whatever
gender.
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Chapter 9
Postscript
As the above chapters reveal, the NASUWT Boys to Men Conference examined a wideranging and extremely important agenda for schools, colleges and the wider society. The
previous chapters confirm the complex, controversial and contested nature of the debate
on the education of boys and the contribution of men in the education system. However,
there are no easy answers, as this report confirms.
What is clear is that policy development at a national level and practice at school and
college level needs to be informed by coherent and credible research evidence on gender
and masculinities, yet there has been a tendency to leap towards ‘solutions’ as yet
unproven.
NASUWT invites the Government and other relevant agencies to work with the Union to
take forward this important agenda in the following ways:
1.
commission an audit into the pay and rewards of teachers in England, Wales,
Scotland and Northern Ireland to identify the extent to which there might exist
gender inequality in the pay system;
2.
develop a programme of quantitative and qualitative research into the experiences
of boys and men in education to better inform policy and practice, drawing on
comparative international sources;
3.
take progressive action to tackle the continuing problem of sex segregation in
subject and career choices which inhibit the future employment and life chances of
boys and girls;
4.
commission an independent critical evaluation of the educational impact on boys
and girls of the positive action measures introduced to raise boys’ achievement;
5.
review and abandon the policy of matching pupils and teachers by gender and
ethnicity;
6.
develop progressive-values education for the workforce in schools to enable school
staff to advance the principles of equality and social justice in their work;
7.
investigate further the effects of social class on pupils’ educational attainment,
simultaneously taking account of diversity on grounds of gender, ethnicity and
religion;
8.
develop an informed and coherent strategy to address pupil achievement, taking
account of social class, gender, ethnicity and religion;
9.
review international research and data on gender in teaching and consider the
implications arising from this analysis with the school workforce social partners;
10.
establish a gender sensitive accountability system in schools and colleges which
supports the efforts of teachers to achieve gender equality for all children and
young people.
Contributor Biographies
Patricia Bricheno
Patricia Bricheno taught chemistry in secondary schools in Essex and Bradford before
becoming an educational researcher. She is now a Research Fellow at the University of
Hertfordshire and a Research Associate at the University of Cambridge.
Patricia Bricheno and Mary Thornton’s joint research focuses on gender, diversity and
equity issues across all phases of education and they are co-authors of ‘Missing Men in
Education’, published in Summer 2006 by Trentham Books.
E-mail: bricheno@globalnet.co.uk
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Mark Jennett
Mark Jennett is a trainer and writer specializing in work with schools, local authorities and
others around diversity, sexual health, homophobia and bullying. His clients have included
the General Teaching Council, Stonewall, Terrence Higgins Trust and the Greater London
Authority.
He spent four years as a National Adviser with the National Healthy Schools Programme
and is the principal author of Stand Up For Us, a resource produced in conjunction with
DfES and DoH which offers support and guidance to schools on how to take a whole
school approach to addressing homophobia.
E-mail: markjennett@onetel.com
Chris Keates
Chris Keates graduated in archaeology and history from Leicester University. She gained
her PGCE at Birmingham University and taught humanities in two Birmingham
comprehensive schools from 1974 until 1994, before becoming an advisory teacher in the
Birmingham LEA Central Support Services.
Chris held a number of elected roles within NASUWT prior to joining the staff of the Union
in 1998. In October 2004 Chris was elected as General Secretary of NASUWT, the largest
union representing teachers and headteachers throughout the UK. The Union is one of the
ten largest affiliated to the TUC and Chris is the only woman General Secretary to lead
one of the ten largest unions.
E-mail: nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
Chris Lines
Chris Lines gained a Bachelor of Education degree in Hull University in 1975. After
teaching in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire he moved to Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk to
teach economics and sociology at a 13-18 High School, where he also teaches politics
and sociology at A level. He was a director and a founding council member of Suffolk LSC.
Chris was elected to the NASUWT National Executive in 1993 and is a long-standing
member of the NASUWT National Equal Opportunities Committee, becoming Chair of the
Committee in 1999.
E-mail: nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
John Mayes
John Mayes graduated from City of Liverpool College in 1973 with a Bachelor of Education
degree and gained a Masters in Education at Liverpool University in 1983. He has taught
geography in Merseyside schools for 30 years and has been active in NASUWT for 25
years. He served for many years as secondary school representative on Knowsley
Education Committee and became National Executive Member for Merseyside and District
in 1997. In 2006 John was elected as NASUWT Senior Vice-President.
E-mail: nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk
Murziline Parchment
Murziline Parchment is the Mayor of London’s Director for Major Projects and Service
Delivery. She is an adviser to the Board of Transport for London, a Director of the City
Parochial Fund, a Trustee of the London Bombings Relief Charitable Fund and is a board
member of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games. She is currently
involved with various projects including London Schools and the Black Child (to address
underachievement in schools), Women in London’s Economy (to address London’s
gender pay gap) and Skills (equipping young people for London’s jobs market).
E-mail: david.wood@london.gov.uk
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NASUWT
Tony Sewell
Tony Sewell is a columnist for the Voice newspaper and Chief Executive for the charity
Generating Genius which seeks to help children from under-represented backgrounds
gain a place at university to study science.
He was formerly a senior lecturer in the School of Education, University of Leeds. His
areas of interest within education are in relation to race, social justice and emotionally and
behaviourally difficult children. He has also been involved in a number of central and local
government initiatives in the UK and regularly advises education authorities in America
and the Caribbean. For over 10 years Tony Sewell was an English and Special Needs
teacher in London. He was a non-executive board director of the Learning Trust that runs
Hackney Education services. Tony Sewell’s best known work is ‘Black Masculinities and
Schooling: How Black Boys Survive Modern Schooling.’
He is currently undertaking an extensive research project for Commonwealth governments
on boys’ achievement.
E-mail: tonysewell@o2email.co.uk or sewelltony@hotmail.com
Christine Skelton
Christine Skelton is Professor of Education at Roehampton University and Director of the
Centre for Research in Education Policy and Professionalism. She is a member of the
British Educational Research Association Executive Council and sits on the Executive
Committee of the Society for Educational Studies. Christine has researched and published
extensively in the field of gender and primary education and has a particular interest in
masculinities. She is leading an ESRC-funded project into how primary pupils relate to
male and female teachers, and their perceptions of any gender-related differences. She
has authored and edited number of books on gender and primary schooling including
Schooling the Boys, and with Becky Francis, Reassessing Gender and Achievement and
Boys and Girls in the Primary Classroom.
E-mail: C.Skelton@roehampton.ac.uk
Mary Thornton
Mary Thornton taught in Brent primary schools before becoming a teacher trainer at the
University of Hertfordshire. She has led the primary Bachelor of Education programme,
educational research and is now Assistant Director, Learning and Teaching in the Centre
for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching.
Mary Thornton and Patricia Bricheno’s joint research focuses on gender, diversity and
equity issues across all phases of education and they are co-authors of ‘Missing Men in
Education’, published in Summer 2006 by Trentham Books.
E-mail: m.e.thornton@herts.ac.uk
Michael Watkins
Michael Watkins taught in the secondary and primary sectors for 12 years before
becoming a link adviser in Tower Hamlets. He has been a school governor and a local
authority inspector for art and design.
Michael Watkins joined the Teacher Training Agency in 2001 as Head of Recruitment to
Schools, responsible for local authority recruitment strategy managers and returning
teachers. Since then he has joined the initial teacher training directorate as assistant
director and has responsibility for the TDA’s advertising campaign, the teaching
information line and a range of other programmes which support recruitment to Initial
Teacher Training and widening participation in higher education.
E-mail: Michael.Watkins@tda.gov.uk
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National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers
Hillscourt Education Centre, Rose Hill, Rednal, Birmingham B45 8RS
Tel: 0121 453 6150 Fax: 0121 457 6208
E-mail: nasuwt@mail.nasuwt.org.uk Website: www.teachersunion.org.uk
06/09013
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