Dinosaur discourses: taking stock of gendered learning myths

The persistence of gendered learning myths in educational contexts and the wider imaginary continues to trouble feminist educational researchers and practitioners. The tracing of such myths and the categories they create through authoritative and elite discourses of the past suggests how they have functioned across different fields to preserve a hierarchised binary. Gendered myths seem to be lent authority by some of the more popular claims of contemporary neuroscience as they were by the nascent Victorian psychological sciences. Adopting Le Doeuff's [2003. The Sex of Knowing. Translated by K. Hamer and L. Code. London: Routledge] heuristic of identifying which attributes are absorbed into masculine intellectual legacies and which ‘cast off’ to women allows for a focus on patterns of privileging of learning discourses across the humanities and sciences, and the ways these are constituted in historical and contemporary contexts.     

Standing by … standing off – troublesome compassion in the relationships of school boys

This paper draws on the story of ‘Mikael’, a schoolboy from northern Finland, to examine how his affective ties of compassion and his pursuit of dominant forms of masculinity evolve in his journey from middle childhood to young adulthood. In his earlier years, Mikael's speech regarding his relationships with peers and family members indicates a non-hierarchical sympathetic orientation, enabling sensitivity to diverse vulnerabilities. Over time, his speech reflects more and more the ideals of dominating masculinity and hierarchical relationality, and it is marked by ‘inner-circle’ compassion that excludes people considered vulnerable and/or ‘Other’. The authors argue that the challenge of balancing compassionate concern, masculinity and social position generates heavy costs, imposing on young men not only the heavy burden of fulfilling the requirements of culturally esteemed masculinity, but also a partial loss of being in touch with one's inner faculties of emotions and imagination.     

High school boys’ and girls’ writing conceptions and writing self-efficacy beliefs: what is their role in writing performance?

This study investigated the conceptions about writing and writing self-efficacy beliefs held by high school students in relation to the students’ gender as well as their associations with writing achievement. The results show that female students have more sophisticated writing conceptions than their male counterparts but no gender differences were found in writing self-efficacy beliefs. In addition, results reveal that writing self-efficacy beliefs and gender play an important role in predicting writing performance and that writing performance is moderated by students’ writing conceptions. Educational implications and further research are discussed.     

Are boys that bad? Gender gaps in measured skills,grades and aspirations in Czech elementary schools

This article examines gender gaps in academic performance (grades in mathematics and reading) between boys and girls of ninth-grade elementary schools in the Czech Republic. Our analysis is based on 2003 data from the Programme for International Student Assessment, encompassing the academic performance and family background of ninth-grade pupils. Similar to research on other countries, we find that girls strongly outperform boys in grades in Czech language, but that this gender gap is not explained by measured ability in reading nor on family background or student attributes. We also find gender bias in mathematics grades, after controlling for measured ability and other factors. Girls are also substantially more likely than boys to apply to secondary grammar schools, as well as aspire to a college education, even after controlling for measured ability. We put forward a number of theoretical perspectives that shed light on the possible causes of these empirical findings.     

Innovative learning and developments in motivation and achievement in upper primary school

Although previous research has shown the potential of innovative learning for enhancing motivation and learning outcomes, further understanding is needed on which aspects of IL are most effective and whether these are equally motivating for different types of students. The present study investigated how developments in students’ motivation and achievement related to different aspects of innovative learning (i.e. authentic learning, collaborative learning and focusing on self-regulation), and whether these relations varied by students’ background characteristics. A sample of 722 grade five students from the Netherlands (average age 11?years old) and their teachers completed questionnaires during four measurements from grade five to grade six. Autoregression analyses were performed. Results showed both positive and negative relations between IL and developments in students’ motivation and achievement, indicating that IL is not a unidimensional construct. Furthermore, the effectiveness of different aspects of IL depended on students’ gender, and social and ethnic background characteristics.     

Classroom behaviour and academic achievement: how classroom behaviour categories relate to gender and academic performance

Latent profile analysis was used to identify different categories of students having different ‘profiles’ using self-reported classroom behaviour. Four categories of students with unique classroom behaviour profiles were identified among secondary school students in Oslo, Norway (n = 1570). Analyses examined how classroom behaviour categories are related to gender and school performance and whether a dual understanding of gender in school is helpful when trying to explain achievement differences as supposed to classroom behaviour categories. Analyses showed that gender was a better predictor of school achievement than classroom behaviour categories, even though the behaviour categories did contribute to the explanation of variance in students’ academic marks above and beyond gender.     

‘I’m strong within myself’: gender,class and emotional capital in childcare

Emotions have received increasing attention in educational circles in the last decade. Drawing on Bourdieu, feminist scholars use emotional capital to illustrate the ways gendered inequalities can compound the disadvantages of social class. This paper examines relationships within childcare services in Australia, showing how emotional capital functions as a resource for staff. Data from interviews with childcare staff illustrate key aspects of emotional capital, such as reflexivity, resilience and embodiment. Findings show that investing in emotional capital is the key to a long-lasting commitment to childcare work, and should be valued accordingly.     

Playing it down/playing it up: girls’ strategic negotiations of academic success

Through the lens of post-structural agency, this article focuses on how self-identified smart girls strategically negotiate their academic identities within the gendered terrain of the school. Based on interviews with 51 smart high school girls in Canada, our analysis complicates current narrative of girls’ easy achievement in school. Participants discussed balancing the hazards of being overly academic with the rewards of academic success. In response to this tension, girls carefully and consciously performed ‘smart girlhood’, drawing on resources that are more available to some girls than others, and indicating that girls’ academic success is neither easily embraced nor unambivalently accepted.     

International students with dependent children: the reproduction of gender norms

Extant research on family migration for education has focused almost exclusively on the education of children. We thus know very little about family migration when it is driven by the educational projects of parents. To begin to redress this gap, this paper explores the experiences of families who have moved to the United Kingdom primarily to enable the mother or father to pursue a degree. It argues that, in common with what we know of UK student-parents, both choices about and experiences of higher education are strongly differentiated by gender.