Education and Under Achievement of Boys in the U.K

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ABSTRACT

In this research study, the aim is to find out the potential reasons why Secondary school boys of ages 12- 17 achieve less in education. Many factors contribute in the underachievement of boys in attaining education. For finding out the facts and findings, mixed method will be employed in the study.

TABLE OF CONTENTS



ABSTRACTii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Introduction of the study1

Low teacher expectations1

Inadequate parental interest about their children's education1

Boys are more interested in games2

Ethnicity2

Peer pressure from friends2

Research hypothesis2

Research Aims and Objectives3

Aims3

Objectives3

Research questions3

Rationale of study4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW5

DCSF5

The Code of Practice in connection to special Educational needs5

Individual Education Plan6

Behaviour policy's6

Mentoring7

LEA's Part in the Underachievement7

CHAPTER 3: METHDOLOGY8

Methodology8

Participants8

Ethical consideration8

Limitations9

REFERENCES10

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Introduction of the study

The reasons behind boys performing low in their secondary schools UK are as following:

Low teacher expectations

Apart from many issues that exist in schools and one of the main issues is the underachievement of boys (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2009, 10 ). The teachers' biasness and provision of gender values play an important role in underachievement of boys in UK secondary schools. According to the latest findings there are many authors who said that in the class room, the teachers do gender stereotyping. Teachers expect low from the boys' students and give more attention to the girls. They have low expectations from the boys' behaviour and their academic efficiency.

Inadequate parental interest about their children's education

The other reason of boys' underachievement is the lack of parents' interest and their involvement in daily happenings in school life as well as in their child's ethnicity erudition.

Educational resources are not in abundance for the boys. This is one of the main reasons of boys' underachievement.

Boys are more interested in games

Boys give more attention to the sporting activities; they are more incline in playing the video games and other stuff. Boys do not consider education as an interesting thing, they find academics as a most boring thing (Lewis, 2011, 13 ).

Ethnicity

Ethnicity can have an effect in a child education, for example due to the lack of parental status, the child might need to be moving home frequently and this will divert his attention from studying (Florian, 2007, 88 ).

Peer pressure from friends

Peer pressure from friends- not seen as 'masculine'- Boys might feel too pressure to read because when they do their friends tend to look at them as being serious and that education is for girls (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2008, 75 ).

Changing labour market

Changing labour market- why try when there are no jobs out there? Boys are different from girls so with the Coalition government system they are not too keen about education as they see education as a waste of time when there are no jobs prospects (Bennett, 2008 ).

Research hypothesis

Following will be the research hypothesis in this study:

H0: Educational underachievement among boys in UK secondary schools is more than girls

H1: Educational underachievement among boys in UK secondary schools is less than girls

Research Aims ...