ABSTRACT
Thus far we have evaluated the arguments around gender and achievement, the extent of comparative ‘underachievement’ of some groups of boys (and girls), and the arguments used to explain the ‘gender gap’. We have shown how such arguments rest on various gender discourses which position boys, girls, teachers and educational approaches in different ways. In this regard we have highlighted the development of discursive practices around boys’ achievement, showing how new discursive constructions surface or become foregrounded which reflect movements in wider discourses informing social policy. This chapter aims to set out our ‘reassessment’ of the gender and education debates that emerge from this analysis, and to explore the implications of these discursive shifts for pupils’ gender identities, developing our own reflections on the themes and conclusions emerging from our analysis in the preceding chapters. In particular we explore questions such as:
• What are the implications of the problematisation of boys? • Is the ‘ideal learner’ seen as masculine or feminine? • What do pupils themselves make of the debates around gender and achieve-
ment? • What does society/social policy want boys to be like? • What is our own feminist response to these constructions of gender identity
in relation to achievement?
