Boys, Girls and Achievement by Francis Becky

Author:Francis, Becky.
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781134579211
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

I:

Mm

D:

So, I’m not a person who’s looking for trouble, I’d rather stay well away from it, so I’m not going in there to trouble, it’s just that, it’s just so irritating, having a security guard following you about when you’re not causing no harm, you know? (.) but when you see a bunch of girls in there you know, it’s a bit different, the security guard lightens up, cos probably, I dunno, you know?

Denzel went on to talk about how this particularly affects black boys, and how shopkeepers seem to treat him and his black male friends with more suspicion than they do white boys. However, while this is quite likely to be the case, it seems from the findings of Pattman et al. (1998b) that this issue of distrust of male youths affects and is strongly resented by Anglo boys too. The boys’ complaints illustrate the way in which society tends to view male youth as a problem. This has been the case ever since ‘youth culture’ came into being in the West in the second half of the twentieth century. It can be exemplified by the moral panics concerning mods and rockers in the 1960s (Cohen, 1973), vandalism in the 1980s and joy-riding in the 1990s. It is important that we (adults) do not to alienate boys by tarring all boys with the same brush, and that we bear in mind that only a small proportion of boys are involved in criminal activity, just as only some boys behave in ‘laddish’ ways in the classroom.

However, it was gender discrimination at work which most of the pupils alluded to when maintaining that gender makes a difference to one’s life. This was particularly true of girls, of whom twenty-one raised the issue of discrimination against women in the workplace (compared with only six boys). It seems surprising that so many pupils referred to potential discrimination in employment. This issue might have been to some extent evoked by an earlier question in the interview schedule asking them what job they would like to do after leaving school or college. However, it also seems to indicate a strong concern with the future work environment on the part of these (particularly female) pupils.

Girls talked about the possibility of sexual harassment in the workplace, as well as discrimination in employment practice. There were three areas of concern regarding employment practice: pay, job allocation and ready employment. Concerning pay, Shanice (Afro-Caribbean, year 10) expressed the anxiety raised by a number of girls, confiding glumly, “I hear about women doing the same job as men but not getting the same amount of pay and all that? I hear about that, and I hear about all sex discrimination in the workplace”. Shamilla (South Asian, year 10) also made this complaint, noting that race as well as gender can affect salary and promotion.

Girls were concerned about employers discriminating according to gender, both for certain types of occupation and for promotion to managerial positions. Regarding the latter issue, many

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.