| Answer to the WJEC Unit 2 2023 exam that received 30/30
| Includes reference to the words highlighted by the examiner when awarding marks
| "Discuss the feminist view of education"
| Other FULL MARK answers to Unit 1 and 2 available
The feminist view of education revolves around the idea that the
initial success of boys, and failure of girls, reflected the inequalities of
patriarchal society. This idea is highly controversial and would be criticised
by functionalist and New Right theorists, but it would be supported by
viewpoints such as Marxism and interactionism, who also argue that the
inequalities of society are reflected in the school system. This essay aims
to evaluate the accuracy of each of these views in order to conclude whether
the feminist view provides an accurate depiction of education.
Feminists believe that education’s initial aim was to reproduce male
superiority by making boys more likely to succeed in school than girls,
however, since the 1990s girls have had more academic success than boys.
Feminists argue that this is seen as a problem in society, and Warrington
and Younger suggest that it should instead be viewed as positive. An
example of the initial inequality in the education system is the 11-plus
exams, which ensured that boys and girls got an equal number of places in
grammar schools. Feminists use this to argue that the success of girls is not
a new thing and was originally suppressed by society, as Chitty states
that if the results were not altered then two thirds of grammar school places
would have gone to girls. This supports the feminist view that education
reproduced patriarchy as the 11-plus exams aimed to undermine the success
of girls by ensuring it was equal to that of boys. Feminists are praised for this
idea, as it highlights the impact that structural inequalities can have on
attainment. This idea that the inequalities of society are reflected in
schools is supported by Marxists. Marxist sociologists Bowles and Gintis
proposed the correspondence theory, which suggests that the class
inequalities in society are reflected in schools through things such as the
hidden curriculum. This would explain the large difference in attainment
between working and middle-class students, as the Welsh Assembly
Government found that only 29% of those in receipt of free school meals
received 5 A* to C grades at GCSE. The Marxist correspondence theory
supports the feminist view of education as both views highlight the fact that
the education system is not meritocratic due to the influence of structural
inequalities on attainment. Overall, the feminist view of education
suggests that girls have always been more academically capable than
boys, but this was suppressed for many years, thanks to the influence of
patriarchal society.
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