A high aching girl (HAG – unfortunately)
A High achieving boy (HAB)
An underachieving girl (UAG)
An underachieving boy (UAB)
I: Interviewer
H: Teacher interviewee
The purpose of the interview was to explore how gender and underachievement are being constructed and how they are seen to relate to each other.
Year 4: Teacher K:
I:Tell me about the four focus children
HRight Keiron, an underachiever is where we’ll start, Keiron is fairly active in the classroom to say the least. He’s very good at everything orally but it, when, when it comes to writing things down he is not so good. He has poor concentration skills and we are actually wondering whether he's got any problems in the attention deficit syndrome area. But his oral ability outshines everything else that he does and therefore he’s an underachiever in my opinion. Jade has an under, an underprivileged background, she is the last of a long family with several different dads and mum doesn't really take much interest in what Jade is doing at school and is not terribly supportive of what goes on at home. Jade has not got much ability I don't think, but she's certainly achieving, not achieving the level that she could achieve if she had more support at home, and if she really thought that school was important in school, but I feel that she’s got the impression that it doesn't really matter, that she will be able to get on in life anyway and therefore school does not figure in her plan of things that seem very important. And it is a great shame that. And so she’s an underachiever. Then the people who are achieving well, we had James didn't we? James is achieving well, he’s got parents who really support everything he does in school, he is very keen and interested in everything that we do, he has an incredible facility with language and I have never had a child in my class who could write such fantastic stories with a very adult form of literature in many ways. They say that he reads very widely at home and obviously many of the phrases that he’s read have actually stuck in his mind and he uses them appropriately which I find quite remarkable. We have had some clever children in the past but this one is really outstanding, he also concentrates well most of the time and he, his number ability is equally as good as his maths so I think he’s achieving well, but maybe he could do even better, so that's James. And the girl, You had Emily r didn't you? Emily. Emily is a middle child of three, and she does have support at home in everything she does, but the family are going through various trauma’s which makes life difficult for her. She’s very enthusiastic about all of her school work. She herself will follow up things and bring in extra things to school, she concentrates very well, um she’s a good all-rounder basically and.... Because she’s interested and she realises that school is important.
I:Do you think are there typical boys and typical girls?
HWell I think when boys first come to school, they normally find it extremely hard to do the sitting down sort of activities that are often required in the reception room. They’d much sooner be using their bodies physically, moving around, playing with large apparatus, doing those things which they seem to enjoy which in my opinion are all physical things. They're not nearly so keen on sitting and looking at books.
I:Go on
HAnd therefore I think that Keiron is fairly typical and James is not very typical of the new entries in school. But we never saw James when he was in reception class because he transferred to this school. Keiron we have had all the way through. And it seems to me that it's very much a matter of how long it takes the boys to actually become interested in the sort of things that we want to give them in school. And it's all very well saying make your, change your reception class and make it more geared to boys, but in actual fact the girls are really quite ready to sit down and to learn and to read and to have their sounds...
I Do you think underachievement is a gender issue or not
HYes I do think it has gender issues.
I:Right, so what would you say those issues were?
HThose gender issues are very much to do with boys and they like to be active and they don't really want to... Yeah, and you can't really read a book while you're going on a bike or you know or even look at the pictures and things, I think it's very much to do with it. But as I say we are, we are looking a bit closely at attention deficit syndrome as well.
I:Does that mean you would say the underachieving girl is different from the underachieving boy – or have I misunderstood what you are saying?
HWell you know... Another thing about all this is that all the children that we’ve had with attention deficit syndrome in the school have been boys. I mean that's quite interesting too, you know of that many girls rather a lot more boys are to get labelled in that way... And that again is to do with the sort of physical activity bit I think. We, I didn't answer your question did I? The underachieving girls...
I: is she any different from the underachieving boy?
Hit's a bit different isn't it? Girls you see tend to do well anyway don't they? / UAB – active
UAB – good orally
UAB – poor concentration
UAB – ADHD
UAB – good orally
Links UA with oral skills
UAG – family background
UAG – low ability
UAG- family background
UAG – school not important
HAB – family background
HAB – motivated
HAB – good language skills
Link between reading and writing
HAB – outstanding
HAB – good concentration
HAB – good all rounder
HAG – family background
HAG – motivated
HAG – good concentration
HAG – good all-rounder
HAG – school important
Boys can’t sit still
Boys as active
Boys can’t sit still
Reading is passive
UA boy as typical
HA boy as untypical
Boys are not ready for school
Girls are ready for school
Boys as active
Reading as passive
UAB – ADHD
Boys – ADHD
Boys as active
Research notes
Gender
Boys as active
Boys can’t sit still
Boys are not ready for schoolGirls are ready for school
Girls do well any way
Girls are more adaptable
Girls are neat and tidy
Boys need special teaching strategiesGirls don’t need strategies
Note: Tendency to dichotomise
Underachievement
Family background
Valuing school
Boys and ADHD
Concentration
Motivation
Good oral skills
High achievement and good language skills
Education
Reading as passive
Good readers become good writers
Note
The gender stereotypes persist even though the focus children don’t necessarily fit the stereotype.
The comments on the UA boy mirror comments about boys in general
Perhaps the comments about HAG mirror comments about girls in general (will this be true in other interviews?)