Gender and Educational Engagement - Growing Up in Ireland

Gender and Educational
Engagement
Denise Frawley, Selina McCoy
and Maeve Thornton
www.growingup.ie

Overview
• Introduction to school engagement
• Gender and engagement
• What has GUI told us to date?
• New findings
• Overview of findings
• Next steps

Engagement
• Engagement is a difficult concept to define
• Broadly speaking it can be defined as:
o ‘the extent to which students identify with and value schooling
outcomes, have a sense of belonging at school, participate in
academic and non-academic activities, strive to meet the formal
requirements of schooling, and make a serious personal
investment in learning’ (Willms et al., 2009, p. 7)
• School engagement is argued to be a key element of
academic achievement, as well as lowering the risk of
negative behaviours like delinquency, aggression and
early school dropout (Fredricks et al., 2004; Hill and
Werner, 2006; Jimerson et al., 2003).

Engagement (2)
• Historically the focus on engagement has been about
improving academic and behavioural outcomes
• Gradual move towards a more holistic view of student
well-being and happiness
• Engagement has become an important outcome in its
own right
• Most agree it comprises of the following domains:
o Academic
o Behavioural
o Affective
o Cognitive

Types of engagement
Observable engagement
Less observable, self reported
Academic
Examples
include:
Behavioural
Examples
include:
Affective
Examples
include:
Cognitive
Examples
include:
How often a
student
receives
homework
Attendance
Student’s
feelings
Perception of
school’s
relevance
Time spent
on homework
Active
participation
in class
Sense of
belonging
Motivation
Academic
results
Participation
in extracurricular
activities
Connection
with school,
parents and
teachers
Expectations
and
aspirations
for the future
Source: Furlong & Christenson (2008)

Gender
• Biological versus cultural determinants of sex
differences - still a contentious issue
• Most agree that it is a mixture of both
• Social institutions and structures create and
perpetuate gender differences
• Can also create differences where none might exist
through biology
• Children come to construct their own ideas about
‘being a girl’ or ‘being a boy’

Gender & engagement
• Research shows that boys and girls engage with
school differently
• The ‘gender gap’ focus has mainly been on the
academic differences
• ‘Moral panic’ around the underachievement of
boys
o ‘Clever girls outstrip boys’ (The Times 7 March 2009)
o ‘Why do boys perform so much worse than girls in
exams?’ (Daily Telegraph 20 April 2008)

Gender & engagement
• Boys shown to hold more negative feelings
towards school than girls (Sirin & Sirin-Rogers,
2005)
• Why are boys more disengaged?
o One prominent theory is the presence of a
‘laddishness’ culture within schools - boys viewed as
‘problematic’, girls viewed as more ‘suited’ to school
(Mac Na Ghaill, 1994; Martino, 1999)
o But there are differences between boys and different
ways of ‘doing boy’

Gender & engagement
• The ‘other side of the gender gap’ – girls still
feel alienated (Warrington & Younger, 2000)
• Evidence that while girls are less disruptive,
they are more likely to experience anxiety,
stress etc. (Jones & Myhill, 2010)
• Much of the gender debate has focused on
academic measures of engagement, with
less attention given to other (more subtle,
less observable) forms

What is known from
GUI to date?
• The study provides a vital evidence base for
assessing the impact of children’s primary
school experiences on their long term
outcomes
• The results from GUI show important
differences in school engagement among
boys and girls, even at this relatively early
age

Academic engagement
• Boys are somewhat more likely to be in the lowest
reading quintile than girls (21% compared with 19%)
• Gender patterns also emerged for Maths –
significantly higher performance levels among boys
than girls (23%; 17%).
25
20
15
10
boys
girls
5
0
highest quintile maths
lowest quintile reading
(Source: Williams et al., 2009)

Academic (2)
• Homework completion
o Boys were less likely to complete their homework
than girls – 31% of boys came to school at least
occasionally without having their homework
completed compared with 25% of girls (Williams et
al., 2009)
• Reading for fun?
o Boys report lower incidence of reading for fun than
girls
o 25% of boys read for fun everyday compared to 36%
of girls
o 8% of boys never read for fun compared to 3% of girls

Academic (3)
• Teacher and parental expectations in maths
do not match actual performance
o Boys’ performance is overestimated while girls’
performance - particularly the highest performing
group - is underestimated (McCoy et al., forthcoming)

Probability of Being Rated
‘Excellent’ in Maths by Mother
.2
Predicted Probabilities
for mothexc
.15
.1
.05
0
-4 -2 0 2
Low Score Drumcondra maths test - logit score High Score
child gender
female
male

Probability of Being Rated
‘Excellent’ or ‘Above Average’ in
Maths by Teacher
1
Predicted Probabilities
for taexc
.8
.6
.4
.2
0
-4 -2 0 2
Low Test Score Drumcondra maths test - logit score High Test Score
child gender
female
male

Behavioural engagement
• Children’s behavioural engagement with school has
been measured through absenteeism & out-ofschool
activities
• Research has indicated a significant relationship
between school absenteeism and negative school
outcomes (e.g. Kearney, 2003)
• Moreover, children's involvement in structured
activities outside school has been found to
enhance educational performance (e.g. Broh, 2002)

Behavioural (2)
• ‘Emotional Behavioural Difficulties’ in boys
o Higher incidence among boys (Banks et al., 2011)
o BUT evidence of ‘over identification’ of EBD in boys (Banks et
al., 2012)
• Out-of-school activities
o Boys were more likely to engage in sports/computer games and
girls fell into the cultural activities group (solitary activities, e.g.
reading for pleasure and organised activities - after school
lessons or groups) and social networkers group (use computers
for social networking) (McCoy et al., 2012)

Affective engagement
• Affective engagement is an internal indicator that is
less observable than academic or behavioural
engagement
• Student self-report measures are the most valid and
reliable way to capture this type of engagement
• Measures used to reflect affective/cognitive aspects:
o Child liking school
o Child looking forward to school
o Child liking teacher
o Child liking subjects

Affective (2)
• Boys are two and a half times more likely to report
that they never like school and three times more
likely than girls to indicate that they never like their
teacher 18
16
14
16
12
10
8
9.8
9.1
boys
girls
6
5.9
4
2
3.7
3.1
0
Never like school Never look forward to school Never like teacher
(Source: McCoy et al., 2009)

Affective (3)
• In terms of school setting, it is not surprising to find
that children attending boys’ only schools are less
engaged than children attending other school
settings 100%
90%
80%
9.1 6.7 4.7
70%
60%
50%
70.1
67.1
60.2
Never like school
Sometimes like school
40%
Always like school
30%
20%
10%
20.8
26.2
35.1
0%
single-sex boys Co-educational Single-sex girls
(Source: McCoy et al., 2009)

Affective (4)
• Attitudes towards subjects
o In terms of attitudes towards subjects, girls are more
positive about English and Irish; boys are more
positive about maths
• These results raise concern over boys’ engagement
with, and enjoyment of, schooling, with a potentially
detrimental impact on their longer-term educational
development and performance
• What about other measures of affective
engagement?

Research Aims
• The vast majority of research studies focus on
academic achievement (often defined as
performance on standardised tests) but less is
known about the factors shaping student
engagement and motivation
• A range of outcomes should be considered
• Children and young people themselves emphasise
the affective (emotional) as much as the cognitive
(learning) domain in discussing their school
experiences (Alexander, 2008).
• Important to go further and look at child reported
self-concept

Data
• Models use the 3 school-related Piers-Harris II
Self-Concept subscales as outcome variables:
o Behavioural adjustment (e.g. I am well behaved in
school, I do my homework)
o Freedom from anxiety (e.g. I get worried when we
have tests in school, I am often afraid)
o Intellectual and school status (e.g. I am smart, In
school I am a dreamer)
• Independent variables include:
o Gender
o socioeconomic background
o performance quintiles
o presence of a SEN and school characteristics

Low behavioural
adjustment by gender
• Research has shown that children who consider themselves to
be poorly behaved can suffer from stigmatisation, peer
rejection and lower self-evaluation (e.g. Keogh and MacMillan)
• GUI shows that boys are more likely than girls to report very
low and low levels of behaviour
45
40
39.4
41.8
35
30
29.5
25
20
15
19.9
11.4
21.2
17.3
19.6
boys
girls
10
5
0
v. low/low low average average above average
Behaviour

Low freedom from anxiety
(high anxiety) by gender
• International research has shown that girls are more likely than
boys to display greater levels of anxiety about school work and
tests than boys (Locker & Cropley, 2004)
• GUI supports the international findings in that 18% of girls
report very low & low levels of freedom from anxiety compared
to 12 % of boys
45
41.1
40
35
35.1
36.3
30
28.5
25
20
15
18.4
11.6 12.1
16.8
boys
girls
10
5
0
v. low/low low average average above average
Freedom from anxiety

Low intellectual/school
status by gender
• Low intellectual & school status is a measure of
academic self-concept
• GUI data shows slight gender differences
45
40
35
39.2
40.6
30
25
25.7
26.4
20
15
17.3 17.8
14.7
18.3
boys
girls
10
5
0
v. low/low low average average above average
Intellectual & school status

Model 1: Family
characteristics
• Children from managerial backgrounds are less
likely to report low self-concept across 3 measures
• Newcomers (children whose parents were not born
in Ireland) are more likely to report higher anxiety
levels and lower academic self-concept

Low behavioural adjustment
Adding performance and gender
(taking account of family characteristics)
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
Quintile 1
Quintile 2
Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Quintile 1
Quintile 2
Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Multiple
Learning disability
EBD
No SEN
Male
Female
Maths Quintiles Reading Quintiles SEN Gender

Low freedom from anxiety
adding performance & gender
(taking account of family characteristics)
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
Quintile 1
Quintile 2
Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Quintile 1
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Multiple
Learning disability
EBD
No SEN
Male
Female
Maths Quintiles Reading Quintiles SEN Gender

Low intellectual & school status
adding performance and gender
(taking account of family characteristics)
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-1
Quintile 1
Quintile 2
Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Quintile 1
Quintile 2
Quintile 3
Quintile 4
Quintile 5
Multiple
Learning disability
EBD
No SEN
Male
Female
Maths Quintiles Reading Quintiles SEN Gender

School characteristics
Adding DEIS & gender mix
• Self-reported poor behaviour appears
greater in rural DEIS schools
• Self-reported anxiety is more prominent
in single-sex girls’ school

Discussion
• Findings show that boys and girls engage differently
• Modest academic differences by gender at 9-years
years of age
• Behaviourally boys seem more disengaged than
girls (e.g. Homework completion, reading for fun etc)
• Boys significantly more likely to never like school or
their teacher and look forward to school
• Looking at self-concept...
o Boys more likely to rate their behaviour as low
o Boys more likely to rate their academic self-concept as low
o Girls more likely to rate their freedom from anxiety as low

Discussion (2)
• Other dimensions cross-cut gender in influencing
engagement:
o Newcomer children
o SEN group
o Lowest achieving performers in maths and reading (high
achieving group protected to some extent)
o Single-sex girls’ schools re. anxiety
• It is argued that we need to move beyond the
academic debate and the assumption that all boys
are struggling and all girls are doing well
• Complex area - about more than gender, it is about
‘which’ boys and ‘which’ girls, and in what ways,
they are disengaged

Next steps...
• Need to look at the broader psycho-social outcomes
of children’s educational engagement and move the
focus beyond the academic ‘gender gap’
• GUI data on 13-year-olds will allow us to look further
at a broader range of outcomes and ask...
o Do boys and girls differ in terms of school engagement as they
move into the teenage years?
o How does earlier disengagement impact on later engagement
and other educational outcomes?
o What is the direction and causality of the relationships?
• It is only by looking at the data longitudinally that we
can see ‘which’ boys and ‘which’ girls are
disengaged and in what ways

Thank you
Any questions?