Review of Strategies to Address Gender Inequalities in Scottish ...

vii. MentoringAt school level, there is some evidence that mentoring is effective in dealing with boys’underachievement. Mentoring comes in different forms, such as the use of peercounselling (Ryder, 1998), reading buddies (Noble, 1998) and subject-specific support(Penny, 1998). Sukhnandan et al (2000) found that schools adopted mentoring for arange of reasons. They targeted specific pupils, frequently underachieving boys, to tacklemotivation and confidence and to support pupils on the borderline in terms of predictedexamination results. Mentoring schemes resulted in a number of positive outcomes forboth boys and girls. However, there were constraints, most notably time and a lack ofsufficient numbers of trained mentors. In some schools this meant that participation waslimited and available largely to boys, thus excluding girls from what could be a valuablesource of support. Approaches that focused on the individual pupil and were supportedby coherent systems involving target setting and mentoring were found to be mosteffective in transforming and sustaining improvements in achievement.viii. School ethos and participation in developmentSchool culture and ethos is an important factor. In Scotland, the School Ethos Networkhas been active in promoting the development of whole school strategies to establish andenhance a positive ethos, strategies to promote positive behaviour and to create greaterpupil participation in the community life and decision-making processes of school.While a significant number of case studies have been reported (e.g. Munn, 1999; Murrayand Closs, 2000; Murray, 2002), limited attention has been given to gender.Arnold’s (1997) survey of English initiatives emphasises the need to involve pupils andtheir parents in both data gathering and discussing policy development. Parents were alsoseen as having an important role to play both in supporting boys’ learning and incontributing to public activities to raise the profile of gender.2.8 Vocational educationThere is a very limited literature on gender and vocational education within schooleducation. Early initiatives tended to focus on encouraging more girls to enter traditionalmale areas (e.g. Girls into Science and Technology, Women into Science andEngineering) and equal opportunities were a key aspect of the Technical and VocationalEducation Initiative (Howieson, 1990). The literature discussed children’s perceptions ofoccupational role and gender. The intention was to widen aspirations, particularly thoseof girls into what were regarded as traditionally male areas, but also to a lesser degreeopening the possibilities for boys for entry into caring occupations.Early studies identified gender-related patterns of post-school careers in the UK as wellas other countries such as Australia and the United States (Powers and Wojtkiewicz,2004). Evidence indicated that the limited nature of girls’ aspirations was a key problemand that low aspirations were linked to low educational attainment.A pattern of gender division in the take-up of occupations is evident in Scotland. TheEOC (1998) noted clear patterns of gender stereotyping in entry into different types oftraining schemes. A more recent Scottish study by Howieson (2003) revealed similarfindings. Gender differences were evident in the post-school experiences of early leavers,with male leavers achieving better outcomes despite having lower average attainment.The most comprehensive discussion of vocational education is a paper from the EqualOpportunities Commission (1999), ‘Gender issues in vocational education and trainingand workplace achievement of 14-18 year olds: an EOC perspective’. Though girls’attainment has risen, there still seems to be a gender pattern in relation to the choice ofoptions, entry into training and employment. They concluded that changes withinschools had made little impact on choices of career and post-school destinations, which______________________________________________________________________________________Review of Strategies to 14 University of StrathclydeAddress Gender Inequalitiesand University of Glasgow