Towards a Better Future

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Chapter Seven: The School System: Equality, Inclusion and Rights racism. The challenges for the churches collectively, who own or manage so much of the education system, are that they must not only promote equality (and, indeed, the thorny question of admissions of children of other faiths and none) but must also face up to such roles as they play in the stratification of the school system and unequal outcomes at second level, in order to address inequality and disadvantage. GENDER In terms of educational inequality, gender is sometimes regarded as an unimportant differentiating variable. The reverse is actually the case. It is a variable, however, in which there have been important fluctuations in patterning over the past three decades. In Ireland and internationally, girls now generally outperform boys. In OECD countries, the average gender gap in reading performance is substantial. Boys are significantly more likely than girls to demonstrate a poor level of literacy performance. Boys tend to perform better on average in Mathematics than girls (OECD, 2010) whereas data on special educational needs show that boys outnumber girls by two to one (Dyson & Gallannaugh, 2008). From a position where girls achieved more poorly than boys in public examinations thirty years ago, girls now outperform boys in most areas (O’Connor, 2007). Pedagogical practices, which take account of pupils’ different learning styles, are an essential tool in addressing male (and indeed female) underachievement (OFSTED, 2003). The disadvantageous gender difference for boys is far from unique to Ireland. Unicef Office of Research (2016) points out that since the first PISA study in 2000, 15-year-old boys have consistently done worse than girls have in reading. The gaps in favour of girls are largest in reading: in 2012, girls outperformed boys in reading by a good margin (38 score points, or nearly one year of schooling) on average across OECD countries. In 37 of the 39 countries studied, boys were significantly more likely to be in the bottom decile of reading achievement than girls (ibid.). There is one area where boys out-perform girls and this is at the higher end of the distribution in Mathematics. Doris, O’Neill and Sweetman (2013) examined this gender gap in Maths scores at age nine in primary schools. Examining the reasons for this gender gap, they argue, is important because of the under-representation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers. While there was tentative evidence that boys performed better in single sex schools, there was no such evidence for girls. Thus, there was no evidence that the gender gap was smaller in single-sex than in coeducational schools – if anything it was larger. Other variables proved inconclusive in their effects. The question of single-sex versus co-educational schooling arises in debate on policy from time to time. Back in the 1980s, the DES funded the first study on this topic, conducted by the ESRI. This was Schooling and Sex Roles: Sex Differences in Subject Provision and Subject Choice in Irish Post-primary — 129 —
Towards a Better Future: A Review of the Irish School System Schools (Hannan et al., 1983). At the time, the proportion of single-sex schools at post-primary level was 41%. This was the highest proportion at a European level (indeed Ireland still has the highest proportion of single sex post-primary schools at 33%). Debates in the UK, quickly taken up by the Irish media, developed into a moral panic that further development of the co-education sector (i.e. mainly the community and comprehensive sector) would disadvantage girls. The key findings by Hannan et al. pointed to the fact that, before any valid comparisons could be made, factors such as the social class intake of the schools had to be part of the control variables. The research, along with a review of international findings, pointed to the conclusion that it was less a question of whether schools were organised along single sex or coeducational lines than of examining what was done within these schools. The key issues were school policy and practices rather than whether the schools were single sex or co-educational. Thus, this research provided no grounds for the halting of the expansion of the co-educational sector. A recent British birth cohort analysis of men and women born in 1958 showed that while the men and women in the study had different experiences of paid work and its remuneration at age 42, there was little evidence that having attended a single-sex secondary school had a direct impact on labour market success, or occupational segregation. The results suggested that the gendered nature of labour market (and “ What is sometimes forgotten is the impact of gender in the take-up of subjects. ” other) institutions is the dominant feature of adult experience rather than any legacy of single-sex schooling. The authors point to the irony that, while the argument against single-sex schooling is that single-sex environments are ‘unnatural’ for young people, gender-segregated environments are seen as quite normal in adult life (Sullivan et al., 2011). A review of the international literature (Smyth, 2015) points to the fact that gender differences in educational processes and outcomes are constructed and reconstructed in both single-sex and coeducational settings. Indeed, the way in which schools ‘manage’ gender may ultimately be much more important than the gender mix of students in the class or school (ibid.). In the most recent DES strategy, there is a welcome focus on the Arts (DES, 2015a). The Arts foster creativity and entrepreneurship. They are essential in transmitting and creating cultural values, but are also vital to the economy. What is sometimes forgotten is the impact of gender in the take-up of subjects. Boys are still in the majority in the take-up of honours Mathematics and are substantially so in Physics and Engineering, whereas girls are significantly over-represented in the take-up of Art and Music at Leaving Certificate. At Senior Cycle in Ireland, outside a number of core subjects, boys’ and girls’ subject choices at Senior Cycle break down on very traditional lines (O’Connor, 2007). These choices have important labour market implications. Increasing the uptake of STEM subjects has been a priority for some years, fuelled by a general awareness of the importance of the — 130 —
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Towards a Better Future

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