Socio Socioeconomic And Educational Achievement

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Socio – Economic Factors in Educational Achievement. Education provides an individual with the necessary skills to progress in life. But socioeconomic factors such as race, gender and ethnicity can influence the quality and the availability of education as well as the ability of education to improve life. Therefore it is important to have a clear understanding of what affects one’s educational attainment. With the introduction of the 1988 national curriculum by the Education Reform Act, the gap between gender and educational attainment at GCSEs level shows a gender gap in favour of girls. Powney (1996) cites a number of studies showing that the mode of assessment is a factor explaining the differential performance of boys and girls. They show that boys tend to be favoured by multiple choice questions and girls by essay and course work. This arises mainly because of the differences between boys and girls in language and literacy skills, which reflects upon English and other subjects which are literacy based. In reference to the statistics of the Department of Education (DFE), the gap between the percentage of girls and boys achieving 5 or more GCSEs grades A* to C or equivalent including English and Mathematics GCSEs is 9.5 percentage points with 63.6 % of girls achieving this indicator compared to 54.2% of boys. In 2007-2008 the gender gap widened by 1.4 percentage point with girls outperforming boys by 14% in English, 16% in Design and Technology, 9% in Modern Foreign Languages, 17% in Art and Design and 12 % in English Literature but by only 1% in Mathematics, 2% in Core Sciences, 1% in Chemistry and 2% in Classical Studies. However, when looking in more detail at the year on year trends, the gap initi... ... middle of paper ... ...ng. Beachside Comprehensive Cassen, C. and Kingdon, G. (2007) Tackling Low Educational Achievement. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation Powney, J. (1996) Gender and Attainment: a review, Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Research in Education. Warrington, M., Younger M. and Williams, J. 2000 Students Attitudes, Images and the Gender Gap, British Educational Research Journal. Bibliography: Browne Ken (1998) An introduction to sociology. Second edition. Polity Press, Cambridge. https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-education‎ (accessed 12th February 2014 at 4:45pm). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gcse-and-equivalent-attainment-by-pupil-characteristics-in-england (accessed 12th February at 1:30pm). http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/10/britains-divided-school-system-report (accessed 21st February 20014 at 6:31pm). .

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