Writing diary
Children’s perceptions about writing - survey
Examples of early writing development
Writing and inclusion
Raising boys’ achievements in writing
The Raising Boys’ Achievement project (2000–2004) was developed in response to government concerns about boys’ underachievement. The literacy aspect of the project focused on the gap between boys’ and girls’ scores on national tests at the end of primary schooling. Although the project was a government initiative designed to provide practical strategies to address boys’ underachievement, the research team tried to avoid suggesting any easy answers. The project aimed to provide a more nuanced and carefully researched analysis of factors which might support boys’ (and girls’) successful literacy development. It was important not to over-simplify issues in supporting and extending school-based research into how best to promote boys’ achievements in literacy.
There were two focuses:
- the everyday classroom observation that boys seem unmotivated and ‘switched off’ from literacy, particularly from writing
- boys’ underperformance in national tests (SATs) and the gap between boys’ and girls’ scores.
In a conference report about the research (Bearne, 2004) Eve Bearne, one of the project researchers, gave some background to the debate about boys’ underachievement:
Concerns about boys’ achievements in literacy in general, and in writing in particular, are not new. Whilst in the 1980s and early 90s the achievements of girls were the main focus, over the past ten years or so debates about gender and literacy in many industrialised countries have intensified and taken a ‘boy turn’ (Weaver Hightower, 2003). The gap between boys’ and girls’ achievements has given impetus to the rhetoric of ‘boys’ underachievement’ (Skelton, 2001). However, the concept has also been questioned on the grounds that panic over boys’ achievements often oversimplifies what is a complex area of educational debate. (Titus, 2004)
Boys’ underachievement has been described and analysed in terms of: personal factors, such as motivation, or lack of it (Ofsted 1993, 2003); the lack of strong male literacy models (Barrs and Pidgeon, 1993); teachers’ perceptions of behaviour (Myhill 2000); constructions of masculinity (Francis, 1998; Connell, 2000; Rowan et al., 2002); teaching approaches (Moss, 2000; Noble and Bradford, 2000); the content of the literacy curriculum (Marsh and Millard, 2000; UKLA/PNS, 2004) and class and ethnicity (Gillborn and Mirza, 2000; Arizpe, 2001). This array of perspectives indicates some of the problems of analysing boys’ underachievement in literacy judged largely on national test scores. One of the underlying premises of the project was an awareness of the unhelpfulness of making broad generalisations about factors which might influence boys’ achievements in literacy. Research about boys’ reading, (Moss 2000; Moss and McDonald, 2004; Smith, 2004) suggested the need to acknowledge that some boys do not present problems in their approaches to literacy. Similarly the Ofsted report of 2003 focused on schools where boys perform well in writing. (Bearne, 2004)
She goes on to consider diversity within the category ‘boys’:
However, the concept has also been questioned on the grounds that panic over boys’ achievements often oversimplifies what is a complex area of educational debate. (Titus, 2004)
A key question, previously underemphasised in practice-oriented literature, is: which boys? (Weaver Hightower, 2003). The project as a whole found differences in masculine cultures and attitudes across geographical regions and even between schools within local authorities. There were also individual differences to be taken into account: not all boys were underachieving; not all boys were unmotivated readers and writers. Further to that, even within the groups of boys who were described by their teachers as underachieving in literacy, there were noticeable differences in attitudes, aspirations and commitment.
Further, there were diverse attitudes and perceptions in the kinds of evidence which had been used as a basis for debate about boys’ performance in literacy. Some data was taken from national testing; some from teacher research or action research; some from observational data. However, not only is literacy itself a shifting concept, what counts as evidence can equally be differently understood. Scores on national reading and writing tests, for example, offer different kinds of evidence from teachers’ observations of the classroom processes of literacy and the behaviours which learners have to take on if they are to become confidently literate.
References
Arizpe, E. (2001) Responding to a ‘Conquistadora’: readers talk about gender in Mexican secondary schools, Gender and Education 13 (1) pp. 25–37.
Barrs, M. & Pidgeon, S. (eds) (1993) Reading the Difference: Gender and Reading in the Primary School London: Centre for Language in Primary Education/London Borough of Southwark.
Bearne, E. (2004) Raising Boys’ Achievements. Paper presented to BERA conference held at UMITST, Manchester.
Connell, R. W. (2000) The Men and the Boys. Cambridge: Polity.
Francis, B. (2000) Boys, girls and achievement: Addressing the classroom issues. London: Routledge/Falmer.
Gillborn, D. & Mirza, H.S. (2000) Educational Inequality: Mapping Race, Class and Gender (Ofsted). London: HMSO.
Marsh, J. & Millard, E. (2000) Literacy and Popular Culture. London: Paul Chapman Publishers.
Moss, G. (2000) Raising Boys’ Attainment in Literacy: some principles for intervention. Reading,34 (3) pp. 101–106.
Moss, G. and McDonald (2004) The borrowers: library records as unobtrusive measures of children’s reading preferences. Journal of Research in Reading, 27 (4) pp. 401–412.
Myhill, D. (2000) Gender and English: Are we wearing the right glasses? The Secondary English Magazine, 4 (5) pp. 25–27.
Noble, C. & Bradford, W. (2000) Getting it right for boys… and girls. London: Routledge.
Ofsted (2003) Yes he can: Schools where boys write well. London: Ofsted Publications.
Rowan, L., Knobel, M., Bigum, C., & Lankshear, C., (2002) Boys, Literacies and Schooling. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Skelton, C. (2001) Male primary teachers and perceptions of masculinity. Educational Review, 55, pp. 195–209.
Smith, S. (2004) The non-fiction reading habits of young successful boy readers: forming connections between masculinity and reading. Literacy, 38 (1) pp. 10–16.
Titus, J. J. (2004) Boy Trouble: Rhetorical framing of boys’ underachievement. Discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, 25 (2) pp. 145–169.
The United Kingdom Literacy Association supported by the Primary National Strategy (2004) Raising Boys’ Achievements in Writing. Leicester: United Kingdom Literacy Association.
Weaver-Hightower M.B. (2003) The ‘Boy Turn’ in Research on Gender and Education. Review of Educational Research, 73 (4) pp. 471–498.